Twitter CEO floats user tipping, exclusive content features
Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey said today that helping users make money from their followers is a key part of the company’s effort to build subscription products and diversify revenue.
“The first thing we want to focus on is that economic incentive to people who are contributing to Twitter,” Dorsey said at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference. “That can come through a regular subscription, that can come through content unlock, that can come through tipping. There is a host of things and right now we are just studying and prioritizing what those things look like.”
The company is also considering subscriptions to content, and subscriptions for new feature sets, Dorsey said. Tipping, or accepting digital payments from fans or followers, has become a popular way for creators to make money, with companies often taking a cut of the transactions.
Twitter has multiple internal teams researching subscription products to reduce the company’s reliance on advertising. Still, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal has warned that revenue from offerings like this will not be material any time soon. The company is expected to begin testing some subscription offerings later this year.