On July 23, 2023, a billionaire, Elon Musk, unilaterally chose to share his plans for Twitter in anticipation of the awakening of the rest of the global population. Through a series of tweets, Musk expressed his readiness to rebrand Twitter, a platform he acquired with a whopping sum of $44 billion, and battled a class action to keep. According to Musk, the rebrand would see the replacement of the famous blue bird logo with an “X”. Saying the change would soon take effect the following day as soon as a suitable design is received.
He twitted, “…soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”
24hrs later, what was merely the thought of a man as others considered it to be impulsive became the reality of the entire world: ‘X’ had become Twitter’s home page icon, the loading animation, and Musk’s profile image was all over the internet.
Musk revealed that he just like “X” making the ‘bird’ leaving and it was announced in a tweet, marking an end to its 17 years run in the history of the microblogging firm.
Twitter’s chief executive officer (CEO), Linda Yaccarino, twitted, “X is here! Let’s do this,”
The social media giant disclosed, the rebrand is to be part of the lagger plan to transform the platform into an “everything app” for all business and financial needs, including banking, digital purchases, checking, credit cards, investments, and loans.
The CEO insists, the positions of the company is to continue to delight its users with new experiences in audio, video, messaging, payments, and banking — “creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities”.
Yaccarino twitted, “With X we will go even further to transform the global town square — and impress the world all over again,”
A software developer, Rufus Oyemade,, while analyzing the development said, “It’s not just the rebranding that worries me,” but “It’s the overall direction he’s taking the company to — an everything app.”
Oyemade added, “As of today, we already have serious monopolies in the social media and digital space. I do not think centralising everything is the way he should be steering the company. The Twitter app, as we know it, may lose its position as the modern village square of public conversation.”
He explained that Musk is changing everything about the twitter since he took over the company, and seems to be experimenting publicly without thoroughly considering the consequences.
He added, “Take, for instance, the recent issues with rate-limiting tweets/messages. This (the rebrand) just feels like another rushed decision without careful research and planning,”
Oyemada suggested that the companies in Nigeria will have to adopt the new brand identity in their visual communications, saying it could lead to increased marketing expenditures to minimise any potential confusion.
He revealed, “Just picture a market where brands like GTB are already struggling with bots and misidentification on the platform — now, they’ll have to invest heavily in user education to mitigate the risk of phishing attempts that may arise as a consequence of this rebrand,”
Another expert, Madumere, a UX researcher at Boldscholar Research, opined that new name and logo could lead to brand confusion among users in Nigeria and worldwide.
He said, this, he said, could make it difficult for businesses to reach their target audience on Twitter.
Another line of argument opined that the name, ‘X’, is “not very distinctive and could easily be confused with other companies or products, such as the X-Files or the Xbox”.
