X has introduced video and audio conferencing features as part of CEO Elon Musk's ambitions to transform the platform into an "everything" app.
Video and audio calling, initially announced in August, is now available for iOS X users and will be available for Android users soon. Only "Premium" X subscribers can make calls (at least for now), with subscriptions costing $8 a month or $84 a year. However, all accounts are able to receive calls.
Users can control who calls them via Direct Messages Settings. By default, users can receive calls from accounts they follow or have in their address book, assuming they've previously given X access to their address book. To be able to call another user, they must have sent that user a Direct Message at least once previously. Users can choose to disable calls, as a way to protect themselves from spam or abuse.
X, formerly known as Twitter, is aiming to recover lost customers with new features and an "everything in one place" brand of service, with the Washington Post last week reporting a 30 percent decline in active X users and the news watchdog group Media Matters for America saying earlier this month that the business had lost half of its top advertisers since Musk acquired X this time last year.
What Does This Mean for the UC and Collaboration Market?
In a year in which WhatsApp and Apple have also made inroads into the enterprise communications and collaboration space, X's progression into the market is intriguing.
Each company's position (and ambition) is markedly different — WhatsApp and Apple are generally looking to broaden their horizons and capitalise on their consumer communications market share through introducing enterprise-targeting capabilities to established and widely circulated products, while X is trying new strategies to address declining advertiser and active user numbers.
