CNN
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Within the early hours of July 23, 2023, Twitter — the self-proclaimed digital city sq. — became X. Or did it?
Although it’s been greater than half a yr for the reason that divisive rebrand, the platform’s internet area continues to be twitter.com — even x.com redirects to the original link. In billing reminders to X Premium subscribers, as considered by CNN, the e-mail states: “Your X (previously Twitter) subscription will renew quickly.”
Plainly, despite the fact that the emblem was switched out and verbiage on the web site modified, the platform nonetheless can’t fairly “bid adieu to the twitter model,” as its new proprietor, billionaire Elon Musk, mentioned in a tweet the day of the rebrand.
Whereas some folks (primarily followers of Musk) have embraced the X model, most haven’t.
Many individuals, both online and in individual, nonetheless name the platform Twitter, and consult with posts as tweets.
A handful of reports retailers nonetheless describe it as “X, the platform previously often called Twitter,” or some variation thereof.
Final month, when X CEO Linda Yaccarino spoke at a US Senate hearing about social media’s failure to curb little one exploitation, one of many victims’ moms referred to the platform as “Twitter, or now X,” in her video statement.
This can be, partly, to keep away from confusion. It’s additionally, in accordance with consultants, doubtless as a result of psychology of design and branding.
Twitter launched publicly on July 15, 2006, and inside a number of years had constructed up widespread model recognition.
It turned one of many few firms “with a product expertise so distinctive that its model title has turn into synonymous with a conduct,” Ramon Jimenez, World Principal at brand consultancy agency Wolff Olins, informed CNN by way of e mail. “We ‘tweet,’ we ‘google,’ we ‘uber,’ and so forth.”
Twitter pervaded each a part of on-line life and common tradition. In 2011, the phrase “tweet” was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, with “retweet” added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary in the identical yr.
Whereas Twitter was far from perfect, folks flocked (no pun meant) to the platform.
For a lot of, Twitter was a spot to share their thoughts on major events in addition to huge milestones — from new jobs to engagements and journey. For journalists, it was a strategy to keep on high of cultural tendencies and attain out to potential sources. For public figures, it was a strategy to join with followers and appear extra approachable.
“The title Twitter, that meant one thing to customers,” Marty Neumeier, writer, model teacher and Director of Transformation at Liquid Company — a model company — informed CNN.
Then got here the modifications — and, finally, the rebrand
After Musk purchased the platform in October 2022 — six months after initiating the acquisition, which noticed its share of controversies — Twitter quickly changed.
In an effort to scale back prices, “the main focus was ‘lower as many individuals as doable as shortly as you may,’” journalist Zoë Schiffer informed CNN. Her guide, “Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter,” during which she recounts the experiences of Twitter staffers underneath Musk, got here out on February 13. These cuts included the vast majority of the content material moderation group and lots of engineers. The outcome was an unstable platform and the elevation of misinformation, Schiffer mentioned.
In early 2023, Twitter Inc., the platform’s mother or father firm, became X Corp. Then, simply over 17 years after Twitter went public, Musk started tweeting that it was time to rebrand the platform to X.
Musk has had an affinity for the X branding for many years — he needed to call his first startup X, which was one of many key causes he had a falling out together with his co-founders, mentioned Schiffer. He additionally named one in every of his sons X.
“From the second that he determined to purchase Twitter, he begins telling his shut associates, ‘That is my probability to resurrect x.com.’”
Musk said the Twitter rebrand was a part of his push to remodel the platform into “the every thing app” — a spot that seamlessly unites experiences into one interface, X mentioned in a blog post last month.
Whereas some new features have been built-in earlier than the rebrand — reminiscent of Blue subscribers with the ability to add hours-long movies and ship voice memos in direct messages — Musk’s imaginative and prescient wasn’t absolutely realized on the time of the rebranding final yr.
The rebrand caused a wave of confusion online, particularly when the emblem was modified however the firm was sluggish to replace the web site itself — the Twitter branding, together with the phrases “tweet,” “retweet” and “quote tweet,” have been nonetheless on the location for days afterward.
In the meantime, Musk continued to publish about his most popular model terminology, responding to customers by saying that tweets should now be called “x’s” and that the entire concept of retweeting needs to be reassessed. He has since walked this again, saying at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit on the finish of November that he prefers tweets to be known as posts.
“All of the work that they put into Twitter and tweets and you recognize, all of the cool terminology, that simply received erased,” mentioned model professional Neumeier. Because the Nineteen Eighties, Neumeier has helped huge tech firms — together with Apple, Adobe and Google — construct their manufacturers. He even labored as a model guide for Twitter briefly in 2013. “It’s as if it was crossed out with an X. Like, ‘you may’t have it anymore.’”
Whereas Twitter isn’t the primary huge tech firm to rebrand in recent times — suppose the mother or father firms of Google and Fb altering to Alphabet and Meta, respectively — it is likely one of the most excessive examples.
The truth that many customers didn’t perceive why Twitter was rebranded made it exhausting for them to just accept the platform as X, all 4 of the consultants CNN spoke to mentioned. Schiffer mentioned it’s partly as a result of the core platform itself hasn’t actually modified.
“I feel it’s one factor to rebrand your organization should you’re launching a totally new product and you actually need to widen the scope of what your model stands for,” mentioned Schiffer. “It’s fairly one other factor to only slap a brand new title on an previous product.”
CNN reached out to X, but it surely declined to remark.
With audio and video calling, the addition of the Grok AI onto the platform and peer-to-peer payments, that are coming later this yr, X could lastly be differentiating itself in an even bigger means — though whether or not it’s sufficient for folks to cease calling it Twitter stays to be seen.
Whereas Musk’s followers have been among the many most vocal about liking the rebrand, they weren’t the one ones. Schiffer talked about that many former Twitter staffers have been relieved when Musk introduced the rebrand, as a result of the corporate now not resembled the one that they had spent years constructing and defending.
“A few of them actually breathed a sigh of aid,” she mentioned. “They have been like, ‘Okay, yeah, Twitter is useless.’”
Model entrepreneurs on why the title X isn’t resonating
Twitter’s rebrand to X has to this point fallen flat in mainstream tradition, mentioned Neumeier, as a result of the title “will get misplaced in sentences” and “seems to be like a misprint.”
Title modifications take some getting used to, mentioned James Withey, World Government Technique & Innovation Director for model specialist Landor — explaining that individuals would nonetheless name Nissan “Datsun” for some time after its rebrand within the ‘80s.
The X rebrand could have a tougher journey, Withey mentioned, attributable to it being an uncommon case of a excessive fairness model — one which was a cultural power for nicely over a decade — being renamed in a single day.
“The selection of latest title doesn’t assist, in that it’s only a letter and never evocative of the person expertise, as Twitter was,” mentioned Withey. “X additionally doesn’t lend itself to getting used as a verb — ‘I’m going to X about this’ simply doesn’t have the identical foreign money.”
Because the rebrand, some X customers have continued to advocate for the platform’s former branding. When one account put out a poll asking what customers name the platform, virtually 95% of the 33,210 votes have been for Twitter. Different followers have created t-shirts with “I Nonetheless Name It Twitter” emblazoned on the entrance.
On Reddit, followers of Twitter have taken their aversion to the X name to the acute. After the rebrand announcement, one person requested whether or not a complete technology could file a class action lawsuit to forestall the brand new branding.
“You must bear in mind what a model is,” mentioned Neumeier. “It’s the shopper’s intestine feeling a few product, service or firm. So the model is what they are saying it’s… it’s not that prospects can’t cease calling it Twitter, it’s that they gained’t.”