On Monday (July 24), Twitter officially pulled the trigger on an ambitious rebranding effort spearheaded by its multibillionaire owner, Elon Musk.
After months of speculation, Musk confirmed that the social media company’s blue bird logo will be replaced with a simple “X,” a move that is part of a wider strategy by Musk to turn Twitter into what he has called an “everything app.”
X is here! Let’s do this. pic.twitter.com/1VqEPlLchj
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayacc) July 24, 2023
The change marks a major deviation from how most marketers try to protect widely known brands and logos. After all, Twitter’s bird logo has been a mainstay since it was introduced in 2006 and has been redesigned multiple times over the years. However, X is technically Twitter’s corporate name and is also the name of Musk’s planned “everything app.”
Though Musk is optimistic about X’s potential, some experts have cautioned against making radical changes to such a well-known product.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to replace a globally recognized brand with a generic placeholder symbol,” Jason Goldman, a former head of product at Twitter who has criticized Musk’s leadership of the company, was quoted as saying.
But Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino appears more optimistic. “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. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” Yaccarino wrote on Twitter confirming the development.
Musk released plans for his “everything app” in April, saying he imagined Twitter’s valuation ballooning to $250 billion.
As PYMNTS wrote at the time — months before the company saw its ad revenue plunge — there could be a long way to go for Twitter to reach that goal, arguing, “It may be one thing to attempt being the go-to super app and quite another to fulfill that goal.”
Meanwhile, scores of X tokens have since appeared on multiple blockchain networks and newer tokens were issued by opportunistic developers over the weekend following Musk’s tweets, according to a Coindesk report. And professional traders are attributing this to the fact that major tokens such as bitcoin and ether are enduring periods of low volatility, forcing some market participants to punt on meme coins and low caps.
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