Twitter’s owner, Elon Musk, and its new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, announced that the social media network would undergo significant changes. They plan to ditch the bird logo and rebrand the platform with the name “X.” The new direction for Twitter includes a focus on payments, banking, and commerce.
Musk revealed the new minimalist art deco logo for X, which is a white X on a black background. He mentioned that if a good enough X logo was posted, the changes would go live worldwide the next day. Additionally, Musk changed his Twitter bio to “X.com,” which now redirects to twitter.com, indicating the company’s shift.
The move towards payments and commerce is driven by a decline in Twitter’s advertising business since Musk acquired the platform for $44 billion in October the previous year. The advertising revenue has been negatively affected by content moderation issues and changes in management style. To find new revenue streams, Musk aims to introduce payments and commerce features.
Yaccarino, the new CEO of Twitter, emphasized that X would be the future state of unlimited interactivity, with a focus on audio, video, messaging, payments, and banking. The vision for X is to create a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities powered by AI.
Twitter’s transformation into X, the everything app, aligns with Musk’s long-term vision for a platform that goes beyond social media, incorporating messaging, mobile payments, and more. The goal is to connect users in innovative ways and expand Twitter’s scope significantly.
However, the changes were not yet visible on the website at the time of the announcement. Despite Twitter’s current challenges, the company remains a popular platform with around 200 million daily active users. With the introduction of X and its potential for new revenue streams, Musk aims to revitalize the platform and offer users a more interactive and versatile experience.
It’s worth noting that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, also recently launched its own text-based platform called Threads, indicating the growing competition in the social media space.
