Twitter Planning to Test Subscription Models This Year

[MacRumors]

Following a drop in ad revenue, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey today told analysts that the social media company is exploring additional ways to make money, which could include some kind of subscription service.

According to CNN, Dorsey said Twitter is likely planning some tests this year of different approaches, but there is a "a really high bar" for when Twitter would ask customers to "pay for aspects of Twitter." The comments were made as part of Twitter's second quarter earnings report.

Twitter is in the "very, very early phases" of exploring different options, and the comments come following a Twitter job opening earlier this month that sought someone to work on a subscription platform codenamed "Gryphon."

Like most other social networks, Twitter is a free service that currently makes money from ad revenue, but Dorsey said there "is a world" where Twitter could also have a complementary subscription service.

"We want to make sure any new line of revenue is complementary to our advertising business," Dorsey said. "We do think there is a world where subscription is complementary, where commerce is complementary, where helping people manage paywalls ... we think is complementary."

Spending on advertising has dropped amid the ongoing public health crisis, which has impacted social networks and other services and sites that rely on ad revenue. Twitter's second quarter ad revenues came in at $562 million, down 23 percent from Q2 2019.

Twitter's earnings report comes following the major Twitter hack last week that saw bitcoin scammers manipulating Twitter employees to gain access to Twitter's internal systems. The scammers were able to access the accounts of many high-profile companies and individuals, including Apple, and Twitter is still working on managing the aftermath of that attack.

Article Link: Twitter Planning to Test Subscription Models This Year

 

[badatusernames]

For those folks that would use it kudos to them. I personally, started using Twitter way less in the last couple of months.

 

[Stevez67]

A Twitter subscription? Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha

 

[Vin2015]

The best thing Twitter could do is Close Down, that app is a cesspool. I can't believe that something like 70% of the population actually get their news from it.

 

[adamjackson]

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/03/24/twitter-paid-subscription-tier/

Never happened but it'd be nice. I wanted to pay Twitter 10 years ago for their service so long as it was ad-free and supported a better quality of service but it's been proven that social networks fail when they charge for it.

 

[Sethal]

Man, they'll try to monetize anything with subscriptions these days.

 

[dannyyankou]

The best thing Twitter could do is Close Down, that app is a cesspool. I can't believe that something like 70% of the population actually get their news from it.

It's only a cesspool if you allow it to become one. You control which accounts are on your timeline.

 

[idmean]

An edit button subscription maybe?

 

[iReality85]

You couldn't pay me enough to use Twitter. I don't know how they'd get me to pay them to use it.

 

[newyorksole]

The best thing Twitter could do is Close Down, that app is a cesspool. I can't believe that something like 70% of the population actually get their news from it.

Why on earth is that surprising? Follow the right accounts and you get accurate/truthful information.

I’ve been on Twitter since 2008 and have been using it consistently since. There’s a lot of bad stuff on every platform.

You have to be able to weed out the false info and have a nicely curated timeline. Twitter Search is actually awesome. I would definitely subscribe to use it. If you hate it then you’re not using it correctly.
[automerge]1595530241[/automerge]

You couldn't pay me enough to use Twitter. I don't know how they'd get me to pay them to use it.

You must not know how to use it or what makes it useful. Twitter isn’t just outrage and Trump tweets.

 

[Cosmosent]

Hey @Jack, it's a Great Idea & it's About Time !

Recommend @twitter structure it so that High-End Content Producers could send High-End Content through Twitter's infrastructure !

In other words, a Sub in which ONLY High-End Content Producers would pay !

NOT Rocket Science, those covering Live Sports would love to send Real-Time / Instant Replays through twitter, etc !

@Apple, @twitter, @Facebook, instagram, etc. have been holding Live Sports back for years !

 

[HiVolt]

It's only a cesspool if you allow it to become one. You control which accounts are on your timeline.

You know its a cesspool even if you don't have an account, because you constantly see evidence of this moron or that moron tweeted a moronic thing.

It's in print media, tv media, online media, etc... Twitter has become a de-facto venue for fake news, or unverified news, and just people's stupid opinions.

 

[NavySilver]

Great idea. Some thought leaders and business school leaders (mostly NYU's professor Galloway) have suggested this for years.

 

[Westside guy]

I occasionally use Twitter - but I can't imagine any reason I'd even consider paying for it.

 

[cocky jeremy]

This should make them 10's of dollars.

 

[kazmac]

If I had to pay for using Twitter, I’d stop using Twitter. Simple as that.

 

[EvilEvil]

End of an era.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

I can definitely imagine this working. Spotify, Pandora, etc, have shown that it's possible to have a service where you get a ton for free with ads, and then allow for people to subscribe to get even more and have all the ads removed.

The paywall comment by CEO Jack is an interesting thing. It makes me think that maybe Twitter is going to launch a competitor to Apple News Plus. I think I'd be willing to pay $5/month to have no ads on Twitter and to never experience a paywall when following a link from Twitter to WSJ/NYT/etc...

 

[dwhittington]

Thank goodness I deleted my account months ago.

 

[JoeShades]

It is funny how easily you can tell who read the article or just the headline by the comments they make

 

[ridddder55]

Maybe that will filter out all the lunatics, and bullies that plague the platform who do so for free. Lets see how many bots will be pay to play?

 

[Agit21]

I'll use Parler instead. Easy solution.

 

[Jack Burton]

I use it to follow artists and developers and it's wonderful for that. But if I stray even a little off of my curated people, it's mad max: fury road in text form.

 

[JoeShades]

It is very easy to mute or block people so the people complaining obviously just like to complain.

 

[konqerror]

It's only a cesspool if you allow it to become one. You control which accounts are on your timeline.

Which is a key cause of the cesspool... the filter bubble. You think it's great, but outside observers who see the totality of arguments see something quite different.