- On 3rd February Elon Musk announced that advertising revenue would be shared with Twitter Blue subscribers “Starting today”.
- On Tuesday the billionaire revealed that the software for this perk was still being developed.
- Despite Musk’s February announcement, there is no mention of advertising revenue sharing with creators anywhere in official documentation.
At the beginning of February, Chief Twit Elon Musk proclaimed that like TikTok and YouTube, Twitter would share advertising revenue with creators.
“Starting today, Twitter will share ad revenue with creators for ads that appear in their reply threads,” wrote Musk before elaborating that in order to get this perk one would have to pay for Twitter Blue.
A bold move to be sure, but not as bold as announcing a feature was live, only to reveal months later that it doesn’t even exist.
This revelation was made, as they often are, in the bowels of Musk’s replies. On this occasion, Musk was responding to a critique of former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
The billionaire made it clear that Twitter hadn’t signed a deal with Carlson who announced he would be uploading video content to Twitter.
“I also want to be clear that we have not signed a deal of any kind whatsoever. Tucker is subject to the same rules & rewards of all content creators,” the billionaire who gifted Twitter Blue to accounts to over one million followers said.
“Rewards means subscriptions and advertising revenue share (still working on software needed for latter), which is a function of how many people subscribe and the advertising views associated with his content,” Musk revealed.
Colour us surprised. Well, not really.
Despite the February proclamation that the feature was live, there is no evidence in Twitter’s documentation that the platform was sharing any advertising revenue with creators. Still, it’s poor form for a company’s leader to announce something is live “starting today” only for that feature to not even exist yet.
There is an argument to be made that Musk falsely advertised a feature of Twitter Blue that didn’t exist but that would be a tough argument to make. We say this because outside of Musk’s Twitter timeline, this feature isn’t mentioned anywhere else on the platform.
Creators on Twitter can also enable Subscriptions which give those who subscribe access to exclusive content similar to how Patreon does things. That content can include long form writing, 1080p videos. Twitter Blue also removes half of the advertising you would see without a subscription.
With all of that having been said, WordPress and Substack are free for writers and offer better formatting engagement and monetisation options. For video creators, YouTube and TikTok exist with better ways of incorporating advertising and with better filters than Twitter has.
In other Twitter News from Musk’s Timeline, direct messages are meant to get an upgrade on Thursday,
“Release of encrypted DMs V1.0 should happen tomorrow. This will grow in sophistication rapidly. The acid test is that I could not see your DMs even if there was a gun to my head,” wrote Musk.
“Coming soon will be voice and video chat from your handle to anyone on this platform, so you can talk to people anywhere in the world without giving them your phone number,” he added.
We’re not holding our breath that this rolls out as announced but it sure would be a nice change of pace to have things announced by Musk materialise, as he puts it, “starting today”.
