X taking away Twitter handles

X, formerly called Twitter, has taken away many handles to the dismay of its long-time users. Some of the handles that are knows to have been taken away are below:

@x

@twittermusic

@twittersports

@twittermovies

@twittertv

@music

@sports

@tv

@movies

Sarah Bregel writes in details on Fast Company here. Mashable writes about it here.

Twitter rebranded to X

Elon Musk has rebranded Twitter, replacing its iconic blue bird logo with a white X as part of his efforts to transform the platform into a super-app offering messaging, payments, and more.

Elon Musk tweeted a day ago saying the X.com now redirects to twitter.com and hinting that a new logo is on the way.

X.com now points to twitter.com.

Interim X logo goes live later today.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023

Musk aims to create a global marketplace centered around audio, video, and messaging. The logo change was met with criticism and nostalgia. Since Musk acquired Twitter, the advertising business has declined, leading him to explore building a subscriber base for new revenue. The platform has faced technical issues and user backlash due to changes in content moderation and the return of banned accounts. Follow this link for an article from MSN.

Threads launched by Meta Platforms

Meta Platforms launched a new social media platform titled Threads. The new platform is closely linked with Instagram but unlike Instagram it is more focused towards text-based posts. This makes it functionally similar to Twitter and has been referred to as the "Twitter killer" in some circles.

Posts on Threads can be 500 characters long and can contain photos, links and videos (up to 5 minutes length). Twitter which started with 140-character limit in 2006, currently provides 280-character limit for posts. At this point the platform is available as mobile apps for Android and iOS only.

This screenshot shows how the profile page looks like the on the Android app.

The announcement from Instagram is here.

Facebook's press release about the launch is here.

Elon Musk becomes Twitter’s largest shareholder

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright  Per Bloomberg data, Musk’s 9.2 per cent Twitter stake would make him the largest shareholder in the company. Notably it’s more than quadruple the 2.25 per cent position of founder Jack Dorsey.

https://www.ft.com/content/29b9c884-02d7-4d1c-a4ab-c862242fa76e

Twitter's Music app retired

Twitter permanently pulled down its Music app from the app stores. This was posted on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/Music/status/447136704462209025