Twitter Inc will charge $8 for its Blue service, which roughly translates to around Rs. 660 monthly. which includes its sought-after “verified” badge, new boss Elon Musk said on Tuesday, in his push to monetize the service and make the social media network less reliant on ads.
Source- Business Today
Twitter’s current lords and peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month,” Mr. Musk tweeted. “Price adjusted by country is proportional to purchasing power parity,” Mr. Musk said, without telling the method that he used to decide “purchasing power”.
Musk’s comments follow media reports that the Tesla boss was looking at the process of profile verification and how the blue ticks were given out. Twitter use to hand out blue ticks to note-worthy profiles based on its own criteria.
Mr. Musk’s new plan for the verified icon also includes giving genuine users some superpowers. “You will also get: Priority in replies, mentions and search, which is essential to defeat spam/scam. Ability to post long videos and audio. Half as many ads. And paywall bypass for publishers willing to work with us,” Mr Musk, who is also the chief executive of Tesla Motors, tweeted.
Twitter already has a subscription service called Twitter Blue, which was launched in June last year and offers access to features such as an option to edit tweets.
Amid speculations that Twitter may soon start charging verified users a monthly fee of $20 for blue ticks, bestselling author Stephen King tweeted: “If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.”
Source- Rediff
Currently, there are no charges for blue tick. Users just need to fill out a verification form that Twitter offers for all users along with additional documents. Following this, a dedicated verification team at Twitter verifies all details submitted by the user and notifies whether or not the verification is approved.
On Monday, one of the world’s biggest advertising companies, IPG, advised its clients to suspend Twitter adverts for a week, citing a need for more clarity on the Twitter’s plans to ensure “trust and safety” on the platform. IPG is given billions of pounds per year, by some of the world’s biggest brands, to handle their marketing budgets
Musk hasn’t yet announced when the new pricing for blue tick verification will come into effect. Neither has he officially confirmed that all features will be offered under the $8 subscription plan. The billionaire believes that the blue subscription will give the company “a revenue stream to reward content creators.”
Meanwhile, a lot has been happening at Twitter ever since Musk’s takeover. He fired some of the top Twitter executives, including Parag Agrawal, Vijaya Gadde, Ned Segal, and some of the other board members.
