Twitter Blue is back!
After weeks of testing, Twitter has relaunched its paid subscription service.
Twitter Blue is Twitter's new paid subscription service, offering access to a range of features such as Edit Tweet. It's priced at 8 USD a month or 84 USD a year, but those using iOS devices will have to pay 11 USD a month or 132 USD a year.
You're surely asking yourself, why is the price higher on an iOS device?
The reason is that they've figured Apple's 30% tax on in-app purchases will cut the profits too much, so instead of trying to find an alternate system, Twitter will try to offset this tax by raising the prices for iOS users.
According to Twitter's official page, the features included in Twitter Blue will be:
- Edit Tweet: This is one the most highly requested features. It offers a 30 minute window to make a limited amount of changes to published Tweets. Among these edits, you can tag someone or change the order of the media elements that were embedded. Currently, it's only available for original and quote Tweets.
- Bookmark folders: These allow subscribers to group and organize Tweets marked as saved, for faster access later.
- Personalized app icons: You can change the way the Twitter app icon looks in your phone. Choose between different color options. Check your settings often for new limited-time options.
- NFT profile pictures: NFTs are one of many options available for customizing your Twitter profile. After a brief connection to your crypto wallet, you can set up an NFT as your profile picture, and its displayed in a special hexagon shape that identifies you as the owner.
Themes: Change up your app's look by choosing between colorful options.
Reader: Tap the Reader icon on top of a thread to create a nicer reading experience or change the text size.
Undo Tweet: You can retract a Tweet after sending it, before it’s visible on Twitter, for a short period of time. This is not an edit button, but a chance to review your Tweet before it’s out there for everyone to see. Once this period is over, the Tweet is visible and you can either leave it or delete it, like you normally would.
Longer video upload: Upload videos up to ~60 minutes long up to 2GB file size (1080p) (web only).
- Longer Tweets: Longer Tweets allow subscribers to Tweet up to 4,000 characters, including in a Quote Tweet or reply, and features like posting media, creating polls, and hashtags. Everyone will be able to read longer Tweets, but only Blue subscribers can create them.
These are some of the new functionalities users have been requesting for a long time, and they're finally here. At the same time, other updates are on the way, including Custom navigation, Spaces Tab, Top articles, Prioritized rankings in conversations and Half ads.
According to Social Media Today, the company's main challenge is getting users on board and making them subscribe. "If they can get two million subscribers for this updated Blue service, it'd be a great achievement, and reaching 10 million would be an even greater one. However, they'd still be far, far off from hitting their target numbers".
