Elon Musk was quick to launch a monetization scheme after he took over Twitter, but the Twitter Blue subscription lasted only one day on the iPhone before the company pulled it. Various Twitter users abused the feature, impersonating official accounts with hilarious but disastrous effects. It didn’t help that Twitter Blue was a rushed product that came to life with little regard for what might happen.
Still, Musk didn’t give up on the subscription, saying at the time that a relaunch was in the works. He wanted the product out again by late November, but that didn’t happen. Fast-forward to December 12th, and the Twitter Blue relaunch is official.
Thankfully, Twitter Blue comes with phone number verification and additional security features to stop impersonators. Moreover, Twitter will offer subscribers a few exclusive features on top of the checkmark.
Twitter posted a thread over the weekend to confirm the Twitter Blue relaunch. The company also confirmed the rumored price changes. The subscription will cost $11/month on iPhone to offset the App Store fee and just $8/month on the web.
we’re relaunching @TwitterBlue on Monday – subscribe on web for $8/month or on iOS for $11/month to get access to subscriber-only features, including the blue checkmark 🧵 pic.twitter.com/DvvsLoSO50
— Twitter (@Twitter) December 10, 2022
Twitter Blue subscribers will get a blue checkmark after their account has been verified. That includes registering a phone number. Twitter product manager Esther Crawford confirmed the new verification requirement to combat impersonation on the social network.
The company also said subscribers can change their handle, display name, and profile photo. But if they do, they’ll lose the blue checkmark temporarily, as their account will need another review.
These measures seem good enough to prevent impersonators from wreaking havoc online after getting on the Twitter Blue subscription.
On Monday we are bringing back the ability to subscribe to @TwitterBlue — it’ll be $8/mo on the web and $11/mo on iOS. We’ve added a review step before applying a blue checkmark to an account as one of our new steps to combat impersonation (which is against the Twitter Rules).
— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) December 10, 2022
Twitter also said it’ll start replacing “that ‘official’ label with a gold checkmark for businesses, and later in the week a grey checkmark for government and multilateral accounts.” As you can see above, the Twitter official account has a blue checkmark and a gray “official” checkmark.
Finally, subscribers will get a few additional exclusive features that aren’t available to regular users. Edit Tweet support, 1080p video uploads, and reader mode will be available to all paying customers. Twitter also teased future exclusive features, like fewer ads, longer videos, and better positioning in search results.
Separately, Elon Musk confirmed that Twitter is working on increasing the character count from 280 to 4,000. It’s unclear whether this feature will be available to all Twitter users or those who subscribe to Twitter Blue.
Yes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 11, 2022
Finally, there’s no timeline for Twitter Blue on Android. Until then, your best bet is to get the subscription on the web.