Twitter Blue subscribers can now monetize their massive tweets
Twitter Blue users who thought that 4,000 characters weren't enough for a single tweet can now concoct tweets as long as 10,000 characters. Revealed by the Twitter Write account on Thursday, this update also lets you enhance text in a tweet with bold and italic formatting. Plus, you may be able to make some money off your lengthy tweets.
In a tweet (that thankfully wasn't 10,000 characters long), Twitter Write said: "We're making improvements to the writing and reading experience on Twitter! Starting today, Twitter now supports Tweets up to 10,000 characters in length, with bold and italic text formatting. Sign up for Twitter Blue to access these new features, and apply to enable Subscriptions on your account to earn income directly on Twitter. Tap on 'Monetization' in settings to apply today."
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The move to 10,000 characters is a hefty increase from the previous limit of 4,000 characters for Twitter Blue subscribers and a huge jump from the 280 characters reserved for regular Twitter users. Allowing bold and italic formatting is an additional tweak designed to further distinguish Twitter Blue tweets from those of your average user.
With Twitter struggling to bounce back financially, owner Elon Musk has been striving to convince more people to sign up for Twitter Blue, which currently costs $8 a month or $84 a year. Beyond the ability to compose long tweets, Blue subscribers can edit or undo recent tweets, bookmark and organize tweets, upload long videos, and apply themes to their Twitter pages. But Musk still faces an uphill battle generating enough revenue to pay off the company's massive debt, especially by relying on Blue subscriptions.
The tweet announcing the move to 10,000 characters and enhanced formatting led to a few snarky comments from Twitter users. "Bold and italics for $8/month? Quite the package deal!" wrote one user. "Oh joy, even longer tweets to never read and immediately block" wrote another. "You want writers to pay YOU to write essays on your platform?" wrote a third.
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With many people balking at the notion of shelling out money to use Twitter Blue, Twitter is trying to sweeten the deal by steering subscribers into getting paid for their long tweets. Under Settings for Twitter Blue users is an option called Monetization, which touts bonus content for your most engaged followers. This monetization scheme suggests offering your favorite followers something extra in return for them paying you a certain amount.
In the Monetization section under Settings, Twitter imagines that a Blue user who charges $4.99 a month per user for bonus content could earn anywhere from $300 a month to more than $3,000 a month. Of course, your bonus content would have to be enticing and exciting enough to convince enough people to pay for the privilege. To qualify for this plan, Twitter Blue users must have at least 500 followers, have been active on Twitter during the past 30 days, and be at least 18 years old.