X new user usage time doubles, cold start problem is expected to be solved

2026-01-20 00:46:12

Platform X Product Lead and Solana Advisor Nikita Bier recently announced that over the past six months, X has achieved significant results through continuous optimization of its new user interest matching mechanism. Data shows that the average daily usage time for new users increased from approximately 19 minutes in July 2025 to over 33 minutes in January 2026, an increase of about 74%. This improvement is seen as a key breakthrough in addressing X’s long-standing “account cold start” problem.

Significant Improvement in New User Retention

Specific data and trends

In the past six months, X’s investment in the new user experience has produced obvious effects. The following table shows the change trajectory of user usage time:

Time Period	Average Daily Usage Time for New Users	Change
July 2025	About 19 minutes	Baseline
January 2026	Over 33 minutes	+74%

This growth is highly significant for social platforms. The first 30 days of experience are crucial for new users to move from cold start to forming usage habits. The substantial increase in usage time indicates that X has successfully helped new users find content and communities they are interested in more quickly.

Core Focus of the Optimization

Nikita Bier pointed out that the key to the improvement lies in two aspects:

Helping users access their interest areas more quickly, rather than being overwhelmed by mainstream political news timelines
Building a more precise content recommendation mechanism, allowing new users to obtain high-quality personalized experiences early on

This approach is very clear. The long-standing problem for X has been that new users are easily dominated by popular political topics, making it difficult to discover content they truly care about. The optimized interest matching mechanism helps users quickly establish personalized content streams, greatly reducing the difficulty of account cold start.

Deep Strategic Considerations

Addressing Core Challenges of Social Platforms

The cold start problem for accounts is a challenge faced by all social platforms. The experience of new users in the first few days after registration determines whether they will become active users. X’s improvement directly targets this pain point, using algorithmic optimization to help users find value faster, thereby increasing retention and activity.

According to the latest news, X has also made adjustments to its creator revenue sharing rules, now only counting impressions from the homepage timeline and no longer including revenue from reply posts. This rule change works in tandem with the new user optimization—by guiding users to focus on high-quality main timeline content, it can both improve the new user experience and optimize creator incentives.

Key Breakthrough for Growth

Nikita Bier explicitly stated that this improvement is a “key breakthrough” for platform growth. This means X regards new user retention as the most important growth lever at present. If this optimization continues to produce results, the increase in new user retention rates will directly translate into growth in DAU (Daily Active Users), thereby impacting the overall activity of the ecosystem.

Personal Insights

From a product strategy perspective, X’s recent optimization reflects an important shift—from competing for user attention to enhancing long-term user value. In an era of information explosion, simple content pushing is no longer enough; users need mechanisms that help them quickly find content they are genuinely interested in. X’s interest matching optimization is a practical implementation of this direction.

Summary

By optimizing the new user interest matching mechanism, X has increased the average daily usage time for new users by 74% within six months, which is a noteworthy achievement. This improvement directly addresses the core challenge of social platforms—the account cold start—and is expected to become a key driver of X’s user growth. Coupled with adjustments to creator revenue sharing rules, X is working toward building a healthier content ecosystem that can both improve user experience and incentivize creators. It will be interesting to observe whether this optimization can sustain its effects over a longer period and how much it will impact X’s overall user growth metrics.

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