So "X" - nothing to see here. Elon's in control - Part XXX

silliussoddius

Now, this is the palace in Caesar's Square. Our commando unit will approach from Fish Street, under cover of night, and make our way to the northwestern main drain. If questioned, we are sewage workers on our way to a conference. Reg, our glorious leader and founder of the P.F.J., will be coordinating consultant at the drain head, though he himself will not be taking part in any terrorist action, as he has a bad back. 

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120948824#Comment_120948824

This had to hurt 🤣

Royale with Cheese

I don't fancy Elon's chances.

pixelburp

The world burns and two insecure billionaires who could right the world in a weekend publicly cockfight. How the F is everyone not a raging socialist kicking doors down when they read this kind of garbage?

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120949851#Comment_120949851

Can't help but hope that their egos results in them flouting basic safety guidelines.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120948824#Comment_120948824

The blue tock responses underneath are incredible. All completely devoted fans begging him to put hos health first. Nit a single lol in it. It's like it's a different Internet. Somehow even worse than the last one.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120949835#Comment_120949835

He never had a hope.

AndrewJRenko

Beats paying tax I suppose.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120947484#Comment_120947484

Beats paying tax I guess.

odyssey06

I will gladly donate for any blow landed...

Doctor Jimbob

Deleted

Run Forest Run

I'm liking this new "X" thing... seems more sleek and stylish tbh.

The blue bird was more of a child-like immature symbol really. Something a spotty teen would think up to name their social media platform.

It seems more appropriate for a platform that is used by professional entities/industries. I don't really see what all the fuss was about tbh, if you take away people's personal bias against Musk, it's actually quite a sensible change.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955725#Comment_120955725

The platform was called Twitter. The posts were called Tweets. Twitter \ to tweet entered common parlance.

Birds tweet so the logo was a bird.

But apparently, only a spotty teen could have come up with it.

Whereas X online has many many uses, from xBox to XXX meaning adult content. It is so vague \ non specific as to be meaningless.

This is all so incredibly obvious it is amazing it has to be spelled out to you.

Find us any serious commentators who think Twitter's money issues were down to its name.

But sure, it's all about personal bias against Musk. That's why advertisers are deserting the platform, and X ain't going to change that - if anything accelerate it.

Kevrano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955725#Comment_120955725

Are you trying to be funny? Musk's changes have meant you can no longer tell if you're engaging with said professional entities/industries or some chancer who claims to be someone or something else.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955725#Comment_120955725

X is a clumsy single-word company name that has required most articles to continuously add the caveat that this is the new name for Twitter; while it's just as arguable that 'X' is a childish moniker beloved of wannabe edgy kids from the 2000s so swings and roundabouts. We now know Musk wanted to change PayPal to X back in the day so this all smells like some tedious F You to Peter Thiel. Very little in the English language uses a single character, it's naturally clumsy.

Coca-Cola sounds pretty stupid when you say it out loud, dispassionately, but you'd wanna take a severe bit of brain damage to think they should ever rename the thing. Whether you liked the name or not was immaterial: "Twitter" was a massively recognisiable, global brand that had amassed status because of / despite of the branding. Changing it to a film classification or one-third of a Vin Diesel film franchise nobody remembers.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955725#Comment_120955725

Leaving aside personal bias against Musk, the issue is that regardless of its origins, the lexicon and branding of Twitter (Twitter, Tweet, Retweet, Quote Tweet, the birdhouse logo for Home and even just the logo itself) is the type of brand recognition that is next to impossible to buy. The actual blue bird evolved over time from something fairly cartoonish to something very slick and simple.

Twitter had one of the most recognisable brands in the world and in social media. "Tweet" essentially became both a noun and a verb.

Changing to 'X'... it means nothing. In common parlance it's often just used as a placeholder. "Tweet" has been changed to "Post", which is used everywhere and is no longer unique to the branding of the site. The logo is literally a base level monotype X which can't even be copyrighted.

The entire recognisable branding which took 15+ years to build up was removed and replaced with something so generic, uniform and bland. Professional Entities/Industries already used Twitter, and for more professional things I guess used LinkedIn. But the target audience of the platform wasn't Professional Entities/Industries, it's the general public, because it's the general public that those professional entities/industries want to be able to reach.

Twitter had an identity and the branding made sense; its icon was a bird, birds tweet, the home icon was a birdhouse, "Tweet us at..." literally meant "Communicate with us at...", and everyone knew it meant Twitter. 'X' has no real identity. It doesn't mean anything. You no longer Tweet, you Post, you don't Retweet, you Repost.

It's an absolutely horrible branding decision, because a lot of Twitter's actual value was its inherent brand recognition and identity.

Run Forest Run

I like it...

I think it's more cool and sophisticated than a silly little blue bird.

I can't see the name change presenting any significant issues to the functioning of the platform, so I don't know what all the fuss is about tbh.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955810#Comment_120955810

Because it's an interesting subject, as not many of the world's biggest brands go through a gigantic change just 'cos the boss said-so. It's the Current Affairs forum, and this is a current affair.

And just from a reputational point of view, it's another drip of unreliability. I've seen no widespread uptick in use of X, not without that caveat as said.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955810#Comment_120955810

It's got nothing to do with "function" and everything to do with taking the last thing of value in the company - Its brand awareness and flushing that away.

X is a stupid name because by its nature "X" means unknown or unclear.

Or Porn , it mostly means porn now.

Twitter , Tweets , re-tweets - As silly as they might originally have been have become synonymous with the company and are universally known and used as verbs .

That is brand awareness that you simply cannot buy and Musk has decided to just bin it all in the vague hopes that the name he has been trying to give to a company for 20 years finally takes hold.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955810#Comment_120955810

Had he simply changed the icon to a T (one that was specifically designed so it could be copyrighted) and kept the rest of the branding and naming system the same, I don't think there'd be any issue. It still wouldn't make a lot of sense given the recognition of the existing bird symbol, but it wouldn't have mattered too much.

Either way it won't cause issues relating the functioning of the website, but again, in terms of marketing and brand recognition, it's just a horrible decision. Likewise if Musk had never bought Twitter and Twitter itself decided to rebrand to 'X', it'd be a horrible decision, or if Musk decided to change the branding of Tesla to 'X', it'd be a horrible decision.

Proper recognisable and bespoke branding can take years to form, and often through trial and error and just evolution of what ideas work. Twitter had branding which worked. You may not have liked the blue bird, but when even people who don't use Twitter saw it, they knew what it was. X is so generic and bland that it's often literally used to mean "Undefined".

Run Forest Run

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955839#Comment_120955839

Just a new owner putting their own stamp on their new company.

Elon obviously has his own style preferences. He seems to like a more stripped down sleek look, rather than some cartoonish emblem. Each to their own really... As I said, I like it. People in my own circle who use it far more than me, seem to either like it or are not too fussed either way.

I haven't actually seen the strong reaction IRL that you seem to get in online circles. But I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised by that, as online discourse seems to be far more polarised in general.

Obviously some people were attached to the little blue bird and are having some withdrawal symptoms. Also, a certain demographic in society seemed to see twitter as their very own little echo chamber that they controlled and had some sort of ownership/rights over. This is possibly another step from Musk to erase that symbolically, by killing off the blue bird. New ownership, new ideas/approach.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955810#Comment_120955810

Well, most of the words that are distinctly associated with the brand become meaningless. Tweet, Twitter etc have entered the public vernacular and become common. You could equally say Google sounds a bit silly but it's a very well established brand so changing the name would be a disaster.

Even searching X and it's multiple results down. It's outshone by an excellent horror movie of the same name. Which ironically enough relates to porn. 🤣

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955887#Comment_120955887

Changing the entire company name when the name has global brand recognition is not "putting their own stamp on their new company" and it is absurd to suggest it and demonstrates a complete and total lack of understanding of branding. This has been pointed out on thread, and by expert professionals in the sector.

Advertising is down significantly. This rebrand will do nothing for that. You keep ignoring that point when it is put to you, for the obvious reason you have no response.

Then the phrases... Spotty teenager \ silly blue bird \ withdrawal symptoms \ echo chamber.

Unable to respond to the points put to you about brand recognition, advertising revenue, you respond with insults and digs. It is obvious you have no coherent argument here, and are just using this as an excuse to settle some ideological scores.

Didn't take long for your paper thin pretence of 'objectivity' to be pierced.

Run Forest Run

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955894#Comment_120955894

X-box is used by far more kids than adults (although in fairness, there are a decent % of adult users)

So why don't we hear any complaints about a kids game console being named X-box? Doesn't seem to be much of an issue at all from what I can see? No parent's pressure groups complaining about links to porn with the letter "X"...

I think certain people are trying to create controversy where there really is none to be had. Mountain out of a mole hill really...

Run Forest Run

And his other company, Space"porn" of course!

Who could forget that? lol

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955887#Comment_120955887

Well as someone who doesn't have a Twitter account I can speak as a demographic for whom the brand change will have no quantitative value.

However, it's all well and good putting ones spin ona brand, but this is a brand in severe debt and has lost half its advertising revenue since Musk's takeover. Changing the branding top to bottom at this point could prove a rash decision that only furthers Twitter's inability to make bank. And at the end of the day - that's Twitter's priority given the levels of crippling debt it now finds itself in thanks to the overpriced takeover.

Branding matters. It may not always have a definitive ndollar amount of a value but it has a cumulative effect to what twitter had achieved: cultural presence. Grannies and technophobes knew what "Twitter" or a "Tweet" was - X is by definition of convention either a placeholder or porn. You're free to like it, but renaming one of the world's biggest brands when it was already experiencing issues might turn out to be a famously terrible decision on par with New Coke.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955918#Comment_120955918

And Twitter \ X has no connection to X box, so it can't use X in that space.

Demonstrates the lack of business sense underlying this, when lots of other companies own trademarks to X in their domains.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/problem-with-x-meta-microsoft-hundreds-more-own-trademarks-new-twitter-name-2023-07-25/

Run Forest Run

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955917#Comment_120955917

We'll have to wait and see really how the re-branding works out.

These so called professionals frequently get things wrong. There have been lots of examples of very expensive brand changes led by highly paid "professionals" who have made a complete balls of it.

As regards your other comments, I have no idea what this "ideological scores" stuff is all about? Some of you guys may be slaves to a particular ideology - political or otherwise - but thankfully I'm sensible enough not to get dragged into these cul-de-sac never ending tribal arguments. But I do of course recognise the raw hatred of Musk, because he is seen as being on the opposing team. So naturally it is amusing to someone like myself on the outside, watching people tear their hair out over any decision he makes or anything he says in the media.

I'm not subject to the same biases, so naturally it is far easier for me to give my objective opinion/analysis.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955918#Comment_120955918

More like making a molehill out of a (small) mountain if the collapse in advertising revenue is anything to go by.

It's less about the name he chose or why he chose it and far far more about WHY he did it.

Changing the name of a company with the kind of brand recognition that Twitter had makes absolutely zero business sense.

What is the upside here for Musk and his company?

Today if you google "X" , x.com/twitter.com is the 8th result after a bunch of links for a movie called X and the wikipedia entry for the actual letter X.

If you google "twitter" or "Tweet" then the twitter.com homepage is the 1st result. and EVERY other result is about the brand.

THAT is the problem , that is brand awareness,visibility, value etc.

That is what Musk has flushed for some reason of no perceptible business value.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955918#Comment_120955918

You're conflating criticism with controversy. I mean firstly when Xbox came out, for years people were still making jokes and calling it Sexbox. But even then it's not that anyone thinks 'X' has suddenly become a porn site (in the same way no one thought the Xbox was a porn machine), it's that the letter X in urls is most commonly used for porn sites.

People discussing and criticising an awful marketing/branding decision does not constitute a mountain.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955971#Comment_120955971

These so called professionals frequently get things wrong. There have been lots of examples of very expensive brand changes led by highly paid "professionals" who have made a complete balls of it.

Such as what? I think you'd be hard pressed to find as global a brand which has undergone as large - and as complete - a change as Twitter. I can think of New Coke which was a total disaster, although IIRC that was "merely" a change in the recipe Stateside. Beyond that, most global rebrands tend to play it safe. A new logo perhaps, a rejig of the name - but nothing wholesale like this. It's equivalent to Apple rebranding itself to "TBA".

I'm not subject to the same biases, so naturally it is far easier for me to give my objective opinion/analysis.

How enlightened of you. Respectfully but that's horse-radish. In fact your prior paragraph lets slip that you are biased towards a presumption that opinions on Twitter or Musk are coloured by emotion, ideology or rage - therein lies your own bias. We all have them, but better to have them admitted than affect objectivity where none exists. Declaring yourself above the fray doesn't really wash though, and is automatically quite passive aggressive.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955918#Comment_120955918

My point is largely that it's such a generic name that it can't even get to the top of a search result. The porn thing is pretty relevant since he intends to make it into a do everything app or whatever. So "x video" will just outright lead to porn. It's a known brand killing its brand name, it's not smart or innovative. And it's not gonna do anything for its fiscal woes cause it makes the platform seem even more unpredictable and volatile. It's less so a controversy and more just a stupid move.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955971#Comment_120955971

Sure, because when people are giving an objective analysis they use phrases like:

Spotty teenager \ silly blue bird \ withdrawal symptoms \ echo chamber \ so called professionals / "professionals" in quotes.

You have no idea what the reference to "settling ideological scores" is about, then go on to post this:

it is amusing to someone like myself on the outside, watching people tear their hair out

Way to go discrediting your claims to objectivity in such an obvious manner.

If you want a textbook case of someone getting things wrong:

Overpaying for a company by billions because you bid too high and legally had to proceed with the bid despite trying to back out!

Overseeing a huge drop in advertising revenues.

Those are the actions of Elon Musk.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/12/elon-musk-admits-he-only-bought-twitter-because-he-thought-hed-be-forced-to/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABE9jxyieKOnO1wtRre7MhFK_0Li-OgAeJH4A3pW6giYmnhc6dJuDFCRmu4twCh1A76UcK1gSk5JLyQCbARmfN1QqV4elwagZaELwCs5mL2O0voP-hv6S9HBhaKeGOX5YvFngkDBuExMy0eqSBhj689XVBT1Tk66GXCXonagBbgJ

And to re-iterate the business stupidity of the rebrand...

https://www.reuters.com/technology/problem-with-x-meta-microsoft-hundreds-more-own-trademarks-new-twitter-name-2023-07-25/

sameoldname

I was driving home last week and part of the route back from work takes me down a road that has a 2 kilometer long straight with a tree-surrounded crossroads right before a bend. As I'm about half way down the straight I see a vehicle poking its nose out at the junction and before it has even started pulling out I start cursing to myself. Why? Because even though I can only see about the first meter of the vehicle I can already see that it has a green body and yellow wheels, which means I'm now probably going to be stuck behind a John Deere for the next 5 kilometers of bends. Because of strong branding I could tell what I was looking at from a kilometer away based on nothing more than the colours I was seeing.

What Musk has done is the equivalent of John Deere painting their machines black and changing the name because it's "cool".

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955971#Comment_120955971

"I am a being of pure objectivity with no bias. You peons and your valid criticisms of someone amuse me"

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955918#Comment_120955918

LOL ignoring all the other incorrect things your posting ill just point out that your core argument here is completely incorrect, microsofts own leaked internal docs showed in 2017 only 10% of xboxes were owned by under kids under 18..... with the average age being 33

And like others have pointed out it has been ridiculed ever since it came out for its name, the sexbox the x-bone etc etc

If microsoft were to suddenly change the name from x-box to something else they would be getting similar criticism to elon for throwing away decades of brand recognition

Run Forest Run

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120955978#Comment_120955978

He has said before, that he doesn't care about taking big risks and possibly losing money and even possibly failing. Which is clearly evidenced by his past business decisions.

He's certainly not unusual in the entrepreneurial space with this attitude. He frequently admits that his decisions have the potential to be a financial mistake, and yet he's still willing to do it anyway. Obviously he's not really like most of the general public, he thinks differently and acts very differently. This is why I'm never inclined to bet against the guy. He's way more successful that 99.9% of the people who consistently criticise his decision making. I'm just an interested observer in what he gets up to really... so I'll wait and see how things pan out with this latest venture.

I'm liking the "X" change anyway. I'm going to predict that it will be a successful re-branding in the long term. But we'll have wait and see what else he has planned, and what the overall strategy is.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120956038#Comment_120956038

He has said before, that he doesn't care about taking big risks and possibly losing money and even possibly failing. Which is clearly evidenced by his past business decisions.

Which would be nice if Twitter wasn't saddled with incomparable mountains of debt thanks to the $44 billion takeover - and the 50% loss in advertising revenue admitted to by Musk himself adding its own financial pressure. Meanwhile Twitter Blue has not taken off as a huge money-maker, and only served to devalue the product's core pillars. Other companies like Tesla are having their own problems, not least the ongoing farce of the Cybertruck, or boondoggles like the Hyperloop.

We've seen from prior communications that his running of Twitter has been at best described as "Ad hoc" when results on the field show a company pivotting in ways that defy common sense. You don't need to be a chef to know the steak you just got can bounce against walls - so you don't need to be a successful CEO to observe, objectively if you will, that Twitter is being run in a way charitably summarised as "mercurial".

As the saying going, past results do not guarantee future performance, and whatever large changes Musk made to the automotive and rocket industries - it's not a blank cheque to the presumption all decisions WRT Twitter are good ones.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120956038#Comment_120956038

Okay but the above logic is assuming he is engaging some genius that nobody can discern. This ignores the fact he overpaid and partially did so for a 420 joke. That he's lost a huge amount of advertisers and has publicly complained about this. That the platform has become more unstable and he's actively not paying the actual bills for background services.

So indiscernible genius sounds more like an inability to defend the mess he's making of the platform. I also think it's a pretty big sign of how things are going when he's not boasting about record breaking traffic etc.

Run Forest Run

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120956067#Comment_120956067

Yes, "mercurial"... I think this is a very apt phrase to describe his approach.

I agree, his past achievements don't guarantee success - he admits this himself. But I would trust his decision making ability by orders of magnitude more than many of the so-called experts and self professed know-it-alls who frequently aim their invective in his direction.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120956122#Comment_120956122

Not an especially Objective attitude to simply demean others as "so called experts" worthy of contempt (and who are they anyway that are so called) - indeed who self professes as being a know it all either?

Presumption of strategy or nous is not backed up by the actions thus far. And indeed again, the objective analysis would be to take the actual quantitative results of Musk's reign of Twitter - not a presumed competency by the man himself. By definition objective attitudes are dispassionate, while you're clearly not.

Kevrano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120956038#Comment_120956038

You really cannot see your own bias, can you? This "casual observer" schtick doesn't really hold up in the context of your posts.

I really didn't have much of an opinion on Musk until he bought Twitter. But he's made a site I used everyday unwelcoming and unusable. His tweets with negative comments on minority groups, which are thinly veiled attempts to ingratiate himself with the right wing, tell me what kind person he is. *That* is what I judge a person on, not their business acumen.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120956187#Comment_120956187

If he bought Twitter for the brand and the userbase to "kick-start" his new everything app , then he has royally f*cked that part up.

Fundamentally - Had he truly wanted to create this "everything app" called X he would have been infinitely better off taking a small chunk of the $44B he spent buying Twitter and started from scratch.

He could have built an app from the ground up that does everything he wants for a tiny fraction of $44B.

Kevrano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120956280#Comment_120956280

Am I right in thinking he didn't plan to buy Twitter, he just posted some bold claim on Twitter and was held to it?

Harika

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120956314#Comment_120956314

He signed paperwork, that was the issue. Else he doesnt care what he said/tweeted/xed yesterday.

Kevrano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120956324#Comment_120956324

He does seem to act on impulse, which would/should be a red flag to investors

Run Forest Run

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120956280#Comment_120956280

But would you not need to wait a few years to see how his venture pans out?

Very few big business ventures, especially ones that involve significant alterations to the original business model, are likely to be successful overnight. Common sense and historical precedent would tell you that these things take time to bed in and find their feet so to speak. From some of the interviews I've watched with Musk, he seems to be looking at this with longer term objectives. And not necessarily all of them being financial or profit driven either. I get the sense there is some altruistic motive here too.

I think he understands that this may involve angering a few people, who do not share his vision. But that's part of life really, particularly in such a polarised society that we are currently living.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120956314#Comment_120956314

He signed paperwork and agreed to buy it without any of the normal "due diligence" and then couldn't back out of it.

He also made the price per share offer valuation based on an Internet meme about cannabis - He chose $54.20 because he wanted to have 4/20 in the number because 4/20 is a cannabis meme - The actual share price at the time was around $45.

Basically, his childish mentality and obsession with 4/20 cost him about $5B as they probably would have accepted an offer in the $47/$48 range if he was really serious.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120956351#Comment_120956351

Whether or not "X" is ultimately successful is almost secondary to be honest.

And let me also say , I couldn't care less about Twitter , don't use it and never really got the point of it.

He bought Twitter for $44B and in the short time he has owned it, he has destroyed almost everything of value that it had to offer.

The only reason to buy a Twitter and then essentially tear it down and replace it with something completely new is because you are buying the brand or the user-base. He has fundamentally and terminally damaged both of those things with his actions to date.

Like I said , he could have taken maybe $5B and built "X" from scratch.

If he ultimately builds "X" into the everything app he claims, it will not for a moment alter the fact that he essentially set fire to $44B for no good reason.

Ashbourne hoop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120956038#Comment_120956038

It really wont be a successful rebrand. People will still say Twitter, tweets, retweets etc. Its a monumental stupid decision to re-brand something that has global, everyday recognition, even from people who don't use Twitter. The re-brand is just another in the list of stupid decisions he has taken since buying it for ridiculous money. It's become a cesspit with the worst of the worst being highlighted on it through the "for you" section, a contradiction in terms if ever there was one.

He seems determined to ruin the site, and I don't think it's by accident either.