Twitter’s billionaire owner, Elon Musk, has stated that he plans to make additional modifications to the website. One of the anticipated changes entails changing the company’s iconic blue bird emblem to “X.”
In a significant development, X.com has been redirected to Twitter.com, driven by a noteworthy tweet from Musk. According to him, a temporary “X” design will replace Twitter’s recognizable blue bird emblem, which has served as the platform’s symbol for over 10 years.
The billionaire enthusiastically engaged his supporters, building significant expectations for this game-changing decision.
Musk began tweeting about the makeover to X after midnight ET yesterday. Musk frequently uses the one-letter word X in the titles of his companies and products.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023
Twitter Rebrand To Save Ad Revenues?
He suggested saying goodbye to the Twitter brand and its bird motif and suggested that a successful X logo may result in a “worldwide launch tomorrow.”
The modification resulted from Musk’s recent admission that advertising revenue is still just about half what it previously was. It’s unknown how long the revenue decline lasted, but he said that Twitter’s cash flow has been negative because of that and its high debt load.
Since his purchase of the social platform last year, the alterations represent the latest and possibly most substantial ones when taken collectively. The platform, which Musk has long envisioned as a “super app” that will provide various services from online banking to video messaging, may enter a new age.
The Shiba Inu dog from Dogecoin temporarily replaced Twitter’s iconic blue bird logo in April, which contributed to a rise in the cryptocurrency’s market value.
Musk’s announcement at the beginning of the month that the social network would limit the number of tweets that different accounts can access per day drew widespread criticism from users and marketing experts.
What’s With The Letter X?
Though he hasn’t offered any justification, the Tesla CEO is known for naming everything with the letter X.
The letter X appears in the names of his business SpaceX, electric vehicle Model X, and even one of his children, X AE A-XII.
Musk founded his own AI firm, xAI, earlier this month to compete with OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT. He stressed that the artificial intelligence entity would function separately from his other companies; nonetheless, he acknowledged that Twitter and others would benefit from xAI’s discoveries.
Meanwhile, few Crypto Twitter users have shown enthusiasm for the suggested adjustments. According to a March Hypebeast analysis, the social network has been a bastion for the cryptocurrency community, with over 1 billion tweets about cryptocurrency between 2020 and 2022.
Dan Held, the marketing director at Trust Machines, called Twitter “iconic” and added that Musk’s decision to rename as X was “insane.”
For Mike Proulx, research director at the research and consultancy firm Forrester, the decision will further alienate the brand’s pioneering and formerly highly devoted fan base.
Jennifer Grygiel, a social media specialist, is dubious that Musk can build an innovative Twitter as the rebranding suggests because she doesn’t think “he has enough trust from his user base” to persuade people to exchange money or “attach any type of financial institution to his app.”
Naturally, other individuals began making memes and cracking jokes about the situation:
Prof. Charles Xavier is filing a lawsuit against Elon Musk amidst Twitter’s rebranding to ‘X’.
“That’s MY bar. He’s copying my whole fucking flow. Word for word, bar for bar.” pic.twitter.com/QymLoIi6L3
— ً (@HailEternal) July 23, 2023
videos on twitter will now be called x videos
— ??????? (@amanda_cherrie) July 23, 2023
Me checking if i have enough money to buy twitter pic.twitter.com/qPzCP2zx3f
— PINCHE TACO LOK0
(@Nand076) July 23, 2023
Featured image/illustration by Kristen Radtke/The Verge
