Customization of the color of the icon, modification of the navigation tabs, NFT in profile photo… As it is, the Twitter Blue subscription is not used for much, except to please Elon Musk.
Since February 3, 2023, the Twitter Blue subscription has been available in France. For 9.60 euros per month (with VAT, since Twitter does not respect French law and displays a price excluding taxes), it is possible to subscribe to the paid version of Twitter, on which Elon Musk relies heavily to make his investment profitable. $44 billion. Ultimately, Twitter Blue is supposed to create a two-speed Twitter. Elon Musk wants paid accounts to appear before those who do not pay, even if it means making millions of people invisible. But no timetable has been communicated for this change.
As we are curious by nature, Numerama has subscribed to Twitter Blue, which also allows you to obtain a blue certification badge. We used the account of Nino Barbey, motion designer and video journalist within our editorial staff, to see how long it would take for her to receive the famous Grail. After a few hours with Twitter Blue, our conclusion is: for now, it’s useless.
An interface to review
To subscribe to Twitter Blue, there are two possibilities: the Twitter.com site (9.60 euros per month) or the Twitter application (11 euros on Android, 12 euros on iOS). The subscription procedure is very fast, all you have to do is enter your bank details or use Apple Pay to initiate a first payment. Within seconds, a welcome message appears. “Want to see what benefits you get as a member? » Twitter request, which then redirects the user to the Twitter Blue home page, which is always accessible in the sidebar of the site or application.
First observation: the interface of Twitter Blue needs to be reviewed. Especially on the computer, where it’s downright awful.
Twitter just stacks the information in list form, without making all the options interactive. For example, you can click on the “Cancellation of Tweets” menu, but not on the one on bookmarks or the modification of tweets. We also note that the options put forward are not the same in the application and on the site, which is extremely misleading. It’s hard to understand what you’re really entitled to with Twitter Blue, since the Twitter interface doesn’t move at all.
Certification is pending
When Twitter Blue launched in the US, the inevitable happened. The identities of important personalities have been usurped, which forced Elon Musk to change his strategy. We now have to wait for the Twitter teams to verify the identity of a new subscriber to see the blue badge appear, which temporarily disappears with each change of name or profile photo.
An hour after we signed up, Nino’s account still didn’t have a blue badge. This article will be updated as soon as Twitter approves their request, to give you an idea of the verification timeframe. No ID card is required, Twitter just checks that the account does not look parody.
Edit tweets, too limited a function
One of the coolest features of Twitter Blue is editing tweets. For 30 minutes after the publication of a message, the user has the option of correcting a spelling error or adding context (such as an image for example). Anyone who uses Twitter a lot knows that there’s nothing worse than a fake tweet that can’t be taken down without breaking a discussion.
Unfortunately, this function is not at all convincing. Its behavior is random and does not solve the main problem of Twitter, namely the broken “threads” (a fault in the third message of a series of ten, for example).
As it stands, only the first tweet in a chat can be edited. The answers cannot be corrected, which completely kills the concept. Second, only Twitter.com and the mobile app allow tweeting editable messages. With Twitter for Mac or the Tweetdeck site, unable to access the edit of a tweet, including on Twitter.com.
Another anecdotal function: the timer. When you send a message with Twitter Blue, you can program the application to allow yourself a few seconds of proofreading. It’s useless, but why not.
Theme, icon, NFT, popular articles… The gadget party
While waiting for the arrival of the functions promised by Elon Musk (division by two of the number of advertisements, display priority in the responses…), what else can we do with Twitter Blue?
In the mobile application, there are several customization options reserved for subscribers of the application. For example, you can customize the order of the navigation tabs in the screen bar, change the accent color of the application or choose an icon of a different color. That’s cool, but is it really worth 9.60 euros?
In the experimental functions category, there are also several new sub-menus such as:
- Popular Items, which identifies the articles most shared by the people we follow. It is a sort of semi-automated RSS reader. Again, one wonders why such a function is paying.
- bookmarkswhich can be sorted into folders if you subscribe to Twitter Blue.
- NFT profile pictures, to show people that you have an NFT. They are hexagonal rather than round.
Conclusion: save 9.60 euros
Our first test of Twitter Blue is formal: run away. Unless you want the blue badge at all costs (some are ready to pay just for this pledge of notoriety), we do not see what can justify spending 9.60 euros or more for such a service. Fans of Elon Musk will no doubt see it as a way to support their favorite business leader, but it’s going to take a lot more to make paying Twitter a must.
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