Sounds like someone is not a fan of Mr Musk. The way I see it: his money (of which he has plenty), his companies, and consequently his decisions.
And given his successful track record, I wouldn't bet against him.
So
apparently a certain purveyor of rockets, tunnels and electric cars is
infatuated with the letter "X" to the point of destroying decades and
billions of dollars in accumulated brand value in renaming Twitter. Most
involved in tech are I'm sure aware of this already.
Why am I posting this to ICANN mailing lists?
To
call attention to the stupidity of confusing domains with brands,
something in which many domain sellers -- mainly speculative domain
re-sellers -- gleefully engage.
Apparently
Mr. Musk seems to believe that acquiring "
X.com" from Facebook -- along
with some cosmetic redesigns -- constitutes a rebranding. Let this
episode be a warning to others who would use a domain as a primary
branding tactic, forgetting that:
- A great number of tech companies have trademarked uses of the letter X
for web services, most notable among them the aforementioned Facebook.
So this is not an issue of Musk being able to bully smaller companies;
- Then
there's Microsoft, which has some such trademarks of its own and
produces an obscure, little-known computing device known as an "XBox";
- Most
people using Unix and Linux for their desktops have been using software
known as "X" for decades (though it is being phased out ... very
slowly).
- Also consider that doing searches for "X" on
the Internet is ikely to find paths to very family-UNfriendly parts of
the web. Consider the American "X" rating given to films before 1990.
Let
this be a cautionary tale, unfolding before us in real time. A domain
name is at best a minor part of branding strategy that must consider
many other factors. Paying a substantial sum for that second-hand domain
will not be the answer to your problems, and may indeed introduce new
problems. And especially beware of domain resellers passing themselves
off as branding experts.
Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
@evanleibovitch / @el56
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