If you have ever asked yourself how Twitter could be earning revenue from their highly popular messaging service then the latest developments at Twitter Japan might have an answer for you. The development, which is already making the rounds on various news sites such as Techcrunch, Connected Internet or Telegraph.co.uk, is apparently limited to Japan at this point. A country where Twitter was displaying advertisements ever since its official release.
The concept itself is simple. Twitter account holders can opt for a subscription based model from January 2010 on which would only give subscribed users access to the Twitter messages by that account holder. Subscription fees are said to be between $1.50 and $11.50 per month with an option to pay for the ability to view single messages as well.
Billing options include paying per credit card, using their mobile phone bill or to purchase prepaid tickets. Techcrunch have posted an analysis why this subscription based model makes sense to be implemented in Japan. Among the reasons are that it is common in Japan to pay for premium mobile and Internet contents or the character sets which allow Japanese users to add more text than Western users.
It will definitely be interesting to see how this will turn out. Many details are yet to be revealed including the technical realization of the subscription model.
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Check out: “Misunderstanding”: Twitter Japan Now Says There Won’t Be A Subscription Model (Update)
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/28/misunderstanding-twitter-japan-now-says-there-wont-be-a-subscription/ (techcrunch.com)
I thought Twitter was popular but no one I know uses it and according to Lifehacker it’s not that popular with their readers either. I frankly don’t see them surviving if they start requiring paid subscriptions.
To commemorate the fact that Twitter is NOT going to charge it’s users I have created a Twitter mockup that implements the exact functionality TechCrunch has described. It sells fake Robert Scoble SuperTweets. Have a look here:
http://www.icents.net/demo/faketwitter.html
SuperTweets are tweets up to 420 characters. The mockup charges 1 cent micropayments to show each SuperTweet, and it charges 30 cents micro-subscription to show all of them.
I don’t know if this would work or not if Twitter implemented it, but TC seems to think it might, since this mockup follows exactly the functionality described here: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/27/6-reasons-why-twitter-japans-subscription-model-might-work-in-japan
What do you think??