Twitter/X: You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone

In the world of social media, few names carry as much weight as Twitter. Or rather, few names carried as much weight as Twitter – because, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, Twitter is now ‘X’.

Launched in 2006, Twitter quickly became an integral part of our digital lives. Its microblogging format appealed to the zeitgeist of the early 2000s, and it soon became the social media platform of choice for businesses, public figures, and everyone in between.

But by 2022, the party was over and Twitter’s new owner, the tech entrepreneur known for his ambitious ventures and provocative tweets, Elon Musk, was ready to shake things up.

Earlier this year, Musk announced plans to transform Twitter from struggling microblogging platform to “everything app” and, seemingly overnight, rebranded the platform as X. According to Musk, the move will expand the capabilities of X beyond microblogging, venturing into the realms of payments, gaming, and TikTok-style videos.

The original name and blue bird logo made sense when the service was just 140 characters, “like birds tweeting”, said Musk. But, added X’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino, “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity - centred in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking - creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services and opportunities.”

So far, no specific products have been announced, though Musk has suggested the app will see, “comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world.” In the meantime, tweaks to the existing microblogging format have had mixed reception: for instance, adjustments to its verification policy - the blue ticks - led to accusations of false advertising and users opting to cancel their subscription to Twitter Blue.

Of course, we rarely embrace rebrands from the outset – especially those of this scale. Twitter's blue bird logo and its name are iconic, deeply embedded in our cultural psyche. The abrupt shift from the familiar blue bird to the mysterious black X was jarring to say the least and, for many of us, it will forever remain Twitter.

The bigger question is, do we really need an "everything app"? In a digital landscape already saturated with apps that do payments, or videos, or messaging well, do we need an app that does them all? Comparisons with Mark Zuckerberg’s promised Metaverse can also be made. The metaverse was supposed to change everything, allowing companies to achieve total remote work, but the platform remains fragmented, with limited real-world applications.

And given the initial popularity of new microblogging platforms, Threads and Bluesky, maybe we were happy with Twitter as it was, and we only knew it once Musk was in charge and the Twitter as we knew it was gone.

In the ever-evolving world of social media, only time will tell whether users will truly embrace X. Until then, we'll keep tweeting our tweets from Twitter, thank you very much.