It seems pretty distant today, but Elon Musk only bought Twitter in late 2022. And it would be just shy of a year after that before he decided he prefers it to be called X. Three years later, a Virginia startup going by the name of Operation Bluebird says that it wants to launch its own social media, and to call it Twitter.new.
Ars Technica reports that the startup has filed a petition with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to cancel X Corporation’s trademarks of the words “Twitter” and “tweet”. In the document, Operation Bluebird says that “The Twitter and tweet bands have been eradicated from X Corp’s products services, and marketing, effectively abandoning the storied brand, with no intention to resume use of the mark”. It also cites Musk’s own post on X saying “and soon, we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds”.
As mentioned, should the petition be successful, the new social media platform will be called Twitter.new. The report notes that it could go online as early as late next year. There’s reportedly a working prototype already in place, with the platform inviting users to reserve handles.
The report also notes that Operation Bluebird intends to not only bring back Twitter in name, but also services and format to cater to commercial brands. Founder Michael Peroff says that Brands are stuck on X because they have no other place to go”. That, and “we think our moderation tools will help the discussion evolve into something more responsible”.
Which Twitter?
Should this actually happen though, there’s probably going to be a few confusing months as people adjust to calling X by the name its owner intended. Similar to the aforementioned commercial brands, many users of the platform have stuck to just calling Musk’s social media Twitter. Whether that’s because of the less generic name, or simply out of habit, who can say.
But when Twitter.new comes online, it’s not difficult to imagine the question “which Twitter?” being commonplace as people adjust. There have already been derivative names for X where users simply replace the letters T and W in Twitter and tweet with X to reflect the owner’s preferred name.
There’s also the question of which platform will people ultimately use. Will it be the blank-slate Twitter or X with all of your post history, bookmarks, followers and followees? As its alternatives like Bluesky and threads have shown, it’s not exactly easy to make users migrate platforms. But we’re still a long way away to that point in time.
(Source: Ars Technica)
