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Manila Bulletin devider Technews devider From Twitter to X: It's more than just a rebranding

From Twitter to X: It's more than just a rebranding

Published Jul 25, 2023 03:34 am

If you will ask me, changing the name of Twitter to X is more than just a rebranding. Almost a year ago, Elon Musk tweeted: “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.” As someone who’s into tech and follows the who’s who in the industry, I can recall Musk’s obsession with having the X Corp. as early as 1999 when he bought the domain name X.com and launched it as an online bank related to PayPal. Musk played a significant role during the early days of PayPal, where he was one of the co-founders and for some time, served as its CEO. Under Musk’s leadership, PayPal experienced substantial growth and became one of the leading online payment platforms of its time. For the younger generations, PayPal allowed users to send and receive money electronically, making online transactions much more convenient and accessible (I still use PayPal now). But X.com as an online bank was shortlived, as it was merged with Confinity, Inc. — its competitor at that time. The way I see it, Musk saw great potential with Twitter — with its fanbase and underlying technologies — to revive his dream of having the X Corp. as a superapp which is why he bought it. Like many long-time Twitter users, I am not a fan of the recent policy updates on the platform. I even lost my Twitter verified status for refusing to subscribe to Twitter Blue. But as we will always say, “It’s their platform; their rules.” Still, I will choose to use Twitter alongside other decentralized social networks over Facebook and TikTok. I think Musk will make X Corp. the super conglomerate to oversee Tesla, Inc., SpaceX, Neuralink Corp., The Boring Company, OpenAI (yes, that AI research lab that Musk co-founded), SolarCity Corp., Zip2 Corp, and Twitter (now X.com). Twitter (now X) CEO Linda Yaccarino was even quoted saying that they are preparing the platform to be “centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking — creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI.” As of Monday evening (Manila Time), x.com redirects to twitter.com already and the homepage of Twitter now sports the X logo.
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