Everyone is talking about it. We are all asking it. Did Twitter change its name to X? Yes, the app formerly known as Twitter, is now X. Starting July 2023, it’s bye-bye Twitter, hello X – the “Global Town Square,” as CEO Linda Yaccarino puts it.
And guess who’s behind this X madness? None other than Elon Musk, the guy who loves the letter X more than anything. He’s got SpaceX for his space gig, xAI for artificial intelligence, and even his son’s nickname is X. Talk about a trend!
You know what? I can’t throw stones here. I named our software after my cat (HUCKLE) and our new real estate venture after my dog (The Sundial). So, I get it. Personal connections matter!
Anyway, let’s see how this name change turns out. Twitter, I mean X, has had its ups and downs in the social media game. Now, they’re aiming for the stars with the new “Global Town Square” vibe. Time will tell if X becomes the next big thing… again. Let’s see how this plays out.
Why did Twitter change to X?
Now that we know the answer to the question, “did Twitter change its name,” now we ask… why? Elon Musk, the aspirational Tony Stark, recently told CNBC that the name, Twitter, made sense when users were limited to 140-character messages “like birds tweeting.” Now you can upload hours of video and post long messages “so we must bid adieu to the bird.”
For a while, Musk has worked to transform Twitter into the everything platform, thus the name change to X. To achieve this, he officially changed Twitter’s legal name to X Corp in April 2023. Then in June 2023, Musk resigned as CEO of Twitter/X and named Linda Yaccarino, an NBCUniversal advertising executive, as his successor. Finally in July 2023, the public name change and app update took place.
So far, this all makes sense. The on-again, off-again social media giant has undergone significant feature changes in recent months. While the rebrand is not that shocking, it is interesting nonetheless.
Did X keep the Twitter URL and branding?
As of now, the good ol’ Twitter.com remains active, hosting all platform functionality. However, they took the whole “Bye Bye Birdie” thing a bit too literally. They waved goodbye to the iconic Twitter bird on its light blue background, replacing it with a darker, edgier X.
Now, here’s the thing that’s got us all wondering: what’s the deal with the lingo? You know, those little messages we used to call “tweets”? Are they still tweets? Or do we now “send an X”? Currently, the once-famous “tweet” language plastered all over the place has become a simple “post.”
We get it. Rebrands call for some changes, but really, aside from TikTok, not many platforms have their own branded words for posts.
As the dust settles from the rebrand, users may wonder if more changes are on the horizon. Only time will tell as the platform adapts to its fresh identity.
My Thank You To Twitter
I personally owe Twitter a lot. I started my first company, social media and digital marketing consulting agency called Webbed Marketing, the same year they founded Twitter. In 2006 social media consulting meant things like helping clients be active on discussion boards, blog comments, MySpace and Craig’s List.
When Twitter launched, it created such a wave that it carried our agency, and anyone associated with social media with it. Yes, there were other platforms, but nothing generated the energy and interest Twitter did. Our phone rang around the clock with clients wanting us to help them build and manage a Twitter strategy.
We saw a lot of apps come and go in those times. Attended the funerals for Digg, Vine, Furl and Ning. Watched an entire industry build up around Twitter, with related apps like Twirl, Tweetbin and TweetDeck. We even recorded a song, “Pour Some Twitter on Me” that went viral in the days before we used the phrase “going viral.”
It is a sad day for those who saw Twitter form from the ground up, but it is also exciting to see how the social media industry evolves because of it.