Twitter becomes X and changes its logo

Exit the volatile: Twitter, which means tweet in English and which used a blue bird as its logo since its beginnings in 2006, launched its new logo on its website on Monday, a stylized capital X in black and white.

The owner of the social network, the whimsical businessman Elon Musk, and the new CEO of the company, Linda Yaccarino, recruited just a month agohad announced over the weekend that the platform would ditch the bluebird logo, be rebranded as X, and rapidly diversify into payments, banking and commerce.

While the social network’s website showed the new logo on Monday morning, its URL was still twitter.com, the blue “Tweet” button is still on the site, and some users saw a blue version of the X logo.

“‘X’ is here! We’re gonna do it,” wrote on Twitter M^me Yaccarino, posting a photo of the new logo around 1:50 a.m. Monday EST.

By Sunday, Mr Musk had changed his profile picture on Twitter, replacing it with the new logo, which he described as “minimalist” and “art deco”. He also changed the link in his bio to X.com, which now redirects to the Twitter site.

On Saturday night, Mr. Musk had said he was considering ditching Twitter’s bluebird. “We will soon say ‘goodbye’ to the Twitter brand and, gradually, to all the birds”, did he tweetedbefore suggesting that the new logo could be an X. Questioned by an Internet user, Mr. Musk had also indicated that the tweet would be called Xs after the name change.

X is a mathematical symbol that the boss of Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter and Neuralink is particularly fond of. X.com was the name and website of the online bank founded by the businessman that later became the online payment service PayPal. He also picked up the symbol for his aerospace company SpaceX, the company that acquired Twitter (called X Corp) and its startup dedicated to theartificial intelligence xAI, unveiled in mid-July, as well as for the first name of one of his children, a boy baptized X Ae A-12.

This change of identity comes at a delicate time for Twitter, whose ad revenue fell by 50%the platform being deserted by many advertisers burned by the brutal reshuffle of Elon Musk and decisions deemed difficult to read.

Since buying Twitter last year for $44 billion, Mr. Musk has regularly talked about his nebulous plan to turn it into a multifaceted application, with financial services, like WeChat in China.

“Powered by AI, X will connect us in ways we are only just beginning to imagine,” Ms.^me Yaccarino on Twitter Sunday. “X is the future state of limitless interactivity — centered around audio, video, messaging, payments/banking — creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services and opportunities,” she added.

“There are absolutely no limits to this transformation. X will be the platform that can provide, well…everything,” she continued.

“For years Twitter’s admirers and detractors alike have urged it to dream bigger, innovate faster, fulfill our potential. X will do that and more, ”assured this former executive of NBC Universal, recruited by Mr. Musk in particular to try to reassure advertisers.

” New start “

“A name change can signal a strategic shift, modernize a brand, or help out of an image crisis,” says Vanitha Swaminathan, professor of marketing at the University of Pittsburgh. “In the case of Twitter, it’s all three. »

In the case of the social network, “it could give it a new start,” she believes, “but it needs to be followed by specific measures that show that something is indeed happening.”

“This change is a monumental marketing mistake,” retorted entrepreneur Sam Kelly on Twitter. “Twitter is an iconic global brand with immense value. A whole terminology has been created around it”, like the verb Tweeterpassed in common parlance, “what cannot be replicated with “X””.

Simon Kemp, CEO of digital consultancy Kepios, said he was skeptical of Twitter’s ability to become a super app, which would require massive investment, while Elon Musk has been mostly focused on cutting costs so far.

“Given the way Mr. Musk has treated Twitter employees since his acquisition” of the social network, “I don’t imagine that many developers will be rushing” to join the company and “create new” applications, “unless Mr. Musk can offer exceptional incentives”, which “will be even more difficult given theindebtedness of the company,” said Mr. Kemp.

However, the platform could become “an excellent aggregator of global and paid information”, he estimated.

The social network is faced with a myriad of competing applications, including Meta-launched newcomer Threads, which has around 117 million usersaccording to the specialist firm Quiver Quantitative.

Twitter gathered, for its part, just over 200 million daily users at the beginning of July, according to the specialized company SensorTower.

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