The social network has so far relied on targeted advertising to obtain income.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
The owner of Twitter Elon Musk announced on Saturday January 21, in a series of messages on the social network, which the latter will soon offer a “more expensive subscription that will no longer have advertising”. It would be a radical change of economic model on the part of Twitter, which has so far reached targeted advertising to obtain income, before the launch of a first paid subscription in mid-December 2022 .
This new Zero-Pub subscription will be integrated into a wider strategy, announced by the American billionaire via a tweet, of rehabilitation of advertising on the social network. “The advertisements are too frequent and too large on Twitter. We are going to act on these two parameters in the coming weeks,” wrote Mr. Musk.
ads are too frequent on twitter and too big. Taking Steps to Address Both in Coming Weeks.
The social network has faced major economic difficulties since its acquisition by Mr. Musk at the end of October 2022. The company initially dismissed about half of its 7,500 employees. At the end of December, the one who is also in charge of Tesla (electric cars) and SpaceX (space launchers) had estimated that Twitter could achieve turnover of around $ 3 billion this year, a contraction of 41 % per Report to 2021.
“Reduce costs like a crazy”
The decisions made by Mr. Musk have scared a good part of the main advertisers, frightened by the return to the platform of people previously banned for racist or conspiratorial messages. To compensate, the multimillionaire, who explained that he had to “reduce costs like a crazy” in order to avoid a cessation of payment, counts on the subscription formulas, starting with Twitter Blue, proposed between 8 and 11 dollars (between 7.40 and 10.10 euros) per month depending on the subscription mode, and now this new offer to come without advertising.
Another sign – more anecdotal – of the fate of funds, the company has made auction on Wednesday offering 631 lots of furniture and decoration, among which a huge light installation representing the famous blue bird, sold for 40,000 dollars . For about a month, Elon Musk has also been looking for his successor at the head of the San Francisco company, after a survey has shown that 57 % of the 17 million participating users are favorable to his departure.