• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, July 27, 2023

TV networks have changed their branding from time to time. But those moves always seem more gradual. 

After all, you don’t want to pursue new user growth at the expense of losing your core base.

Twitter is making a more radical move. The social-media platform known for its cute blue bird logo wants to be some sort of "hardcore" brand. 

It wants to call itself "X" -- a name that owner Elon Musk has been enamored with for some time. And it begins with eliminating that blue bird logo and replacing it with a tougher-looking “X” in its place. 

In TV parlance, it would be as if Warner Bros. Discovery’s Food Network were to change its name to the Digestive Fuel Channel. What about the Home and Garden Network (HGTV)? Maybe the Crib & Man Cave Network. Would that go over as well?

The allure of ‘X’ may partly be in it suggesting a racy, forbidden, and nonconformist environment.

Perhaps Musk should add a big question mark -- ‘X?’ --- just to keep his options open.

On the same day of this news from Musk, Linda Yaccarino, the new chief executive officer of Twitter, emailed a note to employees that the site will “continue to delight [emphasis added] our entire community” with more new content and applications stuff, content, as well as brand access. 

This would seem to be a rough association -- the idea of "delight" with the letter ‘X’. 

Maybe it’s a demographic thing for the future. Young-skewing, active social-media users can be typically more active on, say, Instagram, or Snap, or Discord.

Can Twitter or X still be that young-skewing media thing that is amazingly addictive?

Right now, Twitter has bigger problems: Sinking advertising revenue.

To lure back marketers, it is drastically cutting video ad prices for messaging that play next to a list of popular topics on the platform’s “Explore” page -- 50% off until July 31, in addition to further discount, according to a story in The Wall Street Journal.

Given Musk's tough talk on the business, you can see perhaps why the name Twitter, as well as the ubiquitous words “tweet” and “tweeting” does seem a little lightweight, frivolous to him and others in the age of controversial content, political silo-ing, and partisanship.

In that regard, critics say there is now more hard-core content on Twitter than ever before -- way more hate, racist and offensive speech. 

Is that the direction? Does X mark the spot?