Twitter’s New Logos, Rules, and Screenshot Usage

Twitter has updated its logos, and their rules have changed, too. I like their new logo, but this is just another sign that Twitter has lost its simplicity that got them to where they are in the first place. Read more about the new logo here.

New little pieces have been added to their guidelines, including the following:

• Do: Make sure that if mentioning “Tweet,” you include a direct reference to Twitter (for instance, “Tweet with Twitter”) or display the Twitter marks with the mention of “Tweet.”
• Don’t: “Use anything other than the most current versions of the Twitter logos.”
• Don’t: “Use screenshots of other people’s profiles or Tweets without their permission.”

I’m sorry, but I find the first “do” pathetic. It looks like they want us to do something like, “I’m sorry I haven’t Tweeted with Twitter for a long time” instead of something like, “I’m sorry I haven’t tweeted for a long time”. Compare them and decide for yourself if that rule is silly or not.

The first “don’t” seems quite ridiculous at first glance, too, since a lot of blogs and/or websites use either outdated or unofficial Twitter logos linking to their page. It happens very often, and I can see why; there’s a lot of awesome unofficial Twitter logos, birds, and buttons out there much better than the ones provided in their website. However, if you’re one of those blogs, there’s no need to change the logos in your website. Here’s Twitter’s response to the confusion regarding the subject:

The purpose of the update was to provide access to our new resources and to better clarify some guidelines.

We’re encouraging people to use the new marks. It’s okay for them to continue to use the old ones, but we’re hoping people will use the new ones. We said this before too, as this isn’t the first time our marks have changed.

The second “don’t” seems even more ridiculous; for almost every person out there uses screenshots of tweets, whether as evidence or just to show readers what they’re posting about. We also take screenshots of tweets for our posts. Twitter’s response:

This isn’t a new part of the policy and was stated in the guidelines before. This serves primarily to protect users from their tweets being used as endorsements without their knowledge. Public tweets are public. But if you’re going to use tweets in static form (e.g. in a publication), you should have permission from the author/user. For instance, if someone famous were to tweet about liking something and then it was used on a billboard.

This doesn’t apply to broadcast — there are separate display guidelines about that. Our policies also don’t attempt to control the appropriate use of tweets in news reporting.

For news, whether online or print, it’s okay to use screenshots of Tweets. The permission applies more to merchandise, billboards, etc. Users’ rights are key.

Wipe the sweat off your forehead, there’s no need to stop taking screenshots of tweets if you’re a news reporter (or blogger). This rule is mostly targeted to advertisers. Phew!

So except for that one rule (‘Tweet with Twitter’), the rest seem okay. Twitter has been working hard on their website these past few months, I can see them beating Facebook in a few years.

[Official statements via TechCrunch]

What do you think of the new logos/rules? Will you go by them or just keep doing what you do? Leave a comment in the comment section below.