Twitter users opening the social media platform today are being met with an unsurprising but sudden change: after 17 years the brand’s iconic blue bird is no longer. Elon Musk, who purchased the corporation for $44 billion last year and renamed it “X Corp.,” has finally made good on his promise to rebrand the website. Those heading to twitter.com—and now x.com—on desktop will be sending Xs instead tweets online, following an announcement by Musk in the late hours of July 23. “Interim X logo goes live later today,” he posted to the app early July 24, in accordance with previous statements that he was bidding “adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”
By the time morning came on Monday an impromptu contest for X's new logo had reached its end, ushering in a new kind of Twitter for those working at their desks. At the time of publication, things appear unchanged for users on the mobile app. The gradual phasing out of the platform’s original branding is seen by many users, tech experts and reports as a concerted effort by Musk to overthrow Meta Threads, which Mark Zuckerberg launched earlier this month.
In The Social Mediasphere, It’s A Battle Of Meta Versus X
To date Threads has over 100 million users, and Twitter clocks in at 353 million with a loss of more than 10,000 users since the introduction of Twitter Blue and the removal of two-factor authentication. Statista projects that Twitter users will continue to decrease to 335 million in 2024. The company Meta ( formerly known as Facebook) also owns Instagram and Whatsapp, collectively boasting 3.59 billion users, or 77% of global Internet profiles. This discrepancy in numbers reflects Musk’s ongoing struggle to commodify Twitter as a business venture and designate it as a global one-stop shop for social media users.
RELATED: With Meta's Threads, Social Media Users Face Peak Digital Burnout, Content Confusion
In the months preceding Twitter’s rebrand to X, both Musk and the company have been under fire for issues regarding disinformation, data privacy, hiring and firing, website malfunctions and political or economic ties to other entities that leave some users hesitant to remain on the platform. Competitors like Mastodon have also had their impact on Twitter numbers as users struggle to identify the use cases across social platforms and better recognize how each social media service can meet their needs.
Do Users Want A Social Media One-Stop Shop? Tech Companies Are Trying To Find Out
At a time where customers in the digital space are facing tech fatigue, web over-consumption and over-subscription to services, the idea of a central hub for social content certainly sounds appealing. Linda Yaccarino, Twitter’s new CEO as of May, shared her thoughts on the rebrand earlier this morning, stating the X will be “the future state of unlimited interactivity—centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking—creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.”
RELATED: Vintage Aesthetics Vs. Trending Technology: When Everything Retro Is Back In Style, What Does That Mean For The Future Of Customer Service?
Musk super-fans who have followed his growth as an entrepreneur holding stake or ownership in five companies are among the first to support and even praise the change. In some ways it signals Elon Musk’s dedication to not just his capital ventures but his own personal branding. For those in the know, his usage of and fascination with the letter X in the context of Twitter isn’t a shock: PayPal, previously owned by Musk, once held the domain of x.com and the son he shares with recording artist Grimes also goes by the same letter.
RELATED: Study Shows How Criticism on Social Media Can Negatively Impact Your Brand
However, the rebrand brings an element of complication that for social media users highlights the complication of the digital that motivates some to forgo being online altogether. Despite some fans, an abundance of users are filing their complaints via Tweet—well, now via X—in droves: “They're changing the Twitter logo to an ‘X.’ Literally the icon I click on when I want to close something on my computer," writes one user.
Others are resolved to stick to Twitter, regardless of what a website redirect to x.com might suggest:
From One Company To Another, X Might Not Be The Future Of The Internet
Debates on what to call the application, website, or even posted content have ensued, creating a branding issue not just for individual users already displeased by Twitter’s current business model. Organizations looking to promote their products, field customer service inquiries, and amass a customer base via Musk’s social platform also have some ambuguity to work through.
Companies are struggling to understand and master the nuanced differences between all the social platforms at their disposal, as well as identify the ones that are or aren’t fulfilling their quest for customer centricity. With each passing year, there seems to be a new platform to learn and seize virility on, lest they be left behind in a digitized, personalized, omnichannel world.
The internal and external changes to Twitter are a bad omen for the future of digital communications, ecommerce and the customer experience, social media manager and communications strategist Jessica Dulaney tells CCW Digital.
“Twitter has had a strong, distinct, recognizable brand for years. ‘Tweet’ and ‘retweet’ have entered the global lexicon —these terms are even in the Merriam-Webster dictionary,” she explains. To remove the very symbol of Twitter is to erase a pivotal part of the Internet age and the social, cultural, technological and economic impact the platform has on the world.
RELATED: Tesla's Social Media CX Strategy Is Under Fire: Here's Why
“The bird is clean, unique, and ubiquitous. It's in the footer of every website, on the back of your cereal box. It's everywhere. People who have never had a Twitter account in their life know what those words and what that bird means.”
To abruptly abandon all of these assets is foolhardy, she observes, “but to replace them with the new X brand is baffling. The term X itself is both generic and grim. We use X as a placeholder for the words or ideas we're missing at the moment. Generally, the X symbol represents rejecting, exiting, and quitting. These aren't positive associations... Combine that with Elon Musk's systemic disruption of Twitter's features, safety tools, and workforce, you have a recipe for disaster.”
And when disaster strikes—a customer gets the wrong order, a company website shuts downs, or an organization changes consumer data policy—Twitter is often the first place companies and consumers turn to. Twitter has long been a place to facilitate connection, celebrate CX wins and rectify customer service wrongs. But today, and at least for now, it’s become an unrecognizable place of digital uncertainty.