The US-based microblogging platform Twitter has announced that it is acquiring Scroll and its ad-free news app to bolster the firm’s upcoming subscription service and provide funding to journalism.
The global one-to-many messaging network did not reveal how much it is paying for Scroll, which owns the Nuzzel app.
Twitter Product Manager Mr. Mike Park remarked that “Scroll will become a meaningful addition to our subscription work as we build and shape a future subscription service on Twitter.”
US-based Scroll announced the acquisition, informing users that it would enter a private beta phase before being integrated into a Twitter subscription service later this year.
Mr. Tony Haile, Chief Executive Officer Scroll stated that “Scroll is at the heart of a coalition of publishers and platforms building a new user experience model that sustainably funds journalism. At the core of that is a simple membership that enables people to fund the sites they love, without having to deal with the ads and trackers they don’t.”
According to Scroll, subscribers can visits an array of websites such as The Atlantic, The Verge, and USA Today for news stories “with no ads, no dodgy trackers and no chumboxes of clickbait.”
Publishers of news receive both publicity and money in the process.
Mr. Park pointed out that “as a Twitter subscriber, picture getting access to premium features where you can easily read articles from your favorite news outlet, or a writer’s newsletter from Revue, with a portion of your subscription going to the publishers and writers creating the content.”
Twitter has been attempting to find ways to monetize its service without interfering with the real-time flow of posts that has been its defining characteristic.
The number of “average monetizable daily active users” fell short of estimates at 199 million, up 20 percent from a year ago.
Even though it has become a significant outlet for policy discussions, Twitter has struggled to expand beyond its core audience of celebrities, journalists, and political leaders.
Mr. Jack Dorsey, Chief Executive Officer Twitter added that “people turn to Twitter to see and talk about what’s happening, and we are helping them find their interests more quickly while making it easier to follow and participate in conversations.”
Twitter has faced challenges in tackling misinformation and abusive content even as it strives to become a platform for political discourse.
