Twitter’s main website and apps won’t be part of the subscription. Instead, an expanded version of TweetDeck will be offered. TweetDeck started life as a desktop app for professionals and social media teams who need more control over Twitter than the standard website offers. It was later acquired by Twitter and is now itself a web app.
TweetDeck currently lets you set up an unlimited number of horizontally-scrolling panes. These can be used to display tweets from a user, hashtag, trend or search. In addition, the app features analytics capabilities and the option to schedule tweets for later publishing. It offers much more control over Twitter and a deeper view into the platform than twitter.com or the mobile apps.
Twitter has now begun contacting select TweetDeck users with details of a hypothetical premium version of the service. The headline features are expanded analytics capabilities, insights into what followers are tweeting about, customisation of themes and layouts, improved publishing features and support for multiple Twitter accounts.
As with the current version of TweetDeck, the new service will be aimed at power users, professionals and corporate social media teams rather than consumers. It takes many of the features of popular social media management apps like Hootsuite and Buffer and makes them directly available in a first-party app.
Twitter confirmed to The Verge that the survey is authentic. The company said it is assessing interest in a “new, more enhanced” version of TweetDeck, noting it wants to make the app “even more valuable for professionals.”
Assuming it’s given the go-ahead, TweetDeck Premium is still many months away. The project is currently still in the planning stage and no development work has been commenced. Twitter is likely to be surveying users now because there’s already an abundance of third-party apps offering these features.
The aforementioned Hootsuite and Buffer, along with the likes of Coschedule and SocialFlow, already have the service’s feature list, along with support for managing multiple social media accounts from one interface. Twitter is coming very late to the game and will need to find a way of convincing professionals that TweetDeck offers more value than using an existing tool.
If the company builds the service and successfully markets it, TweetDeck Premium could be an important revenue stream. Twitter is seeing income from ads decline and is struggling to attract new users. If nothing else, the survey indicates Twitter is now thinking seriously about new major features for its core product, giving professionals the tools they need to get the most from its service.
Pricing for the app will be around $20 per month. The current free ad-supported version of TweetDeck will remain available. There’s no indication of what timeframe Twitter is targeting for an eventual launch.
