The popular Chinese-owned video streaming app TikTok today announced that it will introduce a text-only feature, now competing with Elon Musk’s newly named X and Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads.

TikTok said it’s currently “expanding the boundaries of content creation,” which in short means providing a feature that will look a lot like the service that used to be called Twitter. Meanwhile Musk today explained that he’s not just rebranding but changing the very essence of the company. Twitter, like Facebook, is embracing the meta approach to business.

In a tweet, Musk said X will become an “everything app.” The name Twitter makes no sense, he added, saying that it was related to short texts that are sent down the platform. “In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world,” he said. “The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird.”

As Twitter tries to become the everything app, TikTok becomes Twitter, while Meta-owned Instagram also becomes Twitter through its fairly new Threads app. Threads has reportedly seen a huge drop in user numbers just recently after a promising start to its existence. It’s not the only company struggling to outdo Twitter in a battle that has become rather political. But it’s quite uncertain many of these companies will succeed in becoming everything apps.

Gone are the days when social media companies put their eggs in one basket and made that basket a very hard place to ignore or to leave. TikTok just launched a music streaming service to contend with the likes of Apple Music and Spotify. The service launched last month in Brazil and Indonesia and will expand to Mexico, Singapore, and Australia soon. After YouTube, TikTok has become the second-most used app where people aged between 16 and 19 find their music, so perhaps it’s not surprising TikTok has made the move into tunes more directly.

Today it was also reported that TikTok will soon launch an e-commerce side to its business, selling goods made in China to people in its biggest market: the U.S. The Wall Street Journal today explained in detail what this “Amazon-like marketplace” will look like.

It’s becoming quite dizzying trying to keep up with the changes social media companies are making. One might ask if they’re jumping the shark and perhaps should stick to what they know best.

That’s obviously out of the question, so maybe the new company tagline for all these companies should be “Jack of all trades, master of none.” Some companies, such as YouTube, have tried to branch out in the past only to realize that some users don’t take to having everything on the same app.

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