11 ms·

No one even mentions Google X which rebranded to just X years ago. Clearly it’s been effective that no one even points this out. Yet another winning project.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
It's full of X brands. "Thanks to Microsoft" is kinda arbitrary of the article. I mean "Twitter Videos" are now "X Videos". "The Twitter Files", this series of "investigative" threads... are now "The X Files" (lol). "Direct Messages" will now be referred to as DirectX I guess, or I don't know. X is a letter. It's Roman number ten. It's in millions of brands around the world. It also stands for "X Rated", as in containing excessive violence and nudity. It stands for pornography in some context. It's unsearchable, and barely speakable, as in it's unclear already when you say "X" if you mean Twitter or Elon's son or whatever. What is he doing? We can ask but I doubt he knows himself.
- threeseed 3y ago
  X also means ecstasy making the phrase "I am on X" problematic.
  - KingMob 3y ago
    Twenty years ago, maybe, but "Molly" supplanted it. Not even sure what the preferred term is now.
- sco1 3y ago
  > I mean "Twitter Videos" are now "X Videos" Which also happens to already be a porn site…
  - Kamq 3y ago
    That's part of the joke. "The X Files" is also a thing. So is DirectX.
    - oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
      I wonder what the most successful joke rebranding in history has been up until now.
- simonklitj 3y ago
  The conspiracy theorist in me wants to say that he is tanking Twitter to then get a payout from the Saudis.
  - darkwraithcov 3y ago
    He just did autocrats a huge solid.
    - kadoban 3y ago
      Less of a solid than he was already doing by turning it into a haven for extremist right-wingers.
      - spinach 3y ago
        As it was a haven for extremist left-wingers, perhaps now it's balanced out.
        darkwraithcov 3y ago
        As an “extremist left winger” I can tell you that this is false. We got banned all the time for talking trash to nazis and proud boys (many of whom are now in prison for trying to overthrow the country).
      - User23 3y ago
        I keep hearing people say this, but I'm just not seeing it. Who are these extremist right-wingers that are now on Twitter? I don't know of anyone to the right of Tucker Carlson, and he's a bog standard center-right civic nationalist. As far as I can tell the actual extremist right-wingers are on Gab rather than Twitter.
        tsimionescu 3y ago
        Perhaps you don't see the extreme right on Twitter because you think Tucker Carlson is center-right. He is about as right-wing you can get without actively doing the Hitler salute. The fact that he has a slight populist, anti-corporate bent doesn't affect that significantly. And I'm speaking from a US politics perspective, where Hillary Clinton is considered center-left. If we were to take a more international view, then Joe Biden is somewhere on the center-right, and Trump and Tucker are so far on the right that you can barely see the spaces between them and the nazis. For context, far-right Marine Le Pen of France is to the left of Tucker on most issues, except that she's a bit more openly racist.
- rodgerd 3y ago
  > It's full of X brands. "Thanks to Microsoft" is kinda arbitrary of the article. Quite. It's pretty big corp 101 to sort this shit out as a rebrand.
- Euphorbium 3y ago
  He is implementing security through obscurity.
- s3p 3y ago
  DirectX. That gave me a laugh. I realized their branding was poor but didn't think about all the practical implications.
  - dehrmann 3y ago
    Imagine if they ever wanted to make a DirectX box.
- mypastself 3y ago
  There’s also “Brand X”, which is always worse than whatever is being advertised.
- eastbound 3y ago
  X also stands for ex-, as in, something which belongs to the past.
- prawn 3y ago
  As for what he's doing, I think it's pretty transparent. He thinks Xs are really, really cool. And perhaps that bird-themes aren't very cool. He loves the idea of an everything app 'like they have in Asia'. And he's addicted to Twitter enough that he got stuck buying it. So now we have this insane situation where he's going to throw away a strong brand that has an outsized influence in global media by converting it to become the do-everything app, and rename it to his favourite, cool letter. I don't think there's a secret plan beyond that. I have no idea why he didn't just buy Twitter, keep it strong, and then leverage it to push a do-everything app (that could be called X for all anyone cares).
  - soerxpso 3y ago
    Doing it this way instead of your suggestion seems to be garnering a lot of free press. Many companies would pay large sums of money for the reach he's gotten just for changing the logo to a letter (and it's yet to be seen whether the change is permanent, or just a temporary publicity play).
    - prawn 3y ago
      He can get easy press doing anything including with the route I'd outlined. Meta got global coverage for Threads without sacrificing Instagram or Facebook.
    - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
      Free press - most of it negative. This is textbook Management by Logo. When you're out of ideas you change the name/logo and now suddenly you're dynamic forward-looking innovative etc. Except not really. Management by Logo is like respraying a car engine because you don't know how to fix it. There's a fair-to-good chance you'll make things more broken rather than less. Musk bought Twitter (RIP...) because he wanted to use it as a propaganda outlet for his own crazy Randian/Trumpish ideals. It was never meant to continue as a free and open discussion site for humans. Musk appears to have plans to spray AI and other magic dead chickens all over everything to create a new automated kind of propaganda outlet. I suspect that won't work. Outside of his circle of immediate fans, people don't like being talked down to - especially not by bots.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  >What is he doing? We can ask but I doubt he knows himself. Muxk likex X and xe doexn't gixe a fux. But seriously, Musk likes X. When you have the kind of Fuck You Money(tm) that he does, you don't need a reason to like something or use something you like.
- loopdoend 3y ago
  Musk has been obsessed with this domain he owns for decades now. PayPal started as x.com, he's reliving his glory days.
  - codetrotter 3y ago
    And indeed if you open https://x.com https://x.com you now get sent to Twitter Seems that he wanted to put the domain to use
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      I would wonder how much did Twitter - the company - pay the owner of X.com (Musk) for permission to use the name?
  - sumedh 3y ago
    x.com was a seperate company which merged with Paypal https://web.archive.org/web/20000619201415/http://www.x.com/news_merger.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20000619201415/http://www.x.com/...
  - simondotau 3y ago
    > this domain he owns for decades now Musk did not own x.com between 2001 and 2017.
- nextlevelwizard 3y ago
  I head they named entire operating system after the letter X
- a_nop 3y ago
  Getting press and attention, as seen here, for better or worse.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago

It's full of X brands. "Thanks to Microsoft" is kinda arbitrary of the article. I mean "Twitter Videos" are now "X Videos". "The Twitter Files", this series of "investigative" threads... are now "The X Files" (lol). "Direct Messages" will now be referred to as DirectX I guess, or I don't know. X is a letter. It's Roman number ten. It's in millions of brands around the world. It also stands for "X Rated", as in containing excessive violence and nudity. It stands for pornography in some context. It's unsearchable, and barely speakable, as in it's unclear already when you say "X" if you mean Twitter or Elon's son or whatever. What is he doing? We can ask but I doubt he knows himself.

threeseed 3y ago
X also means ecstasy making the phrase "I am on X" problematic.
- KingMob 3y ago
  Twenty years ago, maybe, but "Molly" supplanted it. Not even sure what the preferred term is now.
sco1 3y ago
> I mean "Twitter Videos" are now "X Videos" Which also happens to already be a porn site…
- Kamq 3y ago
  That's part of the joke. "The X Files" is also a thing. So is DirectX.
  - oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
    I wonder what the most successful joke rebranding in history has been up until now.
simonklitj 3y ago
The conspiracy theorist in me wants to say that he is tanking Twitter to then get a payout from the Saudis.
- darkwraithcov 3y ago
  He just did autocrats a huge solid.
  - kadoban 3y ago
    Less of a solid than he was already doing by turning it into a haven for extremist right-wingers.
    - spinach 3y ago
      As it was a haven for extremist left-wingers, perhaps now it's balanced out.
      - darkwraithcov 3y ago
        As an “extremist left winger” I can tell you that this is false. We got banned all the time for talking trash to nazis and proud boys (many of whom are now in prison for trying to overthrow the country).
    - User23 3y ago
      I keep hearing people say this, but I'm just not seeing it. Who are these extremist right-wingers that are now on Twitter? I don't know of anyone to the right of Tucker Carlson, and he's a bog standard center-right civic nationalist. As far as I can tell the actual extremist right-wingers are on Gab rather than Twitter.
      - tsimionescu 3y ago
        Perhaps you don't see the extreme right on Twitter because you think Tucker Carlson is center-right. He is about as right-wing you can get without actively doing the Hitler salute. The fact that he has a slight populist, anti-corporate bent doesn't affect that significantly. And I'm speaking from a US politics perspective, where Hillary Clinton is considered center-left. If we were to take a more international view, then Joe Biden is somewhere on the center-right, and Trump and Tucker are so far on the right that you can barely see the spaces between them and the nazis. For context, far-right Marine Le Pen of France is to the left of Tucker on most issues, except that she's a bit more openly racist.
rodgerd 3y ago
> It's full of X brands. "Thanks to Microsoft" is kinda arbitrary of the article. Quite. It's pretty big corp 101 to sort this shit out as a rebrand.
Euphorbium 3y ago
He is implementing security through obscurity.
s3p 3y ago
DirectX. That gave me a laugh. I realized their branding was poor but didn't think about all the practical implications.
- dehrmann 3y ago
  Imagine if they ever wanted to make a DirectX box.
mypastself 3y ago
There’s also “Brand X”, which is always worse than whatever is being advertised.
eastbound 3y ago
X also stands for ex-, as in, something which belongs to the past.
prawn 3y ago
As for what he's doing, I think it's pretty transparent. He thinks Xs are really, really cool. And perhaps that bird-themes aren't very cool. He loves the idea of an everything app 'like they have in Asia'. And he's addicted to Twitter enough that he got stuck buying it. So now we have this insane situation where he's going to throw away a strong brand that has an outsized influence in global media by converting it to become the do-everything app, and rename it to his favourite, cool letter. I don't think there's a secret plan beyond that. I have no idea why he didn't just buy Twitter, keep it strong, and then leverage it to push a do-everything app (that could be called X for all anyone cares).
- soerxpso 3y ago
  Doing it this way instead of your suggestion seems to be garnering a lot of free press. Many companies would pay large sums of money for the reach he's gotten just for changing the logo to a letter (and it's yet to be seen whether the change is permanent, or just a temporary publicity play).
  - prawn 3y ago
    He can get easy press doing anything including with the route I'd outlined. Meta got global coverage for Threads without sacrificing Instagram or Facebook.
  - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
    Free press - most of it negative. This is textbook Management by Logo. When you're out of ideas you change the name/logo and now suddenly you're dynamic forward-looking innovative etc. Except not really. Management by Logo is like respraying a car engine because you don't know how to fix it. There's a fair-to-good chance you'll make things more broken rather than less. Musk bought Twitter (RIP...) because he wanted to use it as a propaganda outlet for his own crazy Randian/Trumpish ideals. It was never meant to continue as a free and open discussion site for humans. Musk appears to have plans to spray AI and other magic dead chickens all over everything to create a new automated kind of propaganda outlet. I suspect that won't work. Outside of his circle of immediate fans, people don't like being talked down to - especially not by bots.
Dalewyn 3y ago
>What is he doing? We can ask but I doubt he knows himself. Muxk likex X and xe doexn't gixe a fux. But seriously, Musk likes X. When you have the kind of Fuck You Money(tm) that he does, you don't need a reason to like something or use something you like.
loopdoend 3y ago
Musk has been obsessed with this domain he owns for decades now. PayPal started as x.com, he's reliving his glory days.
- codetrotter 3y ago
  And indeed if you open https://x.com https://x.com you now get sent to Twitter Seems that he wanted to put the domain to use
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    I would wonder how much did Twitter - the company - pay the owner of X.com (Musk) for permission to use the name?
- sumedh 3y ago
  x.com was a seperate company which merged with Paypal https://web.archive.org/web/20000619201415/http://www.x.com/news_merger.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20000619201415/http://www.x.com/...
- simondotau 3y ago
  > this domain he owns for decades now Musk did not own x.com between 2001 and 2017.
nextlevelwizard 3y ago
I head they named entire operating system after the letter X
a_nop 3y ago
Getting press and attention, as seen here, for better or worse.