Twitter’s ‘X’ Rebrand: All the Things Elon Musk Has Planned for the ‘Everything App’

Editor’s notice: This text has been up to date on July 24 to replicate the newest updates to the social media platform. 

Twitter has right this moment discarded its iconic chicken emblem as a part of a transfer to rebrand the social community as X. Whereas the newest change to the platform beneath Elon Musk might come as a shock to some, it suits with nearly every part the brand new proprietor has thus far mentioned about his intentions for the micro-blogging website.

Since buying Twitter in a $44 billion deal, the Tesla founder has voiced his ambitions to show the platform right into a WeChat-style “tremendous app,” with a number of features in a single place.

Chatting with fellow tech big-wigs on the All-In podcast again in Could of final 12 months, he mentioned the Chinese language app was “a great mannequin” for what Twitter may turn into.

“For those who’re in China, you type of stay on WeChat, it does every part,” he mentioned. “It is form of like Twitter, plus PayPal, plus a complete bunch of different issues. And all rolled into one.”

Upon hiring Twitter’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino in Could of this 12 months, Musk mentioned that the chief would assist “remodel this platform into X, the every part app.”

The title X comes from Musk’s legacy enterprise X.com, a precursor to Paypal. Musk purchased again the area title in 2017, saying he had no plans for it at that second, however that it had “nice sentimental worth” for him.

The title change and super-app are usually not the one variations which have lengthy been trailed by Musk, even earlier than the deal was accomplished. Cracking down on spam, growing premium customers, and including cost features (maybe even in Dogecoin) are all concepts which were floated by the billionaire.

If all these grand concepts come to fruition—and the deal itself is completed—what may the Twitter of Elon Musk appear like?

Freedom of speech

Maybe essentially the most talked-about side of Musk’s takeover bid, when it was first introduced, was free speech. Twitter’s proprietor has repeatedly underscored the necessity for what he known as a “digital city sq..”

Clarifying that his pursuit of free speech meant being “towards censorship that goes far past the regulation,” Musk later reinstated a number of acquainted faces who had beforehand been kicked off the platform—although Donald Trump has famously declined to return.

Musk additionally beforehand claimed that had been he to take possession of Twitter, it could be “geared in direction of the center 80% of the inhabitants,” leaving each the far proper and the far left “dissatisfied.”

Bot-busting

The elimination of spam bots was figured as Musk’s high precedence when he made his preliminary bid. The problem even held up the deal, with Musk suggesting that the corporate’s estimate that solely 5% of its every day energetic customers are bots is just too low.

Beneath earlier possession, Twitter’s machine-learning strategies had been detecting and difficult between 5 to 10 million accounts each week, in keeping with a weblog publish from final 12 months. However Musk thought he may do higher.

Measures launched to deal with the issue have included the current price limits fiasco, which quickly put a restrict on the variety of posts customers may learn. Settings for direct messages had been additionally mechanically modified on accounts just lately to solely permit message requests from verified customers, although customers can change this setting.

How nicely any of this has labored is unclear.

At a Wall Road Journal occasion in June, he mentioned his staff had eradicated not less than 90% of scams and spam, however the declare has been questioned by information scientists. And since Twitter is now not a public firm, we gained’t be seeing updates on its numbers except it decides to launch them.

Premium subscriptions

Twitter Blue, which prices $8 a month, was already in existence previous to the takeover. Musk’s headline change to the scheme was to provide anybody who pays for the service ought to a blue “verified” examine mark. 

Initially, he mentioned that these ought to seem totally different from the badges Twitter already offers out to customers it deemed energetic and notable. However finally, the previous verified guard had been stripped of their blue checks altogether, making it solely a Twitter Blue function.

With a objective of 69 million Twitter Blue customers by 2025, Musk has had a serious deal with making the premium product value paying for. However not all have caught. In March, Musk mentioned solely verified accounts would seem within the “For You” feed that seems when customers log in, and that solely these accounts would have the ability to vote in polls. However these modifications seem to not have been carried out as of the time of writing.

Verified customers do have a bonus in tweet replies although, and may write longer posts of as much as 25,000 characters. They’re additionally eligible for the Creator Adverts Income Sharing scheme, a monetization supply introduced earlier this month that’s set to reward high posters.

Dogecoin and NFTs

And as for a way you’ll be charged for that Twitter Blue membership? Musk has steered on Twitter that there may be an choice to pay in Dogecoin, the meme coin that he is championed on the platform.

Nonetheless, it’s anybody’s guess as as to if he’s severe about that.

One factor he’s not impressed by is Twitter’s current adoption of NFT profile footage, calling it “annoying” in a tweet and arguing that it was a waste of engineering sources that might be higher spent concentrating on crypto scammers.

Funds

Musk has beforehand steered on Twitter that there may be an choice to pay in Dogecoin, the meme coin that he is championed on the platform.

There was at all times a query as to whether or not he was severe about that, and the probability seems diminished amid an acrid authorized battle over Musks’s alleged promotion of the token. Musk denies any wrongdoing.

What he does look like severe about is the concept of funds. On taking the helm, the previous Paypal CEO has mentioned that combining a number of features into one app, akin to China’s WeChat, can be “actually helpful.”

When speaking concerning the risk on the All-In Podcast, Musk mentioned funds might be one a part of the providing for such a platform, “whether or not it’s crypto or fiat.”

These plans look to be shifting forward, with the corporate this month securing approval in three U.S. states to function a cash transmitter.

Venture Bluesky

Musk’s takeover has lit the hearth beneath a number of rivals to Twitter, some pre-existing and others brand-new.

Decentralized social community mission Bluesky, which started as a spin-out of Twitter, clarified throughout the deal that it was owned by workers and due to this fact not topic to the whims—or the possession—of Twitter.

Since then it has launched an invite-only micro-blogging platform, attracting large names to enroll, and only recently closed an $8 million funding spherical.

Different rivals together with Nostr, Mastodon, and Substack Notes have all had their second within the solar too, however none have in comparison with the launch of Meta’s Threads app, which attracted over 10 million customers in its first hours.

Musk has not mentioned a lot on a strategic entrance concerning the pretenders for Twitter’s crown, apart from reacting to memes and criticism of Threads on Twitter.

However he has proven that the platform is not going to give opponents a simple journey, proscribing tweet embeds on Substack, and briefly blocking likes, retweets, and feedback on tweets that linked out to Substack after the publication website launched its Twitter rival Notes.