Elon Musk’s X clips Twitter birds wings, suicide or brilliant step forward?

After 17 years, the blue bird as a logo for Twitter has been X-ed, as billionaire boss Elon Musk redirects the social media platform’s image and identity.

Is it identity suicide or a well-thought-out marketing and brand strategy vision?

Meaning behind tweet

The Twitter logo, or the former Twitter logo, the bluebird brought an associated term to the word tweet.

Many associated the term a tweet with birds, despite the reality that birds don’t necessarily tweet, but instead chirp, or sing as a sign to indicate danger, a warning call or purely to communicate.  Birds often sing to announce vitality, or a readiness to defend territory.

Back to Twitter placing a final X to the blue bird.

Twitter’s former logo represented freedom of expression or the power of communication that the platform stood for.

The bird was and is associated with tweets, short messages that users post as a communication starter on the platform.  There was an idea, and the bird came with it. Only later was the bird liked to words such as tweets and what they represented.

A tweet could lead to a full conversation, in the form of a thread, that users posted on the platform.

Many have linked the former Twitter colours as a representation of trust and reliability, which are values the company strived to embody.

The X

While Musk’s shift to unveil a new logo – marking his focus to build an everything app, – may come with some uncertainty.

Think 20 years from now where the letter X, is on every wall, brand with a black background and two crossed red lines to signify the X. I may not be a fortune teller but the X may have a longer lifespan on the image front.

X marks the spot

The idea of a super app has been in the pipeline for Musk. Add X.com which Musk launched in 1 999, a concept which was intended to turn the website into a one stop store for all financial needs. Think PayPal where Musk tried but failed only to make a second attempt in 2023 by first redirecting the social media town square Twitter in the direction of a super app.

When looking at all puzzles, one tends to see the pieces slowly edge closer to form a grander mission.

Saying goodbye to the blue bird was one step toward the greater scheme of things.

Why?

Take a closer look at what new CEO Linda Yaccarino said in describing what may seem like a vague vision.

Yaccarino described X as the future state of unlimited interactivity centered on audio, video, messaging, banking and payments, with a broader idea to create a global marketplace for ideas goods, services, and even opportunities.

“X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” she wrote in a tweet.

While the vision may not be clear, the ship is sailing somewhere and it’s safe to assume there is a plan in place.

The bird may be an idea of the past, which may keep Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey up, but there’s a vision in place with relentless amounts of resources channeled in the direction of a much broader, unimagined platform.

The question remains, is it suicide to ditch the bird or a step towards something greater that many have not even begun to imagine?

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Featured image: ElonMusk/Twitter