A monthly subscription service that enables you to modify your Tweets and now includes a blue “confirmed” checkmark next to your name, while not confirming the identities of members, will soon be available at a “higher priced” ad-free version, according to Twitter CEO Elon Musk. Joy.
The Verge’s Alex Heath stated in his Command Line newsletter that Blue’s low subscriber base and the social media company’s 40 percent reduction in advertising income may have prompted this move. How much will it be, and when will it be available? It’s completely beyond our ken. If you look at the sequence of tweets below, you’ll find that Musk isn’t exactly generous with that particular piece of information.
This report follows Twitter’s decision to prohibit the use of third-party applications and subsequent attempt to brush the matter under the proverbial rug. Twitter, in typical fashion, made the change without informing anyone, abruptly blocking access to third-party apps, then days later issued a statement claiming the change was made in order to “enforce long-standing API rules,” and finally, days after that, retroactively issued new rules that banned those apps. It was a complete surprise to users, and as a result, popular Twitter clients like Tweetbot and Twitterrific were rendered useless. Analysts speculated that this shift happened because sponsored Twitter adverts are seldom seen in third-party applications.
Musk also mentioned the upcoming change to Twitter that would “stop switching you back to suggested tweets” in his tweets. Do you think this revision will ever be released to the public? I don’t know. Just last month, Twitter added a toggle that let users choose their preferred timeline view. When the social network firm introduced a swiping interface, however, this choice was removed. Everything is changing so quickly, and I’m not sure whether I like it. Can Twitter salvage itself by making too many promises? Likely.
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