The new Twitter Blue is here. After plenty of teasing from Elon Musk and unraveling details over the past week and change, the revamped premium version of Twitter is now available to all users… as long as they have iOS devices.
As of now, you can only subscribe to the new Twitter Blue through the iOS app, but assuming you do, you’ll get one of the most anticipated new features in the platform’s history: a blue checkmark. Musk has decided to no longer hand out verified badges to select public figures and organizations, instead giving one to each paying subscriber of Twitter Blue. It’s in an effort to mitigate the amount of bots on the platform and promote the reach of real human beings.
Of course, this presents a problem for previously verified users since any random person can now have a blue checkmark. Twitter started testing a second verified badge on a select few profiles earlier today, but Musk killed it soon afterward as he believes “Blue check will be the great leveler.”
Blue now costs $7.99 per month, up from $4.99, and Musk plans to justify the price hike with a few other new features as well. In addition to existing features like an edit button and “Undo” feature to help catch typos in tweets, Blue will also reduce the amount of ads that you’ll see, prioritize interactions you have on the platform, and give you the ability to upload longer videos. All of those features haven’t arrived just yet, but they will in the near future.
If you’re an existing Twitter Blue subscriber, you may need to cancel your current subscription in order to upgrade to the new Blue. In a support note, the company clarifies that only those who subscribe to Blue on or after November 9th, 2022 will get the new experience, and subscriptions have to be processed through the iOS app. It’s unclear when Blue will arrive on Android, the web, and other platforms.
As a final note, Twitter says the $7.99/month price is a “Limited time offer” on the splash screen, so expect it to go up in price… eventually.
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