Twitter Looks at Subscription Options as Ad Revenue Drops Significantly

While suffering a sharp decline in its core advertising business, Twitter has today revealed that it is looking at additional ways to make money from its users, including the introduction of a subscription model. “You will likely see some tests this year” of various approaches, CEO Jack Dorsey told analysts on an investor call (via CNN).

Twitter has reported its second-quarter ad revenues of $562 million, a 23% decrease compared to the same quarter a year ago. As he discussed the company’s latest earnings results, Dorsey said that he has “a really high bar for when we would ask consumers to pay for aspects of Twitter.”

He continued that the company is seeking to diversify its sources of revenue in what are “very, very early phases of exploring.”

“We want to make sure any new line of revenue is complementary to our advertising business,” Dorsey said. “We do think there is a world where subscription is complementary, where commerce is complementary, where helping people manage paywalls … we think is complementary.”

Much like Facebook and other rival social networks, Twitter has so far focused on offering a free service and making money by allowing brands to target ads to its millions of users.