New features are coming for Twitter Blue users that will display 50% fewer advertisements on their timelines and give them a visibility boost.
The change has been a long time coming. CEO Elon Musk has been publicly workshopping the benefits of a subscription model since he took over the company late last year. Back in November, the billionaire tweeted that Twitter Blue subscribers will see half as many ads and will have priority in replies.
“As you scroll, you will see approximately twice as many organic or non-promoted Tweets placed in between promoted Tweets or ads. There may be times when there are more or fewer non-promoted Tweets between promoted Tweets,” the description of the feature says.
The company specified that the new features will only be available to accounts that have been verified officially and received their checkmark.
Basic Blue will have half the number of ads. We will offer a higher tier with no ads next year.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 13, 2022
On top of seeing less advertising, Blue users will have their tweets boosted slightly, giving them more exposure than free users.
Originally, the company said that paid users would receive priority in replies, but that has been changed to “priority in conversations and search.” The company clarifies that if a paid user replies to a tweet they will get a “small boost” to their tweet ranking.
The change in policy over tweet priority and boosting has led to criticism from users concerned over the platform being taken over by those who can afford it. Since Mr. Musk announced that only Twitter Blue users would show up on the “For You” feed, several high-profile users and some businesses have declined to purchase verification.
Despite Mr. Musk and the company heavily pushing the incentives for Twitter Blue, data suggests that fewer than 1% of Twitter users are subscribed to Twitter Blue.
The hard shift to a subscription model for Twitter comes after months of financial trouble for the company after it lost many of its most lucrative advertisers. A February report found that revenue from Twitter’s top 1000 advertisers dropped nearly 60% from October through January, resulting in a loss of nearly $80 million.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
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