PARIS, FRANCE – JUNE 16: Chief Government Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and proprietor of Twitter, Elon Musk … [+]
Renaming Twitter to ‘X’ is proving to be the dumbest branding mistake of the 12 months.
In latest weeks, I’ve seen numerous articles and opinion items making enjoyable of the change, which eradicated virtually 20 years of name recognition instantly.
Often, the jokes go one thing like this:
In overlaying the model change, pundits point out the X firm identify however virtually all the time remind us that it was referred to as Twitter. In lots of circumstances, they check with a tweet as an ‘X’ or {that a} submit has been ‘X’ed’ as an alternative of retweeted, however as they proceed explaining this head-scratching transfer, writers like me often slip again into calling the corporate Twitter, ultimately mentioning a tweet or retweet — and abandoning the entire X concept. That is along with jabs about the huge X signal on prime of the headquarters and fixed reminders that Elon Musk is fascinated by the letter and has all the time wished to make use of the identify. (I haven’t seen too many feedback about SpaceX for some cause.) In different phrases, it’s all fairly ridiculous.
The opposite day, I used to be speaking to a bunch of social media specialists and a number of other of them even refused to say the identify X. They only assume it’s dumb. For one factor, it’s onerous to recollect. In informal dialog, when you say you could have ‘X’ed’ a submit, you often have to clarify what it means. For the informal social media person, when you point out the corporate X, it sounds complicated — like a placeholder for an actual firm. “Have you ever tried the X app?” often results in clean stares. And this after it has been broadly reported that Twitter has modified its identify.
Individuals don’t appear to care. They need to simply preserve saying Twitter.
That’s why I need to throw out this problem.
Since Elon Musk loves polls, I’d prefer to see one asking customers if he ought to revert the identify again to Twitter. Truthfully, there’s no technique to predict how individuals will react, since I’m basing my assumptions on a number of specialists and pundits who’ve referred to as the rebrand and renaming a mistake. Additionally, polls on Twitter (I imply, X) carried out on Musk’s feed would probably not be very best, since individuals know he likes the identify. And but, it’s the one approach. Musk has hundreds of thousands of followers, and in the event that they do problem their hero, this could be one technique to ship a transparent message.
My prediction? I doubt he’ll do it. He’s already made the change, and the corporate has already auctioned off Twitter branded gadgets.
In the meantime, somebody has to take a stand — it’d as effectively be me. I’ll preserve calling the corporate Twitter for now, and reference the official rebranded identify. That’s what I’ve been doing just lately anyway, and it definitely results in lots much less confusion.
Perhaps I’ll be unsuitable and the identify X will catch on with customers. Perhaps it should turn out to be the all the things app Musk all the time wished. Perhaps the tweet will lastly die.
I doubt it.
What is going to occur as an alternative? We’ll simply transfer on, ignore the X firm, and discover one thing else to speak about. Threads, anybody?
