Twitter Blue will cost $ 2.99 per month and will provide access to exclusive tools, including the ability to “undo” a post before it goes public.
Twitter unveiled its long-awaited subscription service, which offers paying customers exclusive features to rescind tweets and organize posts. It is part of a drive to ease the social network’s dependency on ad revenue.
The product, which is called Twitter Blue, will cost $ 2.99 per month and will allow access to tools, including the ability to “undo” a post before it goes public, organize tweets into folders, and more easily read threads. tweets. Subscribers will also get faster service for customer care claims, will be able to choose from new app colors, and will be able to modify the Twitter app icon on iOS devices.
The subscription model could help Twitter diversify its business at a time when the pandemic has highlighted the risks of a heavy reliance on digital advertising. The company derives more than 85% of its revenue from advertising, with the remainder coming from its data licensing business. In the second quarter of last year, when the pandemic triggered shutdowns around the world and cancellation of events, Twitter sales fell 19%. Twitter Blue could provide a more consistent, albeit smaller, revenue stream.
The suite of products was offered to the most prolific of Twitter’s 200 million daily users, including journalists, social media administrators and those who use the site as their primary source for news, said Sara Beykpour, product leader in charge of subscriptions.
San Francisco-based Twitter has considered selling subscriptions for years, but so far hasn’t gone beyond internal testing and investigations. The service will only be available in Canada and Australia at launch, but Twitter plans to expand to other markets soon, Beykpour said.
With the new service, users will be able to view long threads in read mode, which displays multiple tweets as if they were a longer form of content without share buttons.
Beykpour says the ‘undo-submit’ feature “will help in some use cases as an edit button,” for typos, adding that the company wants to “start here and get feedback” before considering other options.
Eventually, Twitter would like to expand the subscription service to include more features or benefits, and the company is investigating additional products, Beykpour said. TweetDeck, a free service that allows users to manage multiple feeds, could move to a “freemium” model, he said, which would mean offering the basic service for free while charging for premium features or access.
Follow the news of El Espectador on Google NewsBloomberg previously reported on some of Twitter’s subscription plans, and researcher Jane Manchun Wong discovered and tweeted about other details.
The company is creating other subscription and payment products that will allow popular users to earn money from their social media accounts. In recent months, Twitter announced some tools for creators, including a tip feature that allows users to donate to people they follow, and a ticketing product so that people can charge for access to audio rooms. Live application, called Spaces.
The additions could help Twitter compete with other social networks like Facebook Inc., Google’s YouTube, and Snap Inc.’s Snapchat, which are also looking to lure creators with new money-making products.
