X is Still Working Through its Re-Branding Efforts

Time to examine in on the rebrand at X (previously Twitter), and the way X’s slimmed down engineering staff goes about updating all the many bird-related references within the app.

Yeah, it’s seemingly not going nice.

In response to a report from Mashable, X’s most up-to-date step on this entrance has been to arrange an automated alternative variable on iOS, in order that each time a consumer features a reference to “twitter.com” in a submit within the app, the system routinely updates it to “x.com” as a substitute.

So when you submit one thing to X like: “Try my profile at twitter.com/socialmedia2day”, on iOS, it’ll now learn as: “Try my profile at x.com/socialmedia2day”, with the system routinely altering the reference.

Looks as if a simple method to get extra individuals referring to x.com, proper?

Nicely, the issue, as a number of customers instantly labored out, is that it pertains to any reference to “x.com”, whatever the surrounding context. So when you have been to submit one thing like “netflitwitter.com”, the brand new system will instantly replace that to “netflix.com” primarily based on this code. The precise URL itself, nevertheless, will preserve referring to the unique area that you just linked to.

In different phrases, the textual content replace will change the show of the URL within the app, nevertheless it gained’t change the hyperlink. So you possibly can mainly arrange any web site with “twitter.com” in it, figuring out that it’ll be renamed as “x.com”, then dupe individuals into clicking by on it, pondering that they’re going to a very totally different website.

Which is a scammers dream, and can result in many, many deceptive clicks.

In response to Mashable, X has up to date the method to handle no less than a number of the extra problematic misuses. However they haven’t modified all of them, and the system continues to be updating URL listings to from “twitter.com” to “x.com” as a substitute.

Although why that is even a spotlight is complicated, contemplating that the majority of X’s features nonetheless check with “twitter.com” both method.

Certainly, taking a look at X’s desktop structure, proper now, all the features check with a“twitter.com” hyperlink:

Even X’s Grok chatbot is at the moment hosted at “https://twitter.com/i/grok”. So I’m undecided that altering the title of the URL in posts goes to make any main distinction both method.

After all, mentioning the title in posts is extra up entrance, and extra seen than these hyperlinks, which aren’t displayed prominently on display.

However in X’s help documentation they’re, and there are many “Twitter” references there:

X additionally contains (previously Twitter) in most of its electronic mail notifications as properly, as a way to cowl all bases, whereas most exterior references to “x.com” even have to incorporate “previously Twitter” too, in any other case Google’s crawlerbots will get suspicious concerning the validity of your hyperlinks.

So, on steadiness, the re-brand to X continues to be a piece in progress, and it does look like this was an ill-timed re-naming effort, contemplating that the corporate had additionally lower 80% of its workers simply earlier than the introduced change, leaving it with far fewer assets to assign to the broader re-naming process.

However Elon Musk has been dreaming of “x.com” for 20 years, and he was decided to begin afresh with a brand new id for his social media experiment. And it does make sense to have some separation from its outdated moniker, within the pre-Musk period. However the broader renaming of its many references goes to take time, and plenty of customers are nonetheless going to check with it as Twitter, most likely ceaselessly.

So perhaps not a terrific enterprise resolution. However then once more, Elon appears to take pleasure in lumping himself with extremely troublesome duties, and he’s positively not taking the straightforward method out, on just about any entrance, on the app.

In that sense, perhaps the half-baked re-brand aligns with the broader Elon Musk expertise.