What is Twitter Blue? Memes galore as platform launches subscription service

Twitter is the latest to get into the massive money-making subscription game with Twitter Blue. The social-media giant has officially launched Blue in select countries like Australia and Canada on June 3.

After over five months, on November 9, Twitter has brought Blue subscription to its home country, the USA and New Zealand. At the time of launch, Twitter Blue was only available on iOS devices. However, as of Tuesday, the service was also available on Android devices.

As per a press release by Senior Director of Product Management Sara Beykpour and Staff Product Manager Smita Gupta explained,

“This subscription offering is simply meant to add enhanced and complementary features to the already existing Twitter experience for those who want it.”

What additional features will Twitter Blue have?

It’s time to flex those Twitter fingers and take it to the next level 💪Twitter Blue is now available for subscription in the US, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia on iOS, Android, and web https://t.co/if3wXfoGpB

As mentioned before, the Twitter Blue subscription will have some exclusive features on top of the vanilla Twitter platform. These features include:

Bookmark folders

Bookmark Folders? You got it! Now you can finally put those bookmarks into the folders that you’ve been begging us for https://t.co/Jr2OIijyH9

This new feature will aggregate the content that the user has bookmarked into customizable categories and color labels.

Reader mode

Relax while Reader turns those long Threads into a more beautiful reading experience https://t.co/v5thmTfGcz

Twitter has finally paid heed to its users’ attention span and the readability of Twitter threads. The ‘Reading Mode’ will make the content easy to read and comprehend. Twitter will automatically stitch the tweets of a thread together and add some minor reformatting to boost readability.

Custom navigation panel

Twitter at the speed of light with Custom Navigation - giving you super quick access to the content you care about the most https://t.co/Lf2Ou3mYOf

The Twitter Blue subscription will also allow subscribers to edit the icon list on the navigation panel at the bottom of the app. Users can choose between five more navigation options barring ‘Home,’ which is locked.

The options include:

Top Articles
Spaces
Communities
Notifications
Messages
Bookmarks
Profile
Twitter Blue

new icons for the season, pick your fav https://t.co/pfbrr4hrpY

Other customization options include a customizable app logo on the home screen, as well as colored themes.

Ad-free news reading

Turns out you CAN scroll forever. Support journalism while getting an ad-free reading experience on some US-based publishers’ websites. Look for the “Ad-free with Twitter Blue” label in your timeline. Paywall access not included https://t.co/AmWh7WShXA

The social media giant has partnered with news agencies and publications to offer an ad-free news experience for these particular websites, which can be accessed via Twitter. These publications currently include:

The Washington Post
L.A. Times
USA TODAY
The Atlantic
Reuters
The Daily Beast
Rolling Stone
BuzzFeed
Insider
The Hollywood Reporter

According to Twitter’s press release,

“In continuing our commitment to strengthen and support publishers and a free press, a portion of the revenue from Twitter Blue subscription fees goes directly to publishers within our network.”

They added,

“Our goal is to help each publishing partner make 50% more per person than they would’ve made from serving ads to that person.”

Tweets can finally be deleted (sort of)

With Undo Tweet, you have up to 60 seconds to preview and make changes to your Tweet before it’s public https://t.co/vv3erIPrkH

The most important feature of Twitter Blue is that it perhaps finally gives its subscribers the ability to ‘undo’ Tweets.

However, this comes with a caveat. The tweets can only be deleted within 30-seconds of posting.

Get early access to the features we’re testing with Labs. Right now: Pinned Conversations for your DM inbox on iOS, and longer video uploads up to 10 minutes on web https://t.co/Wfz4iYWMti

Other features include longer video uploads and pinned conversations.

Pricing

The service is available for a monthly fee of $3.49 CAD in Canada or $4.49 AUD in the Australian region. Meanwhile, Twitter Blue is available for $2.99/month in the USA and $4.49/month in New Zealand.

Here’s how Twitteratis reacted to the new service

As expected, Twitter users employed memes to target Twitter while criticizing the paid subscription. Meanwhile, a few praised the platform for introducing the new features.

Twitter vs Twitter Blue. https://t.co/o3wWWYHxB9

“I can’t believe this app is free, I’d pay for Twitter” *Twitter Blue drops* https://t.co/WxYTVcWG3d

Twitter in 2014: “how is this app still free??”Twitter in 2021: “hey everyone here’s Twitter blue”Everyone: https://t.co/daPMLtthv6

With Twitter Blue charging you $3 a month to change your theme color on mobile I’d like to remind you to never forget what they took from you https://t.co/55qUvsw2Ro