Update: Seemingly confirming the below speculation regarding her three social media clues, an advertisement confirming a Taylor Swift live stream emerged on the Yahoo! website Thursday.
Quickly taken down, the promotion said that Swift would participate in a live Q&A at 4PM ET on August 18. The session, which will presumably feature the premiere of her new single, would be conducted from a “top secret location.”
At press time, it is unclear how the “5:00” portion of Swift’s second clue figures into the prematurely advertised live stream. The going guess is that Swift will start answering fan questions at 4PM but wait until 5PM to debut the new single.
==========
For the past several days, the assumption has been that Taylor Swift’s recent social media “clues” collectively represented the announcement that she was releasing a new single.
Based on the new, third clue, it appears they might actually be related to the mechanism through which Swift will premiere that new single.
Posted Thursday afternoon, Swift’s new clue is a screenshot of the Yahoo! website. Unless the name of her new single is “Yahoo,” it now seems unlikely she is simply teasing the existence of a new single.
Swift is more likely hinting at a Yahoo! live stream event planned for 5:00PM (clue two) on August 18 (clue 1). During that event, she will presumably premiere the first single (one elevator press, clue one) from her fifth album (five elevator presses, clue 1).
Official confirmation of that new album–and its name–would also be expected for the agenda of such an event.
The strategy would not be a new one for Swift. Two years ago, the singer-songwriter premiered her lead “Red” single “We are Never Ever Getting Back Together” during an event streamed on YouTube and Google Plus.
