Elon Musk, from acquiring Twitter has been introducing changes and updates to the microblogging site. The latest upheaval is a complete change of its name and brand logo, from Twitter to X.
Also Elon Musk announce in a tweet that the domain X.com now redirects users to Twitter.
https://t.co/bOUOek5Cvy now points to https://t.co/AYBszklpkE.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023
Interim X logo goes live later today.
From monetising Twitter through premium subscriptions, to paid verification badges, the changes Elon Musk has made at the company speak volumes about how he intends to lead the platform and make it one of his X group of companies.
When Elon Musk first acquire Twitter in October 2022, he was clear about his plans for the microblogging site.
Elon Musk also tweeted at the time that “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”
This “everything app“, as he explain, would be a super all-in-one app like WeChat, which can be use for multiple things including booking rides, sending money, and making payments, apart from facilitating day-to-day communications.
Elon Musk has indeed change Twitter to X, when it comes to name, domain and even its logo.
So, it is not yet a super app yet.
On 23rd July 2023, he posted about changing the logo of Twitter to an X.
And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023
In the following hours, he did not only that, but also made x.com redirect users to Twitter’s home page.
The rebranding to X is recent, but Elon Musk’s love for this alphabet is not so random.
In fact, it has last for years now.
The idea of X first emerge in 1999, when the billionaire introduce x.com as a finance platform, which later became Paypal after merging with software company Confinity in 2000.
As per reports, Elon Musk was remove from his role as the CEO of Paypal in 2000, and it was later sold to eBay in a $1.5 billion deal.
And Elon Musk was reportedly hurt by this, he purchase x.com back from PayPal in July 2017, explaining that “it has great sentimental value”.
Thanks PayPal for allowing me to buy back https://t.co/bOUOejO16Y! No plans right now, but it has great sentimental value to me.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2017
After that month, Elon Musk made x.com live again, and it start redirecting visitors to The Boring Company in December 2017.
Since Twitter’s acquisition, Elon Musk has determin to put his plans for X as his “everything app” into action.
In his conversation with Ron Baron, the new Twitter chief announced his ambition to make Twitter “the most valuable financial institution in the world” in April 2023.
Apart from Twitter, Elon Musk has also use the letter X in his space exploration company’s name, SpaceX, his latest AI initiative name xAI and the first SUV mode launch by his company Tesla under the name Model X.
While Twitter, under Elon Musk’s leadership, has seen various changes, starting from termination of its then-CEO, Parag Agrawal and other top executives.
In the following months, a lot of ban celeb accounts were allow to return to the platform.
Then Elon Musk began attempting to monetise Twitter with the reinvention of Twitter Blue.
The company also saw a series of job cuts and layoffs across offices, including the sacking of its entire AI Ethics team.
Blue ticks for officially verified accounts as well as subscribers’ accounts start to appear in November.
So, the tick marks on paid accounts disappear within a few days.
Elon Musk also introduce different colour tick marks, based on accounts’ ownership status, in order to recognise news media outlets.
Twitter’s ad revenue has seen a nearly 50% drop.
Elon Musk has tried to keep users engage by introducing multiple new features including Live tweeting, community notes, and Twitter Blue for Business.
To keep the business on track, Elon Musk recently announce his resignation from the position of CEO, but is still heavily involve, pushing new features such as view counts and the ability to upload long videos.
In April 2023, when Elon Musk announce Twitter’s merger with X Corp.
In May 2023, Elon Musk hire Linda Yaccarino to be the new CEO of Twitter.
Elon Musk has indicate that he will delegate authority to her and will step back to focus on his other companies.
Twitter was founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass.
As Twitter was plan to have different names, like Smssy and Twttr, as per reports.
The first official Twitter logo was just its name written in light blue in sans sherif shapes, and was design by Linda Gavin.
Twitter’s relationship with a blue bird start soon after its launch.
It was create by Simon Oxley, a British graphic designer.
As per reports, he offer the design for sale on the iStock website in 2006, and it was buy by Twitter for around $15.
The name Larry was a tribute to basketball star and Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird.
The design has change three times, in 2009, 2010, and 2012.
The current blue bird design was create by Doug Bowman, the company’s former creative director, according to whom “Twitter is the bird, the bird is Twitter.”
Ever since, Larry the bird has known only as the blue Twitter bird.
In 2023, new owner Elon Musk has change not just the logo, but also the name and the domain of Twitter.
The company will now be famous as X, with a logo of an X.
According to a tweet by Paris Marx, the new logo was create by an in-house designer, using the font monotype.
Twitter’s new X logo wasn’t made by an in-house designer. It’s from an old podcast hosted by one of the cult that Elon took from his replies.
— Paris Marx (@parismarx) July 24, 2023
The font is @Monotype’s Special Alphabets 4. Who wants to bet Musk didn’t pay for the rights before slapping it all over the place? pic.twitter.com/vB33pDIzeb
One more Twitter user has also come forward to take credit for the design, revealing the history behind how it all began.
𝕏 — The Origin Story
— ALEX (@ajtourville) July 24, 2023
It all started exactly two years ago, in July 2021.
I was spending a lot of time on Clubhouse and the idea of creating a club had been on my mind for a while. However, Clubhouse content was ephemeral: those who weren’t present in the room to hear the… pic.twitter.com/eDydEVqOud
Rahul Ram Dwivedi (RRD) is a senior journalist in 2YoDoINDIA.
NOTE : Views expressed are personal.
