After ad revenue drop, Twitter tells investors it’s eyeing subscription options

After reporting Q2 earnings that showed a marked dip in ad revenue, Twitter has said its exploring alternatives — dangling the possibility of a subscription option.

Earlier today the social media giant reported ad revenues of $562M, down almost a quarter (23%) on a year ago — saying that the pandemic and “civil unrest” leading many advertisers to pause campaigns had both contributed to the decline. While the US, its biggest market, saw a drop of 25% in ad spend.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told investors it’ll likely run subscription “tests” this year (via CNN), though he also said the bar for charging users for aspects of the service would be set “really high”.

So presumably it’s not considering a ‘your first ten tweets are free’ style pay-to-tweet model.