Twitter Was Almost Called Smssy (and Almost Looked Awful, Too)

If you've ever thought Twitter was a silly name, be grateful that's what they settled on. During the research for a new book about the site, Nick Bilton has unearthed some of the early name and logo ideas, and they... they aren't pretty.

According to a post on Bilton's blog, the founders of Twitter bounced around plenty of ideas, and most—but not all—of the logos for were created by co-founder Biz Stone. There are some shockers in there. Stone played around with the big green speech bubble (not too bad), as well as a "retro Atari vibe" for a vowelless Twttr (which deserves to be filed in the trash).