Elon Musk is about to kill the tweet.
Well, technically, he might keep it alive for a while, but he plans to ditch the Twitter logo which likely includes the branding, the tweets, and the birds.
In a tweet late last night, Musk hinted that he was going to replace the Twitter branding and use the X brand instead.
He even challenged people to create an X logo, although most of them don’t look too impressive. He then announced soon after that the logo will change.
It’s not clear whether Musk meant he was going to rename the company entirely. For now, it’s just the logo (and, X.com forwards to Twitter.com — a sign of things to come). With Musk, nothing is ever clear until he makes a decision and then it all becomes suddenly clear. That seems to be the way he operates. Clarity comes only in decisions, not conjecture. Yet, conjecture drives interest, and Musk is a master controlling the narrative, possibly even better than a certain former world leader.
I have to admit, if Musk does kill the tweet and the Twitter name for good, I’ll have mixed feelings. I’ve been a Twitter fan since the early days, mostly because it fits my style. I like short and pithy posts that get right to the point. I’m not into creating photos and videos that generate clicks as much, and prefer to share links instead.
Twitter has always seemed more efficient to me, and I’m someone who loves efficiency — I even wrote a book about it. On Twitter, you can scan the feed, read a few comments, and move on to the next thing in life.
Micro-blogging has birthed a lot of terrible things, including online trolls and misinformation campaigns. Yet, when all you want to know is the highlights and quickly find out about world news, nothing beats a tweet.
Sadly, the entire concept might die along with the brand. Why have tweets if there is no bird? Why have Twitter if you want to call your company X?
One thing is clear — the landscape is changing. The Threads app is not quite what we all hoped it would be. The new app created by parent company Meta and modeled after Twitter is also meant for short quips and links, without the strong focus on images and video you’ll find with TikTok and the Threads sister app Instagram. I’ve been wondering what a post on Threads should be called and if we will “rethread” but, with the app already declining in popularity, I’m not sure it matters.
What’s really happening is that the idea of micro-blogging is about to die as well, and that’s a shame. X.com will be some sort of all-purpose app. It will function more like WeChat than anything in the social media realm.
My mixed feelings about Twitter have to do with the fact that I prefer micro-blogging and links on social media, removing all of the fluff, but I can’t say I will miss all of the drama with Twitter. The company went from a militaristic view of gatekeeping content to what we have now, which is a militaristic view of open communication. It might be best to leave the military out of this. Both viewpoints (extreme control or extreme openness) tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth.
The question is whether Musk will really destroy the Twitter brand along with the entire company. He seems to be on that trajectory.
For me, tweeting has been a part of my daily life. I joined Twitter as one of the earliest users. I’ve told the story before, but I ended up deleting my account in those early days and creating a new one, but I’ve mostly stuck with the concept. I’ve been “tweeting” almost since day one. I even like the bird analogy.
Now I’m wondering what will come next — and who will make the final tweet.
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