© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Twitter logo and a photo of Elon Musk are displayed through magnifier in this illustration taken October 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration//File Photo
By Mrinmay Dey and Michelle Conlin
(Reuters) -Twitter Inc owner Elon Musk on Sunday signaled he would do more to take the social media company in a new direction with a rebranding that will replace its well-known blue bird logo with an X after acknowledging advertisers have been slow to return.
The change, which was not evident on the website on Sunday evening, followed Musk’s recent admission that advertising revenue remains nearly half of what it once was. And Twitter’s cash flow has been negative as a result of that and its heavy debt load.
Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester, said on Sunday that the move would further alienate Twitter’s original, and once fiercely loyal, user base.
“On the one hand, you can make the argument he would be getting rid of an iconic brand. On the other hand, he is signaling it is a new day for what was once Twitter and that the company is heading in a different direction with a different user base.”
The billionaire Musk said in a Sunday post he wanted to change Twitter’s logo and polled his millions of followers whether they would favor changing the site’s color scheme from blue to black. He posted a picture of a stylized X against a black outer space-themed background.
“And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” he said.
Late Sunday afternoon, Twitter’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, tweeted: “It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.”
Under Musk’s tumultuous tenure since he bought Twitter in October, the company has changed its business name to X Corp, reflecting the billionaire’s vision to create a “super app” like China’s WeChat.
In April, Twitter’s legacy blue bird logo was temporarily replaced by ‘s dog, helping drive a surge in the cryptocurrency’s market value.
The company came under widespread criticism from users and marketing professionals when Musk announced early this month that Twitter would limit how many tweets per day various accounts can read.
The daily limits helped Meta Platforms-owned rival service Threads, which crossed 100 million sign-ups within five days of its July 5 launch.
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