X: What's new with Twitter's rebranding?

This giant "X" is Twitter now. 

Yep, the bird is gone. 

By the way, did you know that his name was Larry In honor of a Boston Celtic Basketball Player?

Since April, you could have freaked out when you saw an X among your mobile apps. At first glance, you could have thought it was an app you didn't install or something weird, but once you open it, you see that it's Twitter, but darker and without the "cute blue bird."

Behind all of this rebranding is Mr. Elon Musk, a multimillionaire on the news frequently, who bought Twitter last year. Since Musk's acquisition, there's been a lot of controversy around the microblogging social media platform, and with this change of style, what's new for ex-Twitter and what will happen with it?

A lot is happening around this topic, so take a seat comfortably and keep reading to find out.

What is X?

In short, X is Twitter with another name.

Nevertheless, with this reinvention, there are many changes that we'll expect to see with Musk's reign over the platform.

Since he bought the social media platform in 2022, Twitter is now part of XCorp, the technology company he owns. In its first statement, Elon said he bought to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X.

In previous years, Twitter banned users like Donald Trump or Kanye West from Twitter due to racist or inappropriate tweets. When Elon proposed buying the platform, he said he wanted to make it a free platform where users, regardless of their political parties or ideologies, could tweet whatever they wanted. These declarations made many brands step out from Twitter as they didn't want to be on a platform where hate speech would be allowed.

Nonetheless, Elon's plan for the platform goes beyond speech freedom. He wants to turn it into a "super app".

But what is a super app?

A good example of this is WeChat, a Chinese app that lets its users do "everything." The app performs social media features like messaging and sharing photos and videos but goes further, including gaming and location sharing. Still, the most interesting part is that it allows mobile payment, a game-changer for social media platforms.

This type of super app is famous in Asian territory. At the same time, America and Europe don't have one, and that's where Musk is trying to differentiate from its only true competitors, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta.

Now, explaining why he eliminated Twitter's name, Musk wrote in a tweet:

X.

As we read "... conduct your entire financial world," it gives us goosebumps to wonder if this is the next step for world dominium.

Well, we bid adieu to "Larry The Bird." RIP buddy!

Why X?

Well, Elon Musk loves the letter X, like he really loves it. Here's some proof.

Back in 1999, he started his first company, X.com, an online bank that later merged with the digital payments service Paypal. Two years later, he rescued the X.com website from PayPal.

But let's go deeper into his other companies. X is always there, like his space-exploration venture SpaceX, his recently launched artificial-intelligence app xAI and the Model X, one of electric car company Tesla's earliest models.

His "obsession" with the letter goes to a point where he names his son "X Æ A-XII's," which "It's just X, the letter X," as he said in Joe Rogan's podcast.

Looking at this "TOC behavior" we can guess why, as soon he obtained Twitter, he decided to change its name to its first company, X.com.

What's new with X?

If you go to X.com, you'll see pretty much the same feed as Twitter, just that now it's black and white and "birdless."

Precisely, without the bird, there are no birdy references, and so the first changes begin with Twitter's old terminology.

In X, some users proposed new terms like "xeets" or "xcerpts" for the new terminology, but still, none of these were approved.

Instead, the new name for tweets is just posts, a plain terminology that almost every social platform uses. In the same regard, a retweet is now just a repost, which might be taking the originality that Twitter had over others.

Elon aims to differentiate entirely from the previous Twitter and create his own thing. 

Let's see what are those changes he wants to apply.

X Premium: A subscription plan. 

X premium is just the rebranding of what Twitter Blue was, a subscription service that unlocks various features. Among these, we have:

• Editing posts within an hour of posting.
• 50% less ads on the feed
• Prioritized rankings in conversations and searches.
• Longer posts that allow up to 25,000 characters instead of the standard 280 characters.
• Formatting texts in posts.
• Bookmark folders.
• Custom app icons.
• Custom navigation bar.
• Spaces Tab.
• Top Articles.
• Option to undo posts.
• Longer video uploads.
• Custom app themes.
• Two-factor authentication via SMS.

However, this service's cherry on the cake is that it grants the user the much-prized blue check, a milestone that only the big Twitterers achieved after much recognition. Now, they can claim immediately with only a monthly subscription of $8 and $84 annually.

Meanwhile, regular users will have to deal with a limited number of Tweets in their FYP, a feed full of ads, and having their ability to participate in polls revoked.

Longer Tweets.

For Elon, Twitter should no longer have a character limit; that was for the little bird Larry; in X, you can write up to a complete article if you want.

With the X premium subscription, users will be able to write posts of up to 25,000 characters, and the billionaire is thinking of adding a feature that allows long posts to be shared.

Possible video platform or streaming?

Elon must know how effective video is for social media platforms, and because of that, he wants to allow his users to upload videos that are even 2 hours long in the feed.

On the one hand, this may be a movement that seeks to compete with YouTube or TikTok. Meanwhile, if Twitter's censorship policies are less than other platforms, this subscription service could even be a great competitor to paid content platforms like Patreon.

An option to hire.

Although it is in its Beta phase, Xhiring is an option that will allow verified organizations to publish job offers. This option seeks to compete with LinkedIn, which is the social network that has always specialized in B2B and job offers.

X and Digital Marketing.

Elon Musk is not the biggest fan of digital marketing within his platform - it may be because the premium plan offers 50% fewer ads - However, this displeasure has caused some financial problems for the company.

To solve this issue, Musk announced in May that Linda Yaccarino, formerly chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCU, will take charge of X as a CEO to improve business operations. In a Twitter poll by Musk, users approved this decision.

Musk's is counting on Yaccarino's expertise in advertising business, as Twitter's US advertising revenue from the five weeks from April 1 to the first week of May was down 59% year-over-year, reports The New York Times.

In September, the month before Musk's takeover, CNN informed that 43% of Twitter's top 1,000 advertisers were still advertising until April.

However, the task for Yaccarino can be somewhat truncated since Mr. Musk has built a slightly dubious reputation around his management of the company, and if we add to that the massive layoffs and "free speech" that could become "hate speech," more and more companies decide to get off the advertising boat of this platform.

What do you think if Elon could add more fuel to these problems? He already did it. Referring to his controversial Tweets, Elon Musk said:

"I'll say what I want to say, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it."

It is good to clarify that although Yaccarino is the CEO, Musk still has the vast majority of power within the company, and for his part, he thinks that the most important thing is to dedicate time to the software, its products and that he plans to transition directly to the position of chairman.

In the Twitter Spaces livestream, an event Elon Musk hosted with Democratic presidential hopeful and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F, the multimillionaire commented how his poor relationship with advertisers damaged Twitter. In his words:

It's been extremely difficult. Basically, our revenue is cut in half because we didn't toe the line."

X vs. Threads.

We have to uncover the last big fight between Musk and Mr Zuckerberg.

If you don't know what happened, Mark Zuckerberg, owner of most social media platforms, launched a "new social media platform" called Threads. 

As soon as users opened it, they saw it as a microblogging platform, just like X.

Every Instagram user had an account available on the platform, and the policies said that if they dared to erase the account, they would lose their Instagram account.

Of course, this was a low blow for Musk as the platform reached 30 million users by July 6, and Musk got so mad that it put a demand for Meta. Also, it's rumoured that both millionaires will fight in a cage match.

Taking out gossip from the conversation, what has happened with Threads? Is it still a treat for X?

Well, as both platforms are so similar, it seems that the "Thread Fiver" among users didn't last that long as the platform isnt growing anymore.

Meanwhile, Musk is all in with its super app plan, while Zuckerberg says he plans to add more functions in the future.

Final thoughts.

In the world of digital marketing, we must always be aware of all the news and everything new that happens with the platforms since this allows us to prepare and be prepared for any substantial changes that may occur.

At the moment, Elon Musk is preparing to carry out a titanic goal of which we are not sure what the results will be. On the one hand, the billionaire may have all the money to pay professionals like Yaccarino to guide his company to a better place in terms of marketing and profits. However, the unpredictability of Mr. Musk may leave one in doubt as to whether the necessary decisions will be made so that the "super app" can be directed or if this will be a failed project.

Before any news, you can know everything that happens by reading our blog at Codedesign. If you need advice with your digital business, contact us!

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