Using domains that contain the letter “X” has always been rather cool and against the norm. Maybe due to the political impact of Malcolm X, or the intro to religion, cyberspace, and afterlife by Norman Spinrad and his Deus X novel.
Whatever your drive is to register or acquire domains that consist of the letter X or contain it, the letter is quite versatile in its branding potential. “X” reads as “ex” and unlike its Greek sibling “chi” it’s also Latin for the number 10.
That being said, the ultimate X domain is without doubt X.com. Owned by Elon Musk since 2017, it was resurrected recently via the shocking rebranding of Twitter, a company and brand that was acquired by Musk for a gazillion dollars.
Twitter was designed to deliver short tweets or “chirps” of news as if a bird delivered them. It was restricted to 255 characters and millions of Twitter users were happy with the elements of the service, until it was stretched and expanded beyond its original design’s scope. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has become the end of an era but also the end of a medium.
It would have been easy for Musk’s “genius” to replicate the platform, name it after his son’s partial name, and roll it out with a big fat “X” as the sole logo. Meta did it with Threads, becoming a strong Twitter contender literally overnight.
Instead, Musk has X-terminated Twitter as a brand, its legacy, its “twitter and “tweet” trademarks, and has pretty much wasted a few billion dollars of its valuation overnight.
Domain rebranding does not work like that. Twitter was a social medium that delivered the opportunity to share things with a special meaning, via hashtags and limited use of emojis. It was a platform that held its own against bigger platforms that generated more money.
Forwarding X.com to twitter isn’t going to be a transition for everyone. Musk’s forced “opt-in” of Twitter users to the same platform that has also changed its culture and now its name is the final nail in the app’s and brand’s coffin.
X, after all, will mark the burial spot.
