'It’s a grand experiment': Bluebird president on the Twitter revival platform that's now called 'Tweet' — and why it won't be using that blue bird

Twitter is not back, and we'll surely never see the likes of it again.

In its place, we have X, and now, Tweet.app.

You can be forgiven for the confusion.

Many who still use X think their posts are tweets, but the still-pay-to-play platform from Bluebird, Inc. is now called Tweet.

It's a tale far too rich to contain in, say, a classic 140-character tweet, but I'll attempt to unpack it here, with insights from Bluebird, Inc.

President and General Counsel Stephen Coates.

"I call it the 'Tweenix,' " Coates tells me, after I noted that Tweet.app's new blue logo looks a little like a phoenix.

The imagery is apt.

It signifies classic Twitter rising from the ashes, but also Bluebird's initial success and then failure to revive 'Twitter', before ultimately launching Tweet.app a few weeks ago.

Two years ago, Bluebird began the skunkworks project to revive Twitter , a brand Elon Musk effectively killed when he bought Twitter in 2022 and then in 2023 rebranded it to X, leaving vestiges of the old 'Twitter' scattered throughout the services, a fact that played a crucial role in Bluebird's ability to revive the brand.

Coates told me that after his company tried to file for a cancellation of the 'Tweet' and 'Twitter' trademarks in December of last year, X quickly filed a federal injunction.

In the meantime, Bluebird launched Twitter.now.

Months later, the judge ruled that because X still had "formerly Twitter" on the Apple App Store listing, it had brand rights.

Coates called the ruling surprising, but Bluebird quickly pivoted and rebranded to Tweet.