That Elon Musk has accustomed us to daily twists and turns is nothing new and that TwitterBlue it wasn’t even in his plans from the beginning. Yet the odyssey that involved what until a few months ago was the simple premium service of Twitter may have finally found an end. Perhaps.
Twitter Blue, how it all started: from Musk’s ideas to the first controversies
Let’s go in order and try to retrace the last few months.
Earlier this fall, the takeover of Twitter by the richest man in the world: Elon Musk was made official. The sale was long (it lasted several months) and much talked about (Musk even backed down on one occasion), yet it eventually brought the blue canary’s platform into the hands of the one who revolutionized online payment methods and the automotive.
What would have been Musk’s new policy, designed specifically for Twitter, has never been a mystery: even before becoming its owner and CEO, the owner of Tesla had criticized several features of the platformsuch as the inability to edit your tweets, and the old free speech policy which led to the ban of several characters including Donald Trump.
All of Musk’s utterances published in the last year then laid the foundations for what would become the its company policy for Twitter. And the company’s heavy stock market losses and the “real risk of failing” declared by Elon himself, led the new CEO to bet almost everything on a service that was unknown to most: Twitter Blue.
What is Twitter Blue
Before the Musk era, Twitter Blue was the premium service of Twitter only available in some countries: United States, Canada, Australia And New Zeland. For less than $5.00, registered Twitter Blue users enjoyed personalized support, the ability to undo their tweets and see fewer ads on the platform, as well as being able to preview Twitter’s new features.
Already during the summer the old management had decided to raise the price from $2.99/month to $4.99but with the arrival of Musk the price has almost doubled to $8.00also introducing new features that have not really found favor with users.
Elon Musk’s vision for Twitter Blue
In Elon Musk’s ideas, Twitter Blue should represent the lifeline of the platform. But is it really so?
Although the CEO started with the best of intentions, the problems didn’t take long to arrive: in a whirlwind of controversy, subscription increase at $8.00 it sparked more than a bad mood and the declarations regarding the will to expand the package of benefits offered from TwitterBlue.
One for all? The infamous blue tick.
In fact, one of the first announcements concerned the introduction of the colored check for all subscribers, thus making i verified profiles no longer the conquest of an elite made up of celebrities, companies and government organizations, but also of simple users.
And yet, as announced a few lines ago, the troubles certainly did not wait: in the weeks following the announcement of this extension of the blue tick, several fake profiles have registered on Twitter Blue posing as celebrities.
This has certainly greatly complicated the transition from a very simple subscription to a subscription richer in content, especially if we think that Musk had started a unprecedented layoff campaignmaking the platform vulnerable to all kinds of attacks.
And there have been attacks, with pirated movies posted in several threads and crazy delays in reporting. The sudden storm that hit the new leadership led to one stop of Twitter Blue, unleashing rumors and hypotheses.
Yet, to the detriment of the detractors, the shutdown didn’t last long and the latest news not only affirms that Twitter Blue is back, but also presents a different guise from the one Musk had used to us until a few weeks ago.
The new (and perhaps definitive) Twitter Blue according to Elon Musk
The subscription, for most users, has not deviated a cent. Twitter Blue will cost the now canonical $8.00, even if for the iOS users there is a very unpleasant novelty and that we will see later.
Nothing has changed for i as well reference markets, which are currently still the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is not excluded that during the new year the service could also be expanded to other regions of the world, Italy included, but before reaching this goal it is likely that there will be other mountains to climb.
For the moment, the leaked news shows radical changes precisely in obtaining the blue check. After the mockery of many fake profiles subscribed to Twitter Blue and the unmasking of a Twitter fatigue in keeping the user under control, the management seems to have learned from its mistakes, introducing more ways to get the badge.
The most important news
First, only accounts registered on Twitter for at least 90 days will be able to subscribe to Twitter Blue. Also, once registered you will need to enter a verified phone number to be combined with the account in order to get the check on your profile. In this way, according to Musk, the presence of parody accounts will be greatly limited.
Another requirement is that the accounts are equipped with name and profile picture and that they are active, i.e. that they have published something in the previous 30 days. Last, but not least, is that the profiles are not parody or fake, so that they do not pretend to be celebrities or famous organizations.
Furthermore, if the user decides in the future to change his name or profile photo, we will see automatically suspend the blue tick until the platform has verified that everything complies with the new standards. Once the verification is complete, the user will get the badge back.
And speaking of colored checks, Musk has announced that only the blue badge will no longer exist, but new ones will be introduced: one gold is one grey.
There golden tick will be the prerogative of companieswhile that gray of government bodies and/or authorities. The Twitter account itself, on Twitter, is a prime example of this.
What about the accounts that already had a blue check or that had subscribed to the new Twitter Blue in early November? For them, Musk was rather lapidary, not giving discounts. Anyone who wants to keep the blue check will have to subscribe to Twitter Blue or renew the subscription according to the new rules of the platform.
Twitter Blue’s other features weighed by Elon Musk
Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to enjoy old advantages such as: canceling tweets, seeing fewer ads and having dedicated assistance, but there are also interesting news. In addition to seeing the replies to other people’s tweets be shown first, they will be able to upload longer videos than allowed (we are talking about 10 minutes) at a higher quality (1080 p.). They will also be able to customize the colors of their profile and the app icon thanks to dedicated themes that allow you to add your favorite colors.
Another novelty that Musk had already launched in recent months is that Twitter Blue subscribers will no longer have limits to write their tweets. Thanks to Community Notes they will have 4,000 characters available, against the canonical 450.
Finally, subscribers will also be able to preview the news of the Twitter Blue Labs.
If on the one hand Musk and Twitter seem to have taken what could be the right path for Twitter Blue, on the other hand in recent days the controversies between Musk, Apple and iOS users.
Twitter Blue will cost iOS users $11.00 a month
The price, for the android userswill remain at $8.00 a month, while for iPhone owners the price tends to rise by as much as $3, reaching the ceiling $11.00. Why this incongruity?
To understand this, once again we need to take a step back a few days, if not a week. Not long ago, in fact, Musk raised the alarm: the Apple seemed ready to cancel Twitter from your App Store. Hence a series of borderline poisonous tweets that the new CEO had launched at the multinational led by Tim Cookuntil the final hit.
Musk, in a later deleted tweet, claimed to have unmasked Apple, communicating that the multinational imposed a 30% tax on in-app purchases. Well, the exit of the CEO of Twitter is what we would define in Italy as “Pulcinella’s secret“, as it is quite well known that companies like Apple, and for that matter the same Google, receive a certain percentage of in-app purchases.
However, it was Tim Cook himself who handed an olive branch to Musk, inviting him for a meeting at the Cupertino headquarters. And the testimony of the meeting was given by the patron of Space X himself.
Peace made, therefore: Apple never intended to eliminate Twitter from its Store, just as it seems a compromise has also been reached on Twitter Blue. As strange as it may seem, iOS users who will subscribe to the platform through the app they will pay $11.00otherwise, if the registration will be made via the Twitter site, the subscription will cost $8.00.
Will Android smartphone owners also see the price increase in-app?
Android users, as anticipated, can instead breathe a sigh of relief: despite the play store has the same rules as Apple on the taxation of in-app purchases, the Twitter Blue subscription will remain unchanged at $8.00.
The Twitter Blue odyssey seems to have come to an end, at least for this year. But knowing Elon Musk and the twists he has accustomed us to, we are sure that we will hear about the platform for a long time to come.
Twitter Blue and Elon Musk: here are all the most important news