{Photo courtesy of Indian Times}
Hilda Kavai
{hildahnkavai@gmail.com}
The new white X on a black background has replaced the blue bird.
“Tweets” will also be replaced, according to Twitter’s owner Elon Musk, and posts will be called “x’s”.
Elon Musk has long expressed a desire to launch “X, the everything app,” which appears to be inspired by China’s WeChat. The ongoing rebranding marks the most significant change to Twitter since the world’s richest man purchased the platform last October.
Musk escalated the transition over the weekend, saying that “X.com” would now lead to Twitter and predicting that “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”
As of 0530 GMT Monday, the updates were not visible on the website.
Musk had already named Twitter’s parent business as the X Corporation, and had previously stated that his acquisition of the social media behemoth would be “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app” — a reference to the X.com company he created in 1999, a later version of which went on to become payments giant PayPal.
Such an app may still serve as a social media platform while also offering texting and mobile payments.
“Powered by AI, X will connect us in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino tweeted on Sunday.
Yaccarino, an NBCUniversal advertising sales executive who Musk hired as Twitter’s CEO last month, said the social media company was on the verge of expanding its reach.
“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,” Yaccarino wrote on Twitter.
Since Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion last October, the platform’s advertising business has partially collapsed as marketers became dissatisfied with Musk’s management style and the company’s mass firings, which weakened content control.
In response, SpaceX’s billionaire CEO has moved toward offering payments and commerce through the network in order to generate fresh money.
The network is estimated to have 200 million daily active users, but it has seen numerous technological breakdowns since Musk fired much of its team.
Many users and advertisers have been outraged by Twitter’s increased fees for formerly free services, changes to content control, and the reinstatement of previously banned right-wing accounts.