Following a tweet from Twitter owner Elon Musk on July 24th, 2023, X.com now redirects to Twitter.com, and an “interim X logo” has replaced the Twitter bird logo. Musk spent a lot of time tweeting about the change in the days leading up to it. However, the question on everyone’s lips is, “Why did Twitter rebrand?”
Well, if you hang on to your device a little longer, you’ll find out as we’ll cover all you should know about the story leading to why Elon Musk decided to rebrand Twitter.
Overview
The iconic blue bird atop the social media platform Twitter disappeared on Sunday, July 23rd 2023, as part of a company rebranding as X.
The redesign is the latest step taken by billionaire owner Elon Musk, who stepped down as CEO last month but retained a significant role in the company.
X aims to follow the logo change with an ambitious foray into online banking and video messaging, among other areas, CEO Linda Yaccarino said, promising an AI-fueled expansion of the site’s capabilities.
“It’s an exceptionally rare thing — in life or in business — that you get a second chance to make another big impression,” Yaccarino, who previously worked as an advertising executive at NBCUniversal, tweeted.
“Twitter made a huge impression and changed the way we communicated,” she continued. “Now, X will go one step further, transforming the global town square.”
Here’s what you need to know about X, how it differs from Twitter, and Musk’s role in the rebranding.
What Has Changed About X?
For the time being, X is simply a rebranded Twitter, but the company revealed plans on Sunday to provide users with a one-stop shop for many of their online needs.
The ambition was first made public last year. Musk tweeted days after acquiring Twitter in October,
“Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”
Musk took a step closer earlier this month when he launched xAI, a company dedicated to developing generative AI programs that compete with established offerings like ChatGPT.
Yaccarino, who described X’s goal as “unlimited interactivity,” said the company intends to become a hub of online messaging and commerce.
“Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re only just beginning to imagine,” Yaccarino explained.
According to analysts, the best example of Musk’s “everything app” is WeChat, a highly popular app in China that serves not only as a messaging and media-sharing platform but also as a versatile tool in which users pay friends, purchase products and book reservations, among other uses.
Why Did Twitter Change Its Name to X?
The rebranding comes at a time of transition and self-admitted financial difficulty for the company.
Yaccarino took over as CEO last month, establishing her as a visible leader alongside Musk, who remains executive chairman and chief technology officer. Musk is also the CEO of Space X.
Meanwhile, the company has lost half of its advertising revenue and has a negative cash flow, which means that more money is being spent on expenses than revenue, Musk tweeted earlier in July.
Prior to Musk’s acquisition, Twitter generated the vast majority of its revenue through advertising, but many large corporations have pulled their ads from the platform in response to what some have described as an increase in explicit and hateful content.
Furthermore, X is facing a new threat from the ascendant social media platform Threads, which is owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta. Threads reached 100 million users in five days, breaking the record for the fastest app ever.
In comparison, Twitter had 238 million users before Musk took the company private in October, according to an earnings report released last year.
What Was Musk’s Role in the Rebranding?
Musk’s fascination with the letter “X” dates back more than two decades.
Musk founded X.com, an online payments and banking company that later merged with PayPal in 1999.
Musk repurchased the domain name “X.com” in 2017. The domain now redirects visitors to Twitter.
“Not sure what subtle clues gave it away, but I like the letter X,” Musk tweeted a few hours before the changes were made on twitter.com, alongside a photo of himself crossing his arms to form the letter.
“And soon, we’ll say goodbye to the Twitter brand and, eventually, all the birds,” he added.
But Why Are You Changing Twitter to X Now?
One possibility is that Musk wants to reclaim headlines and divert attention away from how Twitter compares to Meta’s Threads, which debuted as a direct competitor to Twitter earlier this month.
While Threads is marketed as a “text-based conversation app,” X aspires to be much more. “There is no limit to this transformation. “X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything,” wrote Yaccarino.
Of course, not everyone thinks that dumping Twitter’s 17-year brand equity is a great idea.
“The dumbest rebranding in recent history was HBO to Max.” “Elon: Hold my beer and/or whatever is being consumed at 3 a.m.,” tech journalist Kara Swisher snarked about the X pivot on Twitter.
“I’m still gonna call it Twitter,” YouTuber Marques Brownlee said on Sunday. Musk responded, “Not for long.”
Conclusion
Finally, rebranding the site will be the clearest statement yet that this is not the same social network that existed before Musk bought it last year. But it’s far from the only change in Twitter’s Musk era.
Recently, Twitter announced that it would limit the number of direct messages (DMs) sent to non-paying users, a LinkedIn-like hiring feature was added to Verified Organizations, and
Musk stated that the site would soon allow users to post “very long, complex articles” to the site. The article feature appears to be called Articles, but it was apparently called Notes at one point, the name for Substack’s Twitter clone, the debut of which, you may recall, was a little dramatic.
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