Key Highlights:
- Scroll, a start-up to be acquired by Twitter allowing users to view ad-free content.
- Scroll will be included as a part of Twitter’s forthcoming subscription plans.
- A portion of the generated subscription revenue will go to writers and publishers on Twitter.
Twitter Acquires Scroll
In its latest announcement, Twitter revealed their plans to acquire ad-blocking service ‘Scroll’ to boost their upcoming subscription plans. The subscription offering will incorporate Scroll with its recently acquired newsletter service ‘Revue’. Twitter’s new subscription plan aims to provide a seamless reading experience to its audience while allowing writers and publishers to deliver cleaner content and make more money with their business models. Currently, Scroll provides its services to various publishers including The Verge, USA Today, Buzzfeed, Vox, Rolling Stone, and many others.
Providing subscribers with quality reading experience
Earlier in 2021, Twitter revealed its plan to launch a subscription program for its users. Premium subscribers will be provided with a smooth reading experience through long-form web content by removing unnecessary web clutter and ads that can potentially affect the readers’ experience. Scroll can be used by users to access articles from various news outlets and from Twitter’s own newsletter products such as the recently acquired newsletter product, Revue.
The subscription plan will be implemented in the near future with a nominal cost of $5-per -month as Scroll claims to help its publishers to earn more revenue without ads.
A Step towards Sustainable Journalism
Scroll was convinced to join the social media giant as they share a similar vision of maintaining a sustainable journalism ecosystem. Scroll CEO Tony Haile explained in a blog post the reason for joining twitter:
“For every other platform, journalism is dispensable. If journalism were to disappear tomorrow their business would carry on much as before. Twitter is the only large platform whose success is deeply intertwined with a sustainable journalism ecosystem. Twitter exists to serve the public conversation.”
Following your favourite newsletters
With the acquisition, Twitter will explore ways to provide its users with the option to subscribe to newsletters from their favourite accounts. In its proposed update, powered by Scroll, it was revealed that a user can ‘Super Follow’ a selected number of publishers every month. The user will then have to pay a nominal fee, a part of which gets allocated to the subscribed publishers/creators. In order to subscribe to specific publishers on Twitter, the user has to first follow Twitter through Scroll.
The business model allows Twitter to supplement its advertising revenue with subscription revenue. Twitter plans to add more content in the form of newsletters and audio chats; the payment for which will be done through subscriptions.
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