Come here, Adnews will tell a story. Once upon a time there was a social network. His name was Twitter and his symbol was a little bird. Twitter became very popular for its ease, respect and democratization of information. Its users connected from anywhere in the world and chatted in harmony. If someone decided to spread hate speech on the platform, they were banned immediately.
Then came a very, very rich South African emerald mining heir with a fortune in the billions. This heir, known as Elon Musk, spent US$ 44 billion of his fortune (R$ 208 billion, at current prices) to buy Twitter, becoming the owner of the bird.
As a result, everything that was good on the platform was quickly destroyed, starting with moderation: anyone could write nonsense without any kind of punishment. Then there was advertising, which the billionaire says he hates, followed by the free verification stamp, which became paid. Not happy, the evil-heir billionaire decided to limit the amount of daily tweets for all users.
The story ends with the death of Twitter, announced this Sunday (23) by the billionaire in his… ahm… profile on (still) Twitter. Elon Musk decided to kill the bird for good and replace it with a boring and dull ‘X’. I don’t know about you, but we would really like it to be just a fable with a sad ending.
And now?
Despite still having the name ‘twitter’ in the domain, the social network already has a new logo. The white ‘X’ on a black background replaced the blue bird in the desktop, but has yet to appear on the mobile app. The symbol is also an official photo on the profile by Musk, who added “x.com” to his biography.
According to the owner of (now former) Twitter, the term “tweets” (pronounced “tweets”), which refers to publications on the social network and still appears on the site, will also be replaced by “x’s” (something like “écsses”).
Musk’s goal is to create a super app that matches his vision of a new kind of social media platform that he’s been talking about for months.
The billionaire has long had a fascination with the letter X, although no one really knows why. One of his first commercial ventures, in 1999, was an online banking platform known as X.com. Just three years later, Musk made $165 million when the platform, then merged with PayPal, was bought by eBay. He even owns the X.com domain, which will now redirect to Twitter.
Musk is also chief executive of SpaceX, the American commercial aerospace company founded in 2002, and recently launched its long-awaited startup of artificial intelligence, xAI, in an attempt to build an alternative to ChatGPT.
This Sunday, he made a series of posts on his profile communicating the news, with phrases like “And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds” (And soon we will say goodbye to the twitter brand and, little by little, to all the birds) and “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow(If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, it will go live worldwide tomorrow).
The publications were followed by one more, with the phrase “To embody the imperfections in us all that make us unique” (To incorporate all the imperfections in us that make us unique), which perhaps makes clear the intention of the new platform, and some images where the new logo appears. One of them shows the X projected on the side of Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco (USA).
To top it off, Musk changed the company’s name to ‘X Corp’ and declared that the replacement “should have been done a long time ago”.
Who also commented on the change was the new chief executive of Twitter, Linda Yaccarino. In her profile on the platform, she said the rebrand was an exciting new opportunity and revealed a few more details of what Musk appears to be cooking up.
“It is an exceptionally rare thing, in life or business, that you get a second chance to make another great impression. Twitter made a huge impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X goes further, transforming the global town square. X is the future state of limitless interactivity, centered on audio, video, messaging and payments, creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we are just beginning to imagine.”
Bye, Larry!
The Twitter bird is called Larry. The name would be a tribute to basketball star and legend of the Boston Celtics, Larry Bird, as declared by the co-founder of the social network, Biz Stone, in 2011. One of them is Martin Grasser, responsible for creating the figure in 2012.
People took to Twitter to mourn the loss of the logo, including Martin Grasser, who designed it in 2012.
All in one app only
For some people in Asia, super apps, including PayTM from India and GoJek from Indonesia, have been a vital part of everyday life in recent years. They allow users to pay for services through a financial system.
Another example is WeChat, a messaging and social media platform that has evolved into one of the largest apps in the region in terms of variety of services and number of users. Last year, there were an estimated 1.29 billion users in China alone.
For Drew Benvie, social media commentator and founder of digital agency Battenhall, Musk is aiming for the success of these apps.
“Musk is going full steam ahead into the everything app space, leaving the old Twitter in his wake and eyeing the success of Asian pioneers like WeChat and Moj. Success in just a few additional services like shopping or payments could be all that is needed to make X better than Twitter. But there are already so many alternatives, so Musk and company are playing a huge catch-up game,” he explains.
Brand express
Business commentator Justin Urquhart Stewart believes Twitter’s loyal (but aging) base may not like the changes.
“The younger generations have moved on to other apps, and Twitter seems a little old-fashioned. Elon Musk has to be careful as you are almost starting from scratch with an older audience while also undermining the original brand,” he says.
O rebranding Twitter’s very fast also caused some security concerns. Jake Moore, global cyber consultant for security company ESET, said that transitioning from one company name to another can encourage phishingwhen criminals impersonate people or organizations to steal user data.
“A new brand is the perfect opportunity to send emails of phishing asking users to do login via a new URL, from a link inside that email, but of course that address wouldn’t be genuine, and that’s where people could be tricked into handing over their Twitter credentials. Cybercriminals can easily take advantage of this,” Jack tells the BBC.
* With information from the BBC
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