Nov 5 (Reuters) – Twitter updated its app on Apple’s App Store on Saturday after Elon Musk began charging $8 for the sought-after blue checkmarks in the social media platform’s first major overhaul.
The change comes a week after Musk took over the social media company in a $44 billion deal. Billionaire entrepreneur and CEO of electric car maker Tesla (TSLA.O) cut the staff in half on Twitter and promised to start charging users more.
In an update to Apple iOS devices, Twitter said that for $7.99 a month, those who “register now” can get a blue tick next to their username, “just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow.”
Before Musk took office, blue checkmarks next to a person’s username indicated that Twitter had verified that the account belonged to the person or company claiming it. It was not immediately clear how or if Twitter plans to verify a user’s identity without requiring payment.
Other benefits of the update include “half off ads,” the ability to post longer videos on Twitter, and priority ranking for quality content, according to the iOS announcement.
Twitter and Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment through Tesla.
The new head of Twitter marked Earlier this week, innovations that pushed to monetize the social media network and make it less dependent on ads. Twitter is currently free for most users.
Twitter’s update confirmed that the new service will be available in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
“It will roll out globally as soon as we confirm it’s working well in the original countries and we’ve done the translation work,” Musk tweeted on Saturday.
Twitter Blue will be available in India “hopefully in less than a month,” Musk tweeted in response to a follower’s question.
In a separate tweet, Musk also added that “fixing search is a top priority” on Twitter.
When one user pointed out that YouTube gives creators 55% of ad revenue, he responded in another tweet, “We can beat that.”
“Twitter will soon add the ability to add long-form text to tweets, ending the absurdity of notepad screenshots. This will be followed by creator monetization for all forms of content,” Musk added in a tweet.
As of Saturday, the Twitter Blue update remained down to the old price of $4.99.
Shortly after the update became available to users, Esther Crawford, Twitter’s executive director of early-stage products, said the new service had not yet gone live.
“New Blue isn’t live yet – our sprint for release is still on, but some people may see us making updates as we test changes in real-time,” he said. tweet.
Earlier this week, Crawford went viral after retweeting a photo of himself sleeping on the office floor at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters following Musk’s takeover.
“When your team is jamming around the clock to meet deadlines, sometimes you’re #SleepingWhereYouWork.”
Additional reporting by Megan Davies; Sneha Bhowmik in Bengaluru; Edited by Daniel Wallis and Ken Lee
Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
