Musk’s Twitter Rebrands to X as the Little Blue Bird Flies Away
Overnight, Musk made trouble again: Twitter changed its name to X, and the little blue bird turned into a black and white cross.
The last time, when the logo change caused a carnival across the Internet, it was when Zuckerberg, who was deeply involved in the “Cambridge Gate” crisis, announced that Facebook changed its name to Meta and the company logo changed from a thumb to an infinity symbol. Similarly, Musk did almost the same thing today – he announced the replacement of Twitter’s iconic little blue bird logo, and officially called Twitter “X” .
At present, its official logo on the Twitter homepage has been officially changed to an X symbol, and the x.com domain name that Musk bought many years ago is now directly directed to twitter.com. Musk said that in the future, the tweets sent by everyone will no longer be called Tweets, but will be called X’s.
Today, Twitter’s original sign outside its San Francisco office headquarters is being torn down.
Similar to Zuckerberg’s desire to enter the metaverse, Musk’s “ambition” lies behind the reshaping of Twitter. As we all know, Musk has always been obsessed with the “universal application”, and the change of Twitter’s name this time seems to be a signal that he has officially started to act.
However, with the lessons learned from Meta, everyone seems to be unimpressed with this grand vision this time. It is generally believed that this is just another large-scale marketing by Musk. Everyone seems to be more concerned about whether Twitter, which has carried everyone’s social media memories for more than ten years, will really be completely destroyed by Musk this time and come to an end.
After all, the metaverse has not been completed, and social platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are still there. But X can’t be realized, and Twitter may never fly back.
Abandoning the “little blue bird”, Twitter officially transformed into X
Musk seems to be on top of his “Empire X” plans lately. Just after announcing the establishment of xAI not long ago, he sent more than ten tweets to build momentum for “X” on Sunday.
He first initiated a vote on whether to change the default color of the Twitter platform to black, and then publicly solicited new Twitter logos from netizens. More than an hour later, Musk selected and reposted the design proposal given by a netizen named Sawyer Merritt, and then changed his and Twitter’s official avatars.
Musk made it clear that starting from changing the logo, the company will bid farewell to the Twitter brand, and gradually bid farewell to everything related to birds.
Last night, Twitter’s headquarters building in San Francisco was the first to be printed with a big X symbol.
However, Musk said that the current Logo is a temporary logo, so we may see changes to the logo in the future.
After Musk announced that Twitter would be “redesigned”, Linda Yaccarino, the real CEO of Twitter, who has a very weak sense of existence after taking office, also issued a series of articles, explaining in more detail Twitter’s next grand development plan. Simply put, Twitter is moving in the direction of the so-called “universal application”.
Linda said that the future of X is to create a future form of unlimited interaction, centered on audio, video, messaging, payment/banking, to create a global market full of ideas, goods, services and opportunities. At the same time, with the support of artificial intelligence, X will connect everyone in imaginative ways.
The voice of questioning was “overwhelming”, and netizens called Musk to stop playing
However, some well-known entrepreneurs and investors laughed out loud after seeing Linda’s passionate description of X brand.
Lyft co-founder and investor Rajat Suri retweeted Linda and commented that startup founders in YC would be laughed at if they described their companies that way.
Immediately afterwards, Paul Graham, the co-founder of YC and known as the “Godfather of Silicon Valley Entrepreneurship”, also sarcastically echoed: “If they are still in college, we will let them take a break.”
In addition to industry leaders, most of the netizens did not buy into the grand vision of X, calling Musk to let Twitter go, all they want is a normal platform that allows them to socialize.
Some people even shouted to Linda, saying that if you are kidnapped, you should blink, otherwise you can see for yourself what you are talking about now.
Some people also strongly suspect that Linda’s long description of X was generated by AI. The key words are “give me a bunch of meaningless buzzwords and pretend that what we are doing is very high-level.”
Some media people also stood up and commented sharply. Now, let’s take a look at which of Zuckerberg’s and Musk’s rebranding plans is worse.
Of course, there are also many people who care about Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s views on this matter. Some people ran to Jack Dorsey’s account and shouted, go and take care of it, Musk is slaughtering your “children”. Some people asked him if he could buy Twitter back from Musk, and everyone could raise funds to contribute.
But compared to the netizens who are running around, Jack Dorsey is relatively calm. He retweeted the little blue bird logo designer who recalled the design changes of Twitter’s logo in the 17 years since its establishment, and also expressed his opinion that rebranding may not be “necessary”.
But at the same time, he also said that changing the name may be a viable path forward, but the ultimate measure of the success of the platform is the utility of the platform, not its name.
Behind the rebranding,
There’s a whole lot more to Twitter’s mess
Everyone is generally not optimistic about the Twitter rebranding plan, and it is not unfounded.
First of all, a facelift can’t hide the huge operating dilemma Twitter is currently facing. Twitter’s revenue and advertisers have been in steady decline since Musk took over in October and continued into this month.
In the middle of this month, Musk personally posted a blog to reveal that Twitter’s advertising revenue has dropped by about 50%. Coupled with the heavy debt burden, Twitter’s current overall cash flow is still negative. He said at the time that Twitter needed to be cash flow positive before anything else.
In addition to the sharp decline in business, Musk’s previous “violent governance” of Twitter has also left a lot of sequelae. In recent months, lawsuits from former Twitter employees, landlords, and suppliers have come one after another.
Earlier this month, executives including former Twitter CEO Prarag Agrawal and former CFO Ned Siegel jointly filed a court document claiming that Twitter owed them more than $1.6 million in legal fees. Some former employees have also filed lawsuits, alleging that Twitter refused to honor their previous stock payment promises after they were fired. According to statistics from lawyers, Twitter currently owes tens of millions of dollars in wages to its employees.
In addition, Twitter has also been exposed to various negative news such as refusing to pay Google Cloud bills, being evicted or sued by offices around the country due to rent arrears. Musk told employees in March that Twitter’s valuation had fallen to less than half of the $44 billion it was bought for last year.
Aside from Twitter’s own problems, from a vision perspective, Twitter’s development towards the “universal application” X seems to be even more unreliable compared to Facebook’s “favorite” metaverse and crazy losses after changing its name to Meta.
For Facebook, changing the name may be an inevitable choice for the company’s future business development, because with the development of more than ten years, the term Facebook obviously can no longer refer to all its social products. However, Twitter’s name change and logo change are entirely derived from Musk’s personal preferences, and have almost nothing to do with the company’s original business.
In addition, from the perspective of development foundation, when Zuckerberg announced his entry into the Metaverse, he already had the Quest VR series of best-selling products, and he has also invested in research and development in the field of virtual social networking for many years. But what about the “universal app” that Twitter wants to do?
According to Linda, what Company X wants to do in the future includes but is not limited to audio and video social networking, real-time communication, online payment, etc., but you must know that there are currently some monopolistic applications in the market in each of these fields. Except for social messaging, Twitter does not have an advantage in any other fields, and many things almost have to be done from scratch . However, given Twitter’s current financial situation, unless Musk pays for it himself or fudges financing, it will be very difficult to establish and even start Company X’s business.
But in any case, Musk seems to have made up his mind, and the reform of Twitter has already begun. According to the latest report, in addition to removing the original logo, Musk has told employees that today will be the last day to use Twitter as a mailbox suffix. At the same time, within the Twitter office, Musk has begun to use words containing X to rename conference rooms, including “eXposure”, “eXult” and so on.
After rebranding, what changes can “X” bring to investors and users? Now everyone is unknown, and there is not even a formed concept. But from a marketing point of view, “X” has indeed once again deepened Musk’s personal label and brand building, and he is getting closer and closer to the title of “X Man”.
Of course, perhaps the happiest should be Zuckerberg. Musk’s chain of operations not only sent a large number of users to Meta, but now even the ridicule of Metaverse seems less harsh.
