New stall ad. And again faithful to his style: at the stroke of a tweet, from his personal account and with concise comments in which he outlines the idea without going into details. Elon Musk just advanced Through his Twitter profile, the platform will launch a subscription model that will allow users to get rid of the bombardment of ads. One, of course, with a “higher price”.
Musk’s message, released on Saturday, confirms the company’s plans, but it’s not entirely new. In mid-December 2022, the tycoon already slipped —through the same route and also without reeling off more details— that it planned to offer a subscription level free of advertising throughout 2023. It did not specify dates or costs. Along the same lines, the businessman slipped that the subscribers of the Basic Blue level would see their exposure to advertising reduced by half.
On this occasion, the announcement comes preceded by a confession from the still CEO of the company —a position that he assured that he would leave as soon as a replacement is found—, who has recognized that advertising has considerable weight on the Internet: “Ads are too frequent and too big on Twitter. In the coming weeks we will take steps to address both issues.”
Also, there will be a higher priced subscription that allows zero ads
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2023
Musk’s movement, still to be specified in terms of prices and schedule, connects with two keys who have set the platform adrift over the past few months, ever since it snapped up its reins in the fall for $44,000. The first is the promotion of paid subscriptions, with a firm commitment to Twitter Blue. The second is the loss of advertisers.
The also head of Tesla has promoted the payment model, which among other advantages gives access to verification. As far as advertising is concerned, however, the Twitter website acknowledges that its subscription “does not currently offer an ad-free experience”, although it anticipates that the company is working on the option that allows it to reduce its volume. At the end of last year the platform went a little further and pointed out that Twitter Blue would make it possible to cut exposure in half.
The other key is the “puncture” in advertising. Shortly after the arrival of Musk, important companies, such as General Motors, Mondelez or Audi, announced their intention to pause investment in advertising on the social network while waiting to verify the drift of their new stage. Just a few days ago The Information published that the company’s daily revenues have fallen by 40% compared to a year ago and that 500 relevant advertisers have stopped investing in their ads.
Musk’s latest announcement comes shortly after the company has applied changes to its API (Application Programming Interfaces) policy that prevents its use for the purpose of “creating a substitute, service or product similar to Twitter applications”. The movement has already been collected two important victimsFor now: Tweetbot and Twitterrific, which have already said goodbye to their users. In the case of the firm Tapbots with a message, in addition, in which it takes the opportunity to promote its new tool, heir to Tweetbot: Ivory, designed for Mastodon.
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