It’s been more than two years since Elon Musk acquired Twitter on April 14, 2022. But only now — as you can see in the lead-in graphic — has Twitter.com started redirecting users to X.com instead. I’ve been logging in via Twitter since I first joined up over a decade ago. But starting today, May 17, X now marks the Twitter spot on the web. The default question shown in the lead-in graphic adds an ironic twist to the whole affair, IMO. I have to chuckle…

If X Now Marks the Twitter Spot, Does It Matter?

I guess this redirect should last some while, so I probably won’t have to train my fingers to type x.com instead of twitter.com right away. But it’s not inconceivable that the switch should encourage people to shift away from the old domain name to the new one, either.

Out of curiosity I checked the market value of Twitter . . . err X, rather . . . this morning. According to Companies Market Cap, it’s worth $41.09B right now. Elon paid $44B for the company, and valued it at $19B on October 30, 2023. Obviously, it’s recovered quite a bit since then. It may not turn out to be the total disaster many feared after all. Time will tell, right?

X Still Stands. But In the Second Rank

According to Statista, X ranks 15th among all social media platforms worldwide. Its user base is far behind the top 5 (Facebook: 3B+, YouTube: 2B+, Instagram: 1B+, WhatsApp: 1B+, and TikTok: 1B+). But somehow, X keeps going and keeps working. I still find it a valuable source of Windows news and info. Indeed it works better for me than any of the preceding top 5 for my particular interests. Obviously, these interests are more specialized than the teeming billions covered en masse in those services!

Here’s a shout-out to Laurent Giret at Thurrott.com, whose X item there this morning alerted me this changeover. Thanks!