Twitter thinks your tweets — or at least some of them — might actually be worth something. At a virtual event for investors Thursday, the company announced that it’s planning to debut a pay-for-posts feature, called Super Follows, in which users will be able to pay the people they follow for their best tweets.
With Super Follows, Twitter will allow users to make money from content that they make exclusive to particular followers. Sample screenshots released by the company show that the payment scheme could take multiple forms. For instance, a follower could pay a creator they follow on Twitter a few dollars a month to access that user’s exclusive newsletter or to see special tweets only available to Super Followers. They might also be able to join a particular group or access a badge that shows they support that creator.
The idea that you would pay someone for their tweets might sound far-fetched, but a Twitter spokesperson told Recode that the goal is “rethinking the incentives of our service.” Basically, the premise seems to be that this pay-for-post feature will help build more specific communities around specific topics.
Another change coming to Twitter: a group-like tool called Communities. We don’t know much about this yet-to-arrive feature — Twitter says more information is coming later this year — but the idea seems to be a more private and more controlled way for communities to get together on Twitter outside the public view.
“[I]t still can be hard to find and connect directly with people who share your interests in focused conversations,” a company spokesperson told Recode. “This year, we’re making it easier for you to discover, participate, and form conversations with communities that share your interests.”