Twitter changes its name to X in 10 days, causing a chaotic mess.

Twitter to change name to X in 10 days, causing chaos.

Musk wants to talk to Cook again, for X.

In late November last year, Musk, who had just acquired Twitter for $44 billion, criticized Apple online. Musk claimed that Apple not only stopped advertising on Twitter, but also threatened to remove Twitter from the App Store.

At that time, Mark Zuckerberg also actively followed up, responding to Musk’s criticism of Apple in an interview. Unexpectedly, within 48 hours, Musk had a sudden change of heart and visited Apple headquarters, where he had a pleasant conversation with CEO Tim Cook. This “misunderstanding” was thus resolved.

On Wednesday, August 2nd, Twitter changed its name to X, and Musk mentioned Cook again. He called on everyone to actively subscribe to their favorite creators’ accounts and stated that X will not take any commission for the first 12 months, until the total amount exceeds $100,000, at which point a 10% commission will be charged.

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However, the Apple tax, which is the money paid by Apple users, where Apple takes a 30% commission, still exists. Musk said he will “talk to Tim Cook” about it.

This is Musk’s initiative to promote the ecology of X platform creators, and it is also the first important decision after Twitter changed its name and logo. Correspondingly, there was the introduction of the creator advertising revenue sharing plan in mid-July.

On July 24th, local time, Musk suddenly announced that Twitter would be renamed X, and the classic blue bird logo was replaced by a cool new logo. “X is a platform that provides all services,” said X CEO Linda Yarikuno. It seems that Musk is finally stepping into the long-conceived “super app”.

However, in the 10 days since then, X’s situation has been no different from Twitter’s in the past – little progress, but plenty of strange news, a mess.

The new X sign outside the office building was complained about by the public and was removed shortly after it was put up; CEO Yarikuno changed her X account name to “LindayaX”, and the old username was immediately taken, becoming a spoof account; Musk admitted that X’s advertising revenue had halved and then sued a well-known anti-hate speech organization, claiming that the organization’s previous report on Twitter scared away advertisers…

It seems that changing the name does not change fate. Despite raising the banner of “super app”, Musk still has to face the injured little bird. And it seems he hasn’t found any clever tricks or remedies yet.

01

The most symbolic event during X’s 10 days is undoubtedly the removal of the brand new logo from the building in X’s San Francisco headquarters.

The original Twitter logo was located on the lower side of the office building, with the blue bird and the word “Twitter” in English arranged vertically. After announcing the “bird killing”, Musk couldn’t wait to remove the old logo. On the night of the previous day, a huge “X” was projected on the outer wall. Soon, an X sign was officially erected on the roof.

However, this X logo is really exaggerated. Many people in San Francisco have uploaded videos showing that the X emits light at night and flashes in different forms. But because it is too bright and sometimes flashes too quickly, this X logo is more like an irritable guy sticking his name on someone’s face until they remember it. “Imagine living across the street,” said one netizen who shared a video.

During one weekend, 24 people complained about this logo, and the San Francisco government issued a notice of violation. The X company has removed this irritable X logo that was not approved in advance.

Elon Musk’s X account still has the video of this logo at the top.

Similarly, CEO Yariko also couldn’t wait to support the new brand X. After initiating the X vote, Yariko changed his username to @LindayaX. Previously, he briefly used “lindayaccs”. Unexpectedly, the name “lindayaccs” was quickly taken to create a spoof account.

This account impersonating Yariko initiated a vote “Let’s go back to Twitter! Who’s with me?” Over 800 people participated in the vote, of which 88% expressed their desire to restore the website’s old name “Twitter”.

Adding an X after the username was originally an expression of determination by Yariko as CEO. However, just like the X logo hastily erected and quickly dismantled by Musk, it has become a footnote to the criticism of this brand transformation.

02

Even though Musk has had a long obsession with “X” and has now placed countless expectations on it, users may not necessarily buy it.

Some users believe that Twitter is no longer “cool” after becoming X. Dave Keating, a journalist with 50,000 followers, said in an interview, “Twitter has become an embarrassing place. It’s like a club that is no longer cool under new management, and you can feel that it is closing down. You and your friends exchange eye contact and say, ‘Why are we still here?'”

Twitter’s brand has been established since the company was founded in 2006, and it became even more popular after introducing the blue bird mascot in 2010. Over the years, Twitter has been a social platform, and “Tweet” has become a verb, representing posting here, and the employees here are called Tweeps.

“The application itself has become a cultural phenomenon. In one sweep, Musk has basically wiped out Twitter’s brand value of the past 15 years, and now it starts from scratch,” said Mike Proulx, Vice President and Research Director at Forrester. When a brand becomes a verb, it becomes the “Holy Grail”.

Mike Carr, co-founder of the branding company NameStormers, said that “X” is easy to be interpreted as an image of a tech overlord emitting an ominous aura, which is completely different from the warm and lovely blue bird.

“X” sounds and looks cool, but it has already made some creators alert: will the content they share on the platform be taken by xAI for training large models?

xAI is an artificial intelligence company founded by Musk, which was also officially announced recently. Previously, Musk revealed that he wanted to develop a “TruthGPT”. Although xAI’s official website has made it clear that xAI is independent of X, Musk said in a live event, “We will use public tweets (obviously not any private information) for training, just like all other companies do.”

Currently, several creators (or artists) have explicitly stated that they will stop updating on the X platform. Illustrator Nicole Riffkin, who has collaborated with publications such as The New Yorker, posted, “I love all of you, thank you for your support over the years, but because of this reason, I will delete my Twitter in the next few weeks.”

Yingjue Chen, a production designer at Netflix, also retweeted an article titled “Musk will use your tweets to train AI” and said, “Haha, no thanks. I won’t be posting artwork or client work here anymore.”

Another interesting change is that “paying verification” users on the X platform can now choose to hide their blue verification badge. A distinguished badge that costs at least $8 per month, and it needs to be hidden? X has not explained this, but some users speculate that this is because Musk has “destroyed a symbol of trust from ten years ago and turned it into a symbol of shame”.

03

Of course, this does not mean that the X platform is going to be abandoned. Since Musk took over, there have been constant criticisms, but the number of Twitter users does not seem to have significantly declined. Even the recent launch of Threads by Zuckerberg failed to replace it.

Just a few days ago, Musk posted that X’s monthly active users reached a new high of 540 million, emphasizing “this is after deleting a large number of robot accounts”.

The problem with X seems to be how to move forward, rather than how to defend its position. There is nothing much to defend in this position. X is not a large platform. In comparison, both TikTok and Instagram under Meta have monthly active users of over 1 billion globally.

In terms of commercialization, although Musk has made drastic efforts to reduce costs and increase efficiency, X has also lost a lot of advertisers for various reasons. This is a big problem for X, as over 90% of its revenue comes from advertising. In March of this year, Musk also said in an interview that X will achieve positive cash flow within 6 months. And in April, he stated that most of the advertisers who left after his acquisition have returned. In June, X’s new CEO, Yarikno, took office. She was previously responsible for advertising at NBC Universal and is a well-known figure in the advertising industry.

However, in mid-July, Musk replied to a tweet proposing a capital reorganization, stating that Twitter’s advertising revenue had declined by 50% and that the interest burden of the debt was very heavy, resulting in negative cash flow for the company.

On Monday, July 31, local time, Musk found a “culprit” – the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) in the UK.

CCDH is a non-profit organization that regularly publishes reports on hate speech, extremism, or harmful behavior on social media platforms such as X, TikTok, or Facebook. Previously, CCDH reported that hate speech and misinformation related to Musk has increased since he acquired Twitter, and pointed out that Musk has not taken effective measures to curb this situation. One of the reports tracked hate speech from several paid subscription accounts and found that about 99% of the content was not reviewed and remained on the platform.

X company is suing CCDH, accusing them of “conducting a campaign of intimidation” to drive away advertisers and illegally obtaining data from the X platform and using that data for “defective” research on the platform.

CCDH is currently in a standoff with Musk. Imran Ahmed, CEO of CCDH, insisted in a statement that “the research by the Center for Countering Digital Hate shows that on Musk’s platform, hate and false information are spreading like wildfire, and this lawsuit attempts to silence these research efforts.” He also criticized Musk for “trying to shoot the messenger instead of dealing with the toxic environment he created.”

The name and logo have changed, but Musk is still trapped in a birdcage.

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