Twitter (TWTR) stock jumps on rumors of paid subscription service

Shacknews already has a subscription service, and it appears that Twitter is copying off of our paper.

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Twitter's stock jumped 11% today on reports that the company is working on a paid subscription service. Codename Gryphon is apparently already being worked on at Twitter. Shacknews Mercury certainly sounds cooler, to be honest.


Here's what the job listing on Twitter originally read, as reported by CNBC:

“We are building a subscription platform, one that can be reused by other teams in the future. This is a first for Twitter! Gryphon is a team of web engineers who are closely collaborating with the Payments team and the Twitter.com team."


Twitter (TWTR) certainly needs to do something to better monetize their platform, so the news today is being positively welcomed by shareholders. The company's first quarter of 2020 revenues were flat year-over-year. A successful paid version of Twitter would actually be the answer to a lot of the company's problems, as they have struggled to be consistently profitable like its competitor Facebook.

Shacknews implemented our Mercury subscription service after removing programmatic advertisements from the site in 2018. While, I will readily admit to a rocky start, Mercury has increased our annual revenues by 300% when compared to our ad revenue in 2017. If Twitter is half as lucky as Shacknews, this could be a good thing for shareholders. The key difference between Shacknews Mercury and Twitter "Gryphon" is that we actually have a community that wants to support us. I am not sure a paid version of Twitter will be as well-received by their user base. 

Lola is the Chairpet of the Board at Shacknews and the face of our Mercury subscription service.
Lola is the Chairpet of the Board at Shacknews and the face of our Mercury subscription service.

I shouldn't judge. Shacknews is still not profitable. This is a challenge that many websites face in 2020, and it will be very interesting to see how this subscription service plays out at Twitter. For today, Twitter shareholders are being rewarded by the money printer.

CEO/EIC/EIEIO

Asif Khan is the CEO, EIC, and majority shareholder of Shacknews. He began his career in video game journalism as a freelancer in 2001 for Tendobox.com. Asif is a CPA and was formerly an investment adviser representative. After much success in his own personal investments, he retired from his day job in financial services and is currently focused on new private investments. His favorite PC game of all time is Duke Nukem 3D, and he is an unapologetic fan of most things Nintendo. Asif first frequented the Shack when it was sCary's Shugashack to find all things Quake. When he is not immersed in investments or gaming he is a purveyor of fine electronic music. Asif also has an irrational love of Cleveland sports.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    July 8, 2020 10:45 AM

    Asif Khan posted a new article, Twitter (TWTR) stock jumps on rumors of paid subscription service

    • reply
      July 8, 2020 11:02 AM

      The key difference between Shacknews Mercury and Twitter "Gryphon" is that we actually have a community that wants to support us. I am not sure a paid version of Twitter will be as well-received by their user base.

      Yuuuuuup. Who wants to pay for Twitter? They'd have to do something very interesting with it to even have a chance.

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      July 8, 2020 11:03 AM

      [deleted]

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      July 8, 2020 11:20 AM

      Why would you pay for Twitter? I don't even use it for free.

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        July 8, 2020 11:23 AM

        you're not the target demographic then.

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        July 8, 2020 11:30 AM

        Because there are people who have millions of followers, and advertise stuff on the platform.

        Today, those people can post “sponsored” tweets and get paid directly by the advertiser, meaning Twitter doesn’t get a cut of that. So if you’re Kim Kardashian, and you advertise something to your millions of followers, Twitter should monetize that. That’s the incentive to pay for a subscription. They wouldn’t even need to make people with only a few followers pay for a subscription. They just need to monetize the rain amount of people.

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          July 8, 2020 11:31 AM

          Oh so it's the more popular users paying for the subscription? Not the average user? Or their followers paying to follow them?

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            July 8, 2020 12:33 PM

            I should clarify— That’s one way to do it that I’ve heard. There is no specific model yet.

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              July 8, 2020 12:40 PM

              Ahh got ya. Guess it'll be interesting to see what they come up with at least.

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      July 8, 2020 11:24 AM

      [deleted]

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      July 8, 2020 11:26 AM

      [deleted]

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      July 8, 2020 12:09 PM

      jack: wait we’ve been giving away all this great racist content for free?

      devs: yes sir, growth hacking as much as we can

      jack: great but this is a goldmine, we need to monetize these racists much better, get on it

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      July 8, 2020 12:12 PM

      They should do a mandatory $2 a month to be able to post. It would greatly reduce the amount of bullshit noise- from bots and idiots alike.

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        July 8, 2020 12:43 PM

        I'm kind of for this, but if it's a "public forum," then this privileges people with the means to get their voice out.

        (E.g. this will amplify the voices of folks who have money, since they'll be able to buy accounts to amplify messages.)

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      July 8, 2020 7:12 PM

      Make Trump pay per tweet lol

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      July 8, 2020 7:18 PM

      Yesssssss I need a good excuse to quit.

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      July 8, 2020 7:18 PM

      [deleted]

Hello, Meet Lola