The chicken is lifeless, however zombie Twitter isn’t. Since Elon Musk purchased Twitter, the platform has survived rate-limiting, huge employees cuts, suspensions of journalists, hemorrhaging ad dollars, exorbitant API price hikes, and a frenzy of new competitors. This week it survived changing into not Twitter, as the positioning all of a sudden rebranded to X.

During its first week, X staggered alongside. It was nonetheless a spot the place sports activities followers chatted about baseball lineups and the Women’s World Cup. It was the venue the place video from a US congressional listening to on UFOs trended, and the place individuals speculated about what induced US senator Mitch McConnell to freeze mid press convention.

Unions, in the meantime, used it for organizing, with SAG-AFTRA, which represents performers and broadcasters, posting photos as members went on strike. The Teamsters celebrated profitable a historic contract for UPS employees. Trolls trolled—typically about Twitter now being referred to as X. As entrepreneurs and journalists debated the consequences of the title change, and tweeters (x-ers?) eulogized the chicken, the posts continued. In the months since Musk purchased the platform, Twitter has proved one way or the other irreplaceable—even in its battered state.

“There is nothing else that exists like it,” says Matthew Quint, director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership at Columbia Business School. Despite apparently being renamed to serve the pursuits of its proprietor, X nonetheless “serves a purpose as a tool.” Twitter was a go-to supply for information, politics, sports activities, and leisure—together with misinformation and hate speech. In current months, the platform’s points have gotten worse whereas tech glitches have additionally arisen. People have greater than as soon as gathered to reminisce and mourn the demise of Twitter. But every new day, it’s nonetheless there. And regardless of the frustrations, individuals maintain logging in.

Some, like Joseph Solano, a sports activities content material creator often known as JoezMcfly to those that observe his reactions to the New York Yankees baseball workforce, are uncertain how the rebrand will have an effect on them or their communities. Twitter replacements like Threads, he says, aren’t nearly as good proper now for real-time evaluation and information—the crux of sports activities Twitter. “It is the quickest way to get news, currently,” Solano says, and that velocity is essential. Sure, he additionally streams on Twitch and makes YouTube movies and podcasts, however these don’t present the immediacy of X. “I just don’t know what’s going to replace it.”

The imaginative and prescient is to make X an AI-powered everything app—not only a platform for microblogging, however a house to messaging, funds, and a “global marketplace.” It’s a protracted shot, at finest. Some nations and areas have already got every little thing apps—WeChat in China, Gojek in Indonesia. But it’s not clear that the super-app concept has international attraction, significantly when these apps are constructed round individuals coming into their monetary info. And constructing out such an app will likely be a behemoth process.

While some customers will keep loyal to X, the rebrand doesn’t resolve what is probably the platform’s most urgent menace: misplaced advert {dollars} and a finances disaster. Lax moderation has induced advertisers to ditch X, and Meta-backed competitor Threads is setting itself up as an interesting choice for brands. But wooing advertisers would require greater than only a brand swap. “All that’s effectively happened is the logo has changed and driven people to talk about it,” Quint says. Visits to twitter.com and x.com spiked Monday because the rebrand started, in accordance with SimilarWeb, which tracks web site visitors.