[Source: Reuters Business]

Twitter Inc owner Elon Musk signalled he would do more to take the social media company in a new direction with a rebranding that will replace its well-known blue bird logo with an X after acknowledging advertisers have been slow to return.

The change, which was not evident on the website on Sunday afternoon, followed Musk’s recent admission that advertising revenue remains nearly half of what it once was. And Twitter’s cash flow has been negative due to that and its heavy debt load.

The billionaire said in a Sunday post he wanted to change Twitter’s logo and polled his millions of followers on whether they would favour changing the site’s colour scheme from blue to black. He posted a picture of a stylized X against a black outer space-themed background.

Late Sunday afternoon, Twitter’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, tweeted: “It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.”

Under Musk’s tumultuous tenure since he bought Twitter in October, the company has changed its business name to X Corp, reflecting the billionaire’s vision to create a “super app” like China’s WeChat.

In April, Twitter’s legacy blue bird logo was temporarily replaced by Dogecoin’s Shiba Inu dog, helping drive a surge in the cryptocurrency’s market value.

The company came under widespread criticism from users and marketing professionals when Musk announced early this month that Twitter would limit how many tweets per day various accounts can read.

The daily limits helped Meta Platforms-owned (META.O) rival service Threads, which crossed 100 million sign-ups within five days of its July 5 launch.

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