Twitter will now charge users who wish to Tweet using vowels.
Twitter has announced a two-tier service, including its free model, called Twttr. Consonants alone are free, but anyone wishing to use vowels in their Tweets will now have to pay a $5 monthly subscription charge.
As part of Twitter’s segmentation strategy, they’ll be reaching out to more of the “under-30” market (who don’t use vowels anyway) with their free service, while continuing to monetize their service in advance of next year’s IPO by the launch of this new subscription service. According to an article, here’s what Twitter had to say about the disruptive approach to scl ntwrkng:
“We’re doing this because we believe that by eliminating vowels, we’ll encourage a more efficient and “dense” form of communication. We also see an opportunity to diversify our revenue stream.”
How will this affect search options and qualifying data with words that contain no vowels? Michael Sippey, Twitter’s VP of Product said, “N cmmnt.”
(April Fools. In case it wasn’t obvious.)