Twitter Inc. on Saturday launched a subscription service for its social media platform for $8 a month that includes the blue checkmark badge, offering an updated version on Apple’s App Store.
In an update for Apple’s iOS devices, Twitter said those who “subscribe now” can receive the coveted blue checkmark next to their usernames, “just like the celebrities, businesses and politicians you already follow.”
You may also be interested in:
A blue check mark next to a person’s username means that Twitter has confirmed that the account belongs to the person or company claiming it.
According to the iOS notification, other advantages of the update are “half ads”, the ability to post longer videos on Twitter and the priority ranking of quality content.
Twitter’s new boss, Elon Musk, pointed to the new service earlier this week in his push to monetize the social network and make it less dependent on ads. Currently, Twitter is free for most users.
Twitter’s update said the new verified service will be available in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
“As soon as we confirm that it works well in the initial set of countries and have the translation work done, it will be rolled out worldwide,” Musk said in a tweet on Saturday.
However, according to a Saturday tweet from Twitter’s early-stage product executive, Esther Crawford, the new Twitter Blue service is available but has yet to be launched.
“The new Blue is not yet underway: the sprint to our launch continues, but some may see us making updates because we are testing and pushing the changes in real time,” he said in a tweet.
Earlier this week, Crawford went viral after retweeting a photo of herself sleeping on the floor of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters office following Musk’s inauguration.
“When your team is pushing all day to meet deadlines, sometimes #DuermesDondeTrabajas.”
Follow us on
