Twitter is hoping to launch its new Twitter Blue service with verification in India in less than a month, Elon Musk has confirmed. When asked about the expected timeframe for India launch –by a Twitter user— Musk tweeted, “Hopefully, less than a month.” The service will initially be available in five countries including the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. There is no word on pricing but Musk has previously said it would be “adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.”
In the US, the new Twitter Blue service will be available for $7.99 (roughly Rs 650) per month giving subscribers a verified badge “just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you already follow,” in addition to offering other perks, like priority in search and ability to post longer videos which are listed as “coming soon.” All this information has gone live courtesy a new Twitter app update for iOS (version 9.34.3), though the service itself isn’t ready for prime-time just yet.
Esther Crawford who is a product manager at the company has tweeted that the “new Blue isn’t live yet” and that what you’re seeing right now is basically Twitter “testing and pushing changes in real-time” before the service becomes officially available to subscribe and use. Presumably, this should be soon enough, given that Musk has –reportedly— set a deadline of November 7 for developers to complete the task, or else face getting fired.
Twitter hasn’t provided a lot of granular insights into how the new verified system would work so far, but it appears that every user account getting the blue tick through Twitter Blue would say so on their profiles making it clear that it was verified “because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue.” Twitter is also reportedly working on an “official account” label separately that would seemingly apply to more prolific users, though how all this would pan out remains to be seen.
The first version of Twitter Blue that cost $4.99 per month and bundled features like ad-free articles and an edit button for paying customers was never launched in India. Twitter, under Musk, is cruising with some big-ticket changes and Twitter Blue arriving in more markets is one of them. The service is also slated to launch in Europe soon, though a definite timeline isn’t out yet.