Twitter Blue subscription pricing and features confirmed

By Ewdison Then/

It seems that there is no more delaying Twitter's plans to finally monetize its social network by charging its users for certain features. It has recently revealed the start of Ticketed Spaces that can charge users for access to exclusive audio-only events. Even before Spaces came to be, however, it has long been rumored to be working on a subscription model for certain features. That has been leaked to be called "Twitter Blue" and its details have finally been confirmed by Twitter itself, albeit perhaps a little prematurely.

That Twitter would try to have some paid features isn't exactly surprising and it's one of those things that was just a matter of "when" rather than "if". Of course, it needed to get uses hooked into its network first before charging for wanted features or it might see a mass exodus of users, just like on WhatsApp. And although it's not exactly the "Edit Tweet" feature uses have been demanding for years, Twitter Blue is now confirmed to at least include a compromise.

Jane Manchun Wong, famed for revealing Work-in-Progress (WIP) features of social media networks, already hinted at what Twitter Blue would have. Now she has discovered the iOS app's in-app purchase option that practically spills the bill on the subscription. Twitter Blue is going to cost $2.99 a month and some of its features might not be as exciting as others.

"Undo Tweet" practically gives users a timer before a tweet is published, allowing them to cancel it instead of editing a tweet after the fact. There is also a "Collections" feature which sounds like a better way to organized bookmarked tweets. And then there's "Read Mode" which promises to make reading long discussion threads easier.

Other features that are part of the subscription sound nice but probably not worth the price. That includes being able to change the app's color theme as well as its icon, something that sounds like a basic feature that should be in the app in the first place. With all these details out in the open, all that's really left is for Twitter to actually launch Twitter Blue to see if it will really catch on.

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