Why is Twitter becoming X and should you move to Threads or Bluesky?

为什么 Twitter 会变成 X，你应该转向 Threads 或者 Bluesky吗？

Elon Musk is once more
plunging
Twitter into
turmoil
, this time by changing its very identity

埃隆•马斯克(Elon Musk)再次让Twitter陷入混乱，这一次是通过改变它自己的名字。

Nine months after buying Twitter for $44 billion, Elon Musk has decided to rebrand the platform. The name Twitter will be gone, as will its iconic bird logo. In their place, Musk is planning on renaming the platform X.
在以440亿美元收购 Twitter 9个月后，埃隆•马斯克(Elon Musk)决定重塑 Twitter 平台的品牌。Twitter 这个名字将不复存在，其标志性的鸟类标志也将不复存在。取而代之的是，马斯克正计划将平台 X 重新命名。

Why X? 为什么是 X？

That is known only by Musk himself, but he does
have a fascination with
the letter. It seems to have begun with X.com, the
online payments company
Musk launched in 1999 and
made his fortune
from after
merging
with PayPal. Since then, he has gone on to launch SpaceX, while his electric vehicle company Tesla sells the Model X car, he named one of his sons X Æ A-12 and he recently launched an artificial intelligence
venture
, xAI.

这只有马斯克自己知道，但他确实对这封信很着迷。这一切似乎始于1999年马斯克创立的在线支付公司 X.com，他与 PayPal 合并后大赚了一笔。从那以后，他继续推出 SpaceX，而他的电动汽车公司特斯拉销售 Model X 汽车，他给他的一个儿子取名为 X Æ A-12，他最近推出了一个人工智能企业，xAI。

What else will change besides the name?
除了名字还有什么会改变？

The logo,
for one thing
: Musk held a
crowdsourced
competition to replace the Twitter bird logo with a new one. The winner was Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt, who offered Musk a logo previously designed for a now-
discontinued
podcast. And this
new lick of paint
is just the beginning, if Musk and the company’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, are to be believed.

这个标志，一方面: 马斯克举办了一个众包竞赛，用一个新的标志取代 Twitter 上的小鸟标志。特斯拉投资者索耶 · 梅里特(Sawyer Merritt)获胜，他为马斯克提供了一个此前为现已停播的播客设计的标志。如果马斯克和公司首席执行官琳达 · 亚卡里诺(Linda Yaccarino)的话可信的话，那么这次重新命名只是个开始。

Yaccarino tweeted (or should that now be “xed”?) that “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.”

Yaccarino 在推特上说(或者现在应该是“ x”?)“ X 是未来无限互动的状态——以音频、视频、信息、支付/银行业务为中心——创造一个全球性的思想、商品、服务和机会市场。由人工智能驱动，X 将以我们刚刚开始想象的方式把我们连接起来。”
What that actually means is difficult to
discern
. It could be a nod to Musk’s
longstanding
plans to develop an “everything app”
in the manner of
China’s WeChat – something Musk said back in October 2022 his purchase of Twitter was an “
accelerant
” for.

这句话的实际意思很难理解。这可能是对马斯克以中国微信的方式开发“一切应用”的长期计划的认可——马斯克在2022年10月曾表示，他收购 Twitter 是一个“催化剂”。
But observers are unimpressed. “By claiming that X will be the platform that can deliver everything, [Yaccarino] is forgetting that the internet exists,” says Steven Buckley at City, University of London. “The internet is the platform for everything.”

但观察人士对此不以为然。伦敦城市大学(City)的史蒂文•巴克利(Steven Buckley)表示: “声称 X 将成为能够提供一切服务的平台，(亚卡里诺)忘记了互联网的存在。”。“互联网是一切的平台。”

Will this plan work?
这个计划行得通吗？

Probably not. Everything apps, popular in China, involve giving access to large parts of your life to the people running them. The past few months of
chaos
under Musk may put off some
sceptics
from allowing the
entrepreneur
’s firm to access their bank accounts.

也许不会。在中国流行的所有应用程序都涉及到让运行它们的人能够访问你生活的大部分内容。在马斯克领导下的过去几个月的混乱局面，可能会让一些怀疑论者不再允许这位企业家的公司进入他们的银行账户。
For that reason
, Musk will be relying on the rate of new arrivals to X
outpacing
those abandoning ship. “If Twitter management is hoping to attract new people to the platform, they hope they are enough to replace the ones they continue to lose and
alienate
,” says Om Malik, a
prominent
tech investor.

出于这个原因，马斯克将依赖新船到达的速度超过弃船的速度。著名科技投资者奥姆•马利克(Om Malik)表示: “如果 Twitter 管理层希望吸引新人加入该平台，他们希望这些人足以取代那些他们继续失去和疏远的人。”。

So should I move to Threads instead?
那么我应该转移到 Threads 吗？

Meta’s Twitter-alike app, launched earlier this month, would appear to be the most secure
lifeboat
for those looking to escape Twitter (or X)
in the long run
. It is backed by Mark Zuckerberg’s massive tech company, and has
built-in integrations
with Instagram. The team behind it has promised more features in the coming weeks and months to compete with Twitter.

Meta 本月早些时候推出的类似 Twitter 的应用程序，似乎是那些希望长期逃离 Twitter (或 X)的人最安全的救生艇。它得到了马克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)庞大科技公司的支持，并与 Instagram 进行了内置集成。开发团队承诺在接下来的几个星期和几个月里将推出更多功能来与 Twitter 竞争。

What about Bluesky? 那蓝天呢？

The
decentralised alternative to
Twitter, started by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, has its own
issues
, including
content moderation snafus
. In terms of users, it has largely been
overtaken
by Threads, which was able to
tap into
Instagram’s existing network to reach 100 million users in just five days. Bluesky is still an invite-only app, and
as such
is growing far slower, with around 350,000 reported users.

Twitter 的分散式替代品，由 Twitter 前 CEO Jack Dorsey 创立，有它自己的问题，包括内容管理混乱。在用户方面，它已经被 Threads 超越，后者能够利用 Instagram 现有的网络，在短短五天内就达到1亿用户。Bluesky 仍然是一个只接受邀请的应用程序，因此增长速度要慢得多，大约有35万报告用户。

Are there any other alternatives?
还有其他选择吗？

An entire
cavalcade
of competitors has
popped up
to try and
capitalise on
Twitter’s
travails
. Mastodon was one early alternative, but remains
the preserve of tech adherents
, while Post.Social, Spill, T2 and others
make up the pack
.

一大批竞争对手纷纷涌现，试图从 Twitter 的困境中获利。
Mastodon
是一个早期的替代品，但仍然是科技信徒的专利，而
Post.Social, Spill, T2
和其他组成一队。
But this is the
nub
of the problem: at present, there isn’t really a direct alternative to Twitter with all the features users love. Whether they care to
stick around
on X remains to be seen.

但是这就是问题的症结所在: 目前，还没有一个真正能够直接替代 Twitter 的网站，拥有用户喜欢的所有功能。他们是否愿意留在 X 星上还有待观察。

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