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TWITTER’S OWNER ELON Musk and its new CEO said yesterday that the social media network would ditch its bird logo, be rebranded with the name X and move quickly into payments, banking and commerce.
Founded in 2006, Twitter takes its name from the sound of birds chattering, and it has used avian branding since its early days, when the company bought a stock symbol of a light blue bird for $15, according to the design website Creative Bloq.
Tweeting a picture of the company’s new logo, a white X on a black background, this morning, Twitter chief executive Linda Yaccarino said “X is here! Let’s do this.”
Musk changed his profile picture to the company’s new logo this morning, which he described as “minimalist art deco,” and changed his Twitter bio to “X.com,” which now redirects to twitter.com.
Musk had earlier tweeted that “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make (it) go live worldwide tomorrow.”
Musk also tweeted that under the site’s new identity, a post would be called “an X.”
The changes were not visible on the website as of this morning.
Musk had already named Twitter’s parent company the X Corporation, and previously said his takeover of the social media giant was “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app” – a reference to the X.com company he founded in 1999, a later version of which went on to become payments giant PayPal.
Such an app could still function as a social media platform, and also include messaging and mobile payments.
“Powered by AI, X will connect us in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” Yaccarino tweeted earlier on Sunday.
X is here! Let’s do this. pic.twitter.com/1VqEPlLchj
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayacc) July 24, 2023
Yaccarino, an advertising sales executive at NBCUniversal who Musk poached last month to become Twitter’s CEO, said the social media platform was on the cusp of broadening its scope.
“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities,” Yaccarino tweeted.
Since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion (€39.5 billion) last October, the platform’s advertising business has partially collapsed as marketers soured on mass firings at the company that gutted content moderation – as well as on Musk’s management style.
In response, the billionaire SpaceX boss has moved toward introducing payments and commerce through the platform in a search for new revenue.
Twitter is thought to have around 200 million daily active users, but it has suffered repeated technical failures since the 52-year-old Tesla founder bought the app and sacked much of its staff.
Since then, many users and advertisers alike have responded adversely to the social media site’s new charges for previously free services, its changes to content moderation and the return of previously banned right-wing accounts.
Musk said this month that Twitter had lost roughly half of its advertising revenue since he took control in October.
Facebook parent Meta also this month launched its own text-based platform, called Threads, which has up to 150 million users, according to some estimates.
But the amount of time users spend on the rival app has plummeted in the weeks since its launch, according to data from market analysis firm Sensor Tower.
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The new logo should be a cartoon of Elon Musk leaning over and talking through his hole… That’s what he spends most of his time doing anyway.
Awesome to see, this will trigger lots of lefties
@Tom Murphy: yes cos people who take the toxic cesspit of bile, hatred and general nastiness known as twitter seriously, will care if the symbol changes
@Tom Newell: cry harder lefty
X…..for soon to be extinct hopefully. How anyone uses or likes being on that social media site is beyond me. Its like the main reasons why aliens will never visit the planet cos the left and right, up and down, backwards and forwards all come together and partake in the worlds largest IQ drain. Give me bebo or myspace any day lads
Musk is a føøl. Lucked into wealth and continues to fail upwards.
Coincidentally this is open for comment, yet the Greta article isn’t.
The journal stealing everyones childhood as usual. How dare they.
@Zim Zimma: @Zim Zimma: the Greta article is closed because there’s a court case involved. Nothing to do with her or Musk’s political leanings.
@Alex Marquis: Zim doesn’t know what ‘coincidentally’ means. They’re probably not gonna understand your comment.
Who cares….
Loads of Guardian readers apparently, because they were told to.
From a marketing point of view this is a very strange move but I suppose its in keeping with Musk’s erratic management of twitter . The twitter icon is truly iconic and is in the footer of nearly all websites on the internet. To throw away that powerful brand whim and overnight for a very generic X seems very rash. Changing a brand may seem inconsequential but it actually has a real effect on who people interact with a company and that’s why most companies spend a lot of money, time on a rebranding strategy.
Didn’t anyone tell musk that ‘X’ means kiss
Thats gonna be awkward..
@Shiv: it also means delete and wrong
Soon to be X-tinct I hope.
X will not stop Trolls, Racists and Bullies.
This man is an actual mor0n
He paid 44 billion for something he couldn’t sell for a fraction of that. His ego, gall and neck would get him elected to the Doll 100%.
@The Irish love this shy….: ‘Doll’. Hhhhmmmm.
@James Carroll: Our Dáil as we know it is gone decades. Unless you’ve a better name for a shower of authentic plastic paddies?
Meh, Twitter is dying anyway, I use it. Primarily for ua war updates which no other platform can do. Soon as threads or the alternative is proper function and moderated I like many others will port across.
Twitter is a cesspit. Like having to walk through sheriff street to get to someplace nice.
Member Prince did that..
Titter with a pic of musk
Looks like a sign for “no planks”.
@Joe Philips: Just the one Joe. Don’t know why you get so upset about me not replying directly to your comments. It’s not a card I’m playing, the reply box just freezes when I try to and I’m not not the only one who has that issue as I’ve seen others commenting the same thing. Right a strongly worded email to the journal complaining if it annoys you so much.
@Zim Zimma: Great ‘right’ing Zim. Riveting stuff.
@Joe Philips: Joe the pathological liar haven’t seen you for a while, welcone back sweetheart.
@Zim Zimma: Ahh the old “i don’t know how to reply to comments” calling card. How many accounts do you have now?
Seeing him on the red carpet with his actress wife is an eye opener. He was unknown, so one wanting to talk to him, he looked odd and out of place.
Questioned his ability when he paid 33 billion for Twitter.
Questioning his ability now even more.
@UCD Trinity: To be fair I think his ability is unrivalled, PayPal, Space X, Tesla and Twitter. You can’t say it’s luck because luck doesn’t run corporations, you just have to be bitter to question this man’s ability. Truth hurts
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