"Tweets" will also be replaced, according to Twitter's owner Elon Musk, and posts will be called "x's".
Seems like an April-Fools-type joke. In any case, I can't imagine real people will switch and call their tweets "x's."
"X's" seems spelled wrong, and it sounds like rejected lovers — exes — but at least it rhymes with Texas, as in that song, wherein it's spelled "ex's."
Why did he buy it if he didn't want whatever it was that it was — a name, a lingo, a habit of going to a particular place? Change the place and will the people still go there? It's nothing without the millions of people who, for whatever reason, continue to go where they are used to going, to that old familiar place. And here he is, making it unfamiliar.
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Maybe he's trying to do what Coca-Cola did by rolling out a rebranded formulation like New Coke just to piss people off so that he can bring back "Twitter Classic" just like they did with Coke Classic and make billions.
I can't imagine real people will switch and call their tweets "x's."
Might i suggest "chi's"?
Actually, Facebook is Meta.. but people still call it Facebook
Actually, Google is what EVER the F*CK google is now.. But people Still call it Google
There's something to be said for sadistic humor. After all, suffering is good for the soul.
Remember? Remember that time, that you FOOLISHLY offered a good deal of money, for a company that turned out to be next to worthless? And THEN, that company took you to court, and FORCED you to buy it anyway?
And THEN...
Having spent a good deal of money, for a basically worthless company..
you laid off MOST of the losers that worked there?
and then you changed the name of the company to χ ?
And Then EVERY ONE said; that You were 'ruining' the basically worthless company that you had been FORCED to buy, even though it was worthless??
But on a more cheerful note..
You've put more kilograms of mass into orbit, than the rest of the world combined
Why did he buy it if he didn't want whatever it was ???
Umm.. Because he was FORCED TO.. AGAINST HIS WILL.. And he's pissed about that?
Of all of the hot takes I have seen on this topic, Althouse, yours is the best. Kudos.
My second favorite; David Frum. His Tweet, er, X, was: "It's nearing 80 years, and still nobody calls Sixth Avenue 'Avenue of the Americas'."
Third place: "The question is, 'Y'?"
Somewhat related; this is a paragraph copied from the Wikipedia page for Musk. I would have just summarized this information in a sentence or two of my own if I could. But how do you summarize this mess any better than what the Wikipedia community has done?
In 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes revealed that they were dating.[472] Grimes gave birth to their son in May 2020.[473][474] According to Musk and Grimes, his name was "X Æ A-12" (/ɛks æʃ eɪ ˈtwɛlv/); however, the name would have violated California regulations as it contained characters that are not in the modern English alphabet,[475][476] and was then changed to "X Æ A-Xii". This drew more confusion, as Æ is not a letter in the modern English alphabet.[477] The child was eventually named X AE A-XII Musk, with "X" as a first name, "AE A-XII" as a middle name, and "Musk" as surname.[478] In December 2021, Grimes and Musk had a second child, a daughter named Exa Dark Sideræl Musk (nicknamed "Y"), born via surrogacy.[1] Despite the pregnancy, Musk confirmed reports that the couple were "semi-separated" in September 2021; in an interview with Time in December 2021, he said he was single.[479][480] In March 2022, Grimes said of her relationship with Musk: "I would probably refer to him as my boyfriend, but we're very fluid."[1] Later that month, Grimes tweeted that she and Musk had broken up again but remained on good terms.[481]
My comment is; "?"
If you google x.com it will take you to Twitter.
The move appears to be real.
It's his 'meta' move. His 'alphabet' move. I suspect he has reasons we don't know and won't become clear for some time. He has many companies under many names. See what happens to X, Inc.
Perhaps some answers here: New financial world paradigm.
Or, as Musk said, “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.”
He is decades ahead of the rest of us and he feels the need to drag us forward, kicking and screaming all the way.
I don’t know if it’s a joke or not.
Here’s an audio tweet with Musk talking about the change.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1682987746313269248?s=46&t=l7AwAEtkT-tXUq39kUwnyA
Could be worse. He could have rebranded it to Meta. Just as dumb an idea.
$44 billion spent for bad code, excessive bots, talent he fired, and branding he wanted to jettison.
Sure seems like it would have been simpler to just start from scratch.
Pour yourself a delicious glass of New Coke and relax.
Seems like a total waste to abandon the brand. And X seems like a terrible choice for a new brand. I haven't checked, but I bet there's going to be a lot of accidental mistyped addresses that lead people to porn sites. Which, given Musk's sense of humour, might be the point.
"Seems like an April-Fools-type joke. In any case, I can't imagine real people will switch and call their tweets "x's."
Maybe pronounce it as in Portuguese: "sheese."
Make sure it can't be doodled into a penis. dB had that problem before they capitalized the b. All I see is an hourglass or an infinity for x, or perhaps a mustard plant version of a daisy.
X's uses the apostrophe as a break character instead of a dieresis over the s.
Consider co'operation, re'elect, na'ive as possibilities too.
Should have called it TwiX.
Didn't Musk set out to destroy all things evil about the old Twitter? This change gets him closer.
There is inherit danger of using 'X' in the name of anything on the internet, this move seems risky.
The first joke from this move was if videos uploaded to the site X would be X plus the word videos. Which got that term trending. Which drew a lot of attention to an already existing site with that letter and that word which has been around for 15+ years.
We all look for the “x” to close an online window…
X is a “don’t care” in code-speak
XX v XY
It’s so commonly used - perhaps that’s the point.
Also - Twitter/tweet was kind of clever, as tweets denote sweet sounds from a bird, but people were decidedly not writing sweet sounds on Twitter. So maybe this X is more aligned with reality, as in “whatever”.
Christmusk.
Mark said...
$44 billion spent for..
Mark seems to want to forget, that Musk did NOT Want to spend that money (once saw how sh*tty the company was). But, Twitter SUED him, to FORCE him to buy it ('cause they Knew it was a better deal than they'd Ever get again).
to repeat, Musk didn't WANT twitter, the courts Forced him to have it. Now that he's got it..
Why not have fun?
I think it's all a hue mistake, as far as the branding goes - a poor choice. I don't use Twitter though.
'huge'
I love the stories about marketing consultants who charge big bucks to a corporate client and then say:
1. Your greatest asset is your brand
2. Change your brand
Tweets are now tweex unless we’re still grooving on umlauts in which we can spell it twëx.
Mr. Exes moved to Texas. Maybe it’s just for the spelling.
Eight years of Trump and you still haven’t learned to dance the Fanboi Two-Step Shuffle:
Trump (or in this case, Musk) would never do something that stupid but if he does it’ll just be more proof of his genius.
Too many sites and apps use X as what you tap to close something. Is he just stirring the pot?
Why did he buy it if he didn't want whatever it was that it was — a name, a lingo, a habit of going to a particular place?
As others have pointed upthread, he did have second thoughts but was faced with a lawsuit to compel him to complete the purchase. Strange that a law professor would forget that.
Change the place and will the people still go there?
Most, probably yes. I still buy pancake mix even though it’s Pearl Milling Company brand and no longer Aunt Jemima. Wife and I didn’t stop buying Land O’ Lakes butter just because they changed their logo. Perhaps focus group testing revealed that many people shy away from Twitter because of the legacy of censorship abuses of Jack Dorsey and his successor, Parag Agrawal and this is a bid to try to convince these people that Twitter really has changed, and will no longer censor true information at the behest of government agencies.
It's nothing without the millions of people who, for whatever reason, continue to go where they are used to going, to that old familiar place. And here he is, making it unfamiliar.
Considering your track record of being wrong, Professor, about every single one of your complaints about how Musk is managing Twitter, would a little humility be remiss on your part? Just thought I’d ask.
Mark.
If you got fire it was more than likely for lack of talent.
Meta was able to jump start Threads with the billions of existing Instagram users. Their problem was that Threads could not hold them.
Twitter has billions of users that will be automatically signed up for X (as I understand it) That, not Tweets and a messaging platform, is what Musk bought.
Wechat is a Chinese company that does "text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, mobile payment, sharing of photographs and videos and location sharing." (Wikipedia)
They have over 1 billion monthly active users (Wikipedia)
They also issue Mastercard and Visa cards and act, sort of, as a bank.
Musk has a contract with them, though exactly what for has not been made public. Rumor is that it is to license their software.
He has been talking about X as "The everything app" for a decade or more and has owned the domain even longer. Apparently since he was still at PayPal. Whois says it was created in 1993, updated in 2017 but does not say by who.
I would not bet against the success of X/Twitter. I'd invest in it if I could.
John Henry
Solve for x.
"he did have second thoughts but was faced with a lawsuit to compel him to complete the purchase."
And as you point out, he made a formal legal offer to buy the business for that price.
Like with abortion, the simplest way to avoid unintended consequences is to not commit the initial act. Elon chose to make that offer.
Blogger Mr Wibble said...
Should have called it TwiX.
Actually, that would have been a great name. TwiX, trademark for someone's teletype service (RCA?) was the original messaging service going back to the 50s or earlier.
My boss, in the 70's, when I was last employed, used to use it like Twitter carrying on real time conversations back and forth on occasion.
Also great name recognition from the candybar.
Anyone else here remember them?
John Henry
Blogger Mr Wibble said...
Should have called it TwiX.
Actually, that would have been a great name. TwiX, trademark for someone's teletype service (RCA?) was the original messaging service going back to the 50s or earlier.
My boss, in the 70's, when I was last employed, used to use it like Twitter carrying on real time conversations back and forth on occasion.
Also great name recognition from the candybar.
Anyone else here remember them?
John Henry
For years HBO was the most prestigious brand in tv programming. Then Warner made an app for its HBO brand called HBO Max. Okay, fine, the "Max" conveyed something about the depth and breadth of titles available on the app.
And then Warner Discovery decided to rebrand HBO Max by ditching the part with prestige in favor of the part that sounds like your uncle. Max works the same as HBO Max, but it's still never not weird.
"making it unfamiliar"
A risk, sure. And X is less distinctive. Not clear how unfamiliar the actual user experience will be. But Elon had already signaled that he wanted to do "unfamiliar" things with Twitter, including finance. It's what entrepreneurs do.
I remember when Esso became Exxon. The company went for the double x. Some critics said it was a "double cross." To my eye, it was too much like Nixon. The year was 1972.
But X seemed snazzy to some. There was Xerox.
@Althouse "Esso became Exxon."
It did? News to me. I knew that Standard Oil became Chevron, but never heard about Esso beyond the historical name. Generational thing I guess. Regarding gas stations, nothing sticks with me like the Utah-heavy Sinclair Oil with the green dinosaur logo.
Twitter is on course to become background set material for period fiction, plus dramas and books about Trump.
I still don’t understand the “I’m skeptical” tag.
"Tweets" will also be replaced, according to Twitter's owner Elon Musk, and posts will be called "x's".
It's not like he's saying that men will be called women and she will be replaced with xer.
But it probably feels that way to a segment of the population.
Solve for x.
Algebra rears it's useful head.
“Dang, we were going to use that” - Bud Light rebranding team
Twitter is mildly amusing. X will be, too.
"Tweet" is less dumb than "X"?
He's just messing with Mark Zuckerberg.
Will Twitter by another name be abandoned by those who twit?
Will "X" lead to buried treasure of thoughtful interactions?
Or will the majority continue "To vex by bringing to notice, or reminding of, a fault, defect, misfortune, or the like" as has consumed many of a treasure hunt adventure?
Twit
To vex by bringing to notice, or reminding of, a fault, defect, misfortune, or the like; to revile; to reproach; to upbraid; to taunt; as, he twitted his friend of falsehood.
[1913 Webster]
Standard Oil became Chevron
Esso was Standard Oil (SO) of New Jersey since it was broken up in 1911. They bought Humble Oil, which had Enco stations. Exxon replaced both in the US, IIRC because there was a legal reason they couldn't change Enco to Esso. Wikipedia says Esso is still used overseas.
An "X" is what a person scrawls when they don't know how to write. From what I've seen of Twitter, it seems apt.
A big assumption, to me, is that he wants to do something useful with it. While the money is simply inconceivable to most - if not all - people, don't discount that it's just a play thing.
gilbar said Might i suggest "chi's"?
Heh. Yes. I am seeing people on Twit- I mean X saying that is exactly what they will call it.
We could read it as paleo-Hebrew or the like and call it "taw".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleo-Hebrew_alphabet
And as you point out, he made a formal legal offer to buy the business for that price.
@Mark, yes, Musk should have done better due diligence and/or put a clause in the offer that gave him wiggle room regarding the validity of user numbers. So what?
Bolded words are my substitutions for Althouse’s interrogatory ultimate paragraph:
It's nothing without the millions of people who, for whatever reason, continue to speak how they are used to speaking, in that old familiar way. And here he is, making it unfamiliar.
As someone already said, it’s not like he’s demanding you use his pronouns or be cancelled.
Regarding gas stations, nothing sticks with me like the Utah-heavy Sinclair Oil with the green dinosaur logo.
…a good one but for me #2: Stinker Station. #1: Town Pump. I have a hard time driving in MT without a
Beavis/Butt Head snigger…
Taylor Lorenz is having a cow.
When I was a child, in Ohio, I thought, for some fanciful reason doubtless, that it was a wonderful thing that my state had its very own Standard Oil Company. Sohio merged itself into some other oil company years after I had moved out of state.
When you spend $44 billion for something, you can call it whatever the fuck you want. It showed up on laptops first and was confusing, but it's still the same Twitter that Elon fixed. Still glitches in the "Al Gore Rhythm," but much better than leftist Twitter.
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