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Twitter testing subscription model code-named Gryphon that will make you pay for features, Jack Dorsey confirms

Dorsey said the company will likely be testing the subscription later this year

Adam Smith
Friday 24 July 2020 09:33 BST
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Twitter's average daily user growth spiked 34% in the second quarter of 2020
Twitter's average daily user growth spiked 34% in the second quarter of 2020

Twitter is looking into a subscription model, CEO Jack Dorsey has confirmed.

The news follows rumours about a paid version of Twitter after a job vacancy at the company was posted for a software engineer to work on a subscription platform codenamed “Gryphon”.

Following media attention, the job application was changed to remove mention of Gryphon.

Dorsey said that the company would likely be testing it this year, but that there was a “really high bar for when we would ask consumers to pay for aspects of Twitter". He did not indicate what those aspects could be.

"We want to make sure any new line of revenue is complementary to our advertising business,“ Mr Dorsey said in an investor call.

"We do think there is a world where subscription is complementary, where commerce is complementary, where helping people manage paywalls ... we think is complementary."

The announcement comes as Twitter is attempting to boost revenue. The Wall Street Journal reports that the company’s advert revenue was flat in its first quarter, and is expected to decline this year.

87 percent of the company’s revenue comes from advertising. In 2019, its annual revenue was $3.46 billion, but the company only reported a profit for the first time in 2018.

An anonymous source speaking to the Wall Street Journal also said that Twitter is exploring a range of options that would be additions to its advertising business rather than replace it completely.

Such a move comes after the biggest security incident in Twitter’s history, when the accounts of high-profile, verified users including Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Kanye West, and Jeff Bezos, were taken over to promote a Bitcoin scam.

The breach happened after employees with access to internal systems that could take over the accounts were paid by the hackers. “[We] used a rep that literally done all the work for us,” the hackers said.

“We feel terrible about the security incident,” Dorsey said. “Security doesn't have an end point. It's a constant iteration ... We will continue to go above and beyond here as we continue to secure our systems and as we continue to work with external firms and law enforcement.”

The breach has meant that Twitter’s new API, which would expand how third-party services can use the social media company’s network data, has been postponed.

The API contributes 15 percent of Twitter’s revenue, and is growing faster than advert revenue, but the company has pushed back its release saying the launch “no longer made sense or felt right” following the breach.

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