SAN FRANCISCO, May 29 — Will Twitter end up becoming a paid service? It seems to be on that track. The social network has indirectly confirmed the launch of Twitter Blue, a paid service billed at US$2.99 (RM12.36) per month.

The subscription will give users access to exclusive services such as the ability to cancel a tweet published in haste.

Could this be the beginning of social networks that charge users a fee? For the past few weeks, Twitter has been announcing new features and other options to improve the user experience on its platform.

Now engineer Jane Manchun Wong, who is known for spotting new developments at Twitter, has revealed the launch of Twitter Blue, a paid service integrated into the platform: “For testing, I”ve become the first paying Twitter Blue customer. Twitter Blue comes with Colour Themes as well as custom App Icons. Reader Mode coming soon.”

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This new mode can also be seen in the description of the application on the Apple download platform where it mentions “In-App Purchases: 1. Twitter Blue US$2.99” has been added.

According to the information revealed by Jane Manchun Wong, “Twitter Blue” will give access to exclusive services such as the ability to cancel the publication of a tweet in the first few seconds after publishing it with “Undo tweets.” But there doesn’t seem to be an option for modifying a tweet after its publication, a feature widely requested by users of the platform.

The subscription will also provide a “Reader mode” that allows the user to read a “thread,” these successive series of tweets that tell a story that doesn’t fit in just 280 characters.

For organising their feed, Twitter has obviously looked into bookmarks with the “Bookmark Collections” tool that will help users sort and save tweets in different folders. A new option that could be very useful for brands and influencers.

Users who would like to subscribe to this Twitter Blue subscription will also be able to choose to change the colour of the platform.

In the web version, a user can already change the colour of their profile theme, but these changes do not affect the rest of the platform.

While Twitter has not yet confirmed how it works, this option could allow a subscriber to change the entire theme of the social network by customising it according to their tastes.

As for customisation, Twitter Blue could also allow you to choose the colour of the application’s icon from among eight colours.

Twitter counts nearly 200 million active users per day; if the platform manages to convince a good number of these users to sign up for the Twitter Blue paid subscription, the service could easily become profitable. — ETX Studio