Early in the year, reports about Twitter experimenting with a “Coins,” an in-app currency allowing creators to make profits directly from the platform, broke out.
Last month, we reported that two app researchers, Nima Owji and Jane Manchin Wong, disclosed this information after posting screenshots of the upcoming money features on their Twitter accounts.
In the posts shared by these two app researchers, the following indications were palpable: The currency feature appeared to be an expansion of Twitter’s pre-existing “Tips” monetization tool; the “coins” menu item redirects visitors to the “coins” shopping page, where they can purchase them using Swipe, a payment processing platform. As described on the page, the coins are created to ensure users can support creators who create fantastic content.
“Twitter Coins, when launched, would allow users to reward Tweets,” CEO of IBC Group Mario Nawfal said at the time. According to Twitter, its coins are “virtual goods.” It stated, “as you receive coins they accumulate into Diamonds, which can be cashed out.”
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Twitter’s soft launch of coin feature
Twitter has taken significant steps to provided access of the coins feature to a limited number of customers or users in a controlled and gradual manner to monitor its effectiveness, a process better known as a soft launch.
A soft launch seeks to assess the product or service’s impact in a real-world environment, get feedback from early adopters, and highlight and address issues or bugs before it is fully launched.
As reported by Crypto News, the slow rollout of the crypto payment features follows Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s pursuit of regulatory and legal licenses to integrate such financial features into the social media platform.
Finally, a reward system for Twitter creators
Some users have been able to purchase Twitter coins since Feb. 22. One of the users identified as “Tree of Alpha” stated a pack of 150 Twitter Coins valued at $1.99 became available for purchase on Wednesday. Stripe is the only payment option available, he added.
If this turns out to be successful, the micro-blogging platform will join the ranks of platforms with reward systems. Reddit has an incredible reward system that allows users to use “Reddit Coins” to send rewards to content creators.
Another example is TikTok, the popular short-form video content app. with ‘coins’ to allow users to buy and send it to content creators who engage in live streaming. YouTube boasts of having the largest number of monetization schemes for creators. Several YouTube products give creators some opportunity for monetization. YouTube has Advertising Revenue, which gives creators a cut from the advertising money their video generates.
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Since his takeover, Elon Musk has sought ways to drive the team to develop new revenue streams outside its advertising division. This is especially after its revenue dropped due to activists pressuring advertisers.
To revive the company’s revenue, Elon Musk laid off over 3,700 staff, including high-ranked managers, to reduce costs.
The CEO has been keen on building a revenue system to reward content creators since he took over. It remains to be seen how the coin feature will compete with the monetisation systems in place for TikTok, YouTube, Reddit and other competitors.
Read also: TikTok develops new program to help users make more money from original content
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