Twitter/X rival T2 rebrands as ‘Pebble,’ saying the previous title was by no means meant to be everlasting

An X challenger didn’t disguise its ambitions to tackle the social community previously generally known as Twitter when it dubbed itself T2 at launch, however now that title — one which signifies a need to construct a Twitter clone — is not any extra. The corporate introduced on its platform that the would-be X rival will now be referred to as “Pebble.”

The reasoning behind the title change was defined in a brief message offered to Pebble customers:

“A pebble is one thing small and unassuming. It may be tossed into the huge ocean like a tiny message despatched out into the world. Every has its personal distinctive character. Some are spherical and pleasant. Some have edges to them. They make ripples that develop ever outward and alter the character of the ocean itself. As they gather onshore, they create a spectacular seashore the place individuals can collect and admire the view. It’s a spot we will go to and share concepts in occasions of pleasure, disappointment, concern, and celebration.”

The social community mentioned it by no means supposed the title T2 to be everlasting as they discovered it “too by-product and a bit uninspired,” the message additionally acknowledged. And once they discovered the Icelandic top-level area .is, they realized they might make a reference to their group by naming the location pebble.is.

Meaning T2 usernames may also replicate this rebranding, within the format of pebble.is/[username].

Along with the rebrand, Pebble has a brand new look that options its Pebble brand and a brand new “Concepts” that provides put up concepts primarily based on what you’ve been chatting about, your bio and who you observe. You possibly can dismiss any suggestion by tapping “ignore” to skip it.

Picture Credit: Pebble

Regardless of the renaming, Pebble has already cloned lots of Twitter’s former options within the months since its debut, together with the traditional verification checkmark — even giving individuals their “legacy” verification again — in addition to different options like quote posts, DMs, and its personal For You feed. Surprisingly, this has differentiated the community from different Twitter/X rivals like Mastodon and Bluesky, as the previous doesn’t supply quotes or the identical form of non-public DMs that Twitter as soon as boasted, and the latter doesn’t supply DMs in any respect.

Based by Gabor Cselle, who offered his prior corporations to Twitter and Google, and Sarah Oh, Twitter’s former human rights advisor, Pebble is backed by $1.1 million in funding. The funds are from a bunch of angels that features Bradley Horowitz, Wealthy Miner and the previous CEO of Wikipedia, Katherine Mah.