Twitter Is Considering A Subscription Model Through “TweetDeck” For $19.99

The social network is toying with paid subscription through TweetDeck

Source

Twitter might be rolling out a premium version of their micro-blogging service for businesses and power users in the near future, creating the possibility of a paid subscription model for the social media site for the first time since its inception 11 years ago. For most users, the 140-character social media service will remain free.
 

Premium Version For Brands And Celebrities

The social network is toying with paid subscription through TweetDeck, their long-neglected desktop client, with select users being surveyed on the idea. The proposed premium version would provide its users with details analytics, an easier way to schedule tweets, and alerts on trending topics, amongst other upgrades which would best serve brands and celebrities looking to get the most out of their tweeting experience.

Source

In response to the news, the company had this to say: “We regularly conduct user research to gather feedback about people’s Twitter experience and to better inform our product investment decisions, and we’re exploring several ways to make Tweetdeck even more valuable for professionals.”

The news, ironically broken on Twitter itself by journalist Andrew Tavani, comes after several years of Twitter’s disappointing user growth. When Twitter and Facebook were still in their infancy, it was predicted that Twitter would eventually overtake Facebook’s then-larger number of users. Facebook, however, has emerged victorious with close to 2 billion users worldwide, compared to Twitter’s 319 million.
 

Additional Revenue Stream For Twitter

Although Twitter’s user base is nothing to scoff at, the company has failed to draw the advertising numbers needed to turn a profit, despite the constant attention it gets from other media outlets, thanks to its many celebrity users like President Donald Trump. A premium service would offer Twitter an additional form of income, cash flow that the company desperately needs in the face of a projected decline in advertising revenue – according to a study by eMarketer, they expect Twitter’s advertising revenue to fall from US$1.21 billion in 2016 to US$1.15 this year.

Source

What Happened To Twitter?

One, though, has to ask why Twitter is facing these problems. For a company that is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to breaking news, cultural movements, and advocacy of freedoms, they have struggled to turn that into something that grows its base.

Twitter is in a comfortable position with its sizable base of devoted users who swear by it, the social media platform has had a problem with onboarding newer ones. Problems like a lack of compelling accounts to follow, the difficulty accounts face to gain traction against established ones, and the inability to edit tweets despite being in the works since early 2016, finds Twitter’s would-be users migrating to other easier platforms.

While creating a secondary source of revenue might ease Twitter’s cash flow problems, but the social media platform has bigger issues at hand that they just can’t seem to solve. And until they do so, the company will constantly be in a perilous position.