X is rolling out a revamped version of its Communities feature, which allows users to network around topics of interest, each with their own dedicated space and timeline. The company on Thursday announced a number of changes to Communities, including improved discovery tools, suggestions, search and sorting options, with other updates on the way.
The larger goal is to get X’s user base more connected with other people, where they can post about a specific topic and comment on others’ posts.
Communities are an important part of making X, formerly Twitter, a more valuable company in terms of the data it has to offer. Already, Elon Musk’s social platform has a relationship with his AI company xAI, and xAI’s Grok chatbot has access to real-time X data, or what used to be called tweets. But with X’s Communities, the company could create something just as valuable as the Twitter firehose. In an ideal world, Communities could grow to become a source of information that could rival Reddit, where data is now only available to those who pay, earning the millions. (Whether X Communities will ever reach Reddit scale, of course, is debatable. However, even with some increased use of the feature, xAI and Grok could benefit.)
With Thursday’s refresh, X users will now be able to discover posts from new Trending Communities directly from an Explore tab in the section. (Note that this is different from the Explore tab which shows what’s trending across X, accessible from the app’s main navigation.)
X will also start showing users suggestions for Communities on their timeline, which is another big push to help the feature gain more attention. In addition, it will be easier to discover Communities, as it will be possible to search by topic. After people sign up for Communities, they’ll be able to sort posts based on what’s trending in the Communities they belong to, the company explains in a post on her Communities account.
Later, Communities will also add community analytics for moderators, Community Spaces (X’s live audio product), and better moderation tools, the company says.
If X can get more users to join and post to Communities, it could increase the amount of data it could provide to Grok, which would benefit both X and xAI. The former already offers access to the Grok chatbot for paid subscribers, and xAI is getting wide distribution for Grok via X, too.
