It looks like Twitter is developing a way for users to tip others on the platform. The 'tip jar' is one of a number of new or potential features that Twitter has been working on — many aimed at creators — as it seeks to evolve its social media offer. The features would provide a new way for creators to monetize their Twitter presence and for others to support them.
Over the past year, Twitter has experimented with different ways to help businesses and creators. Most recently, the platform confirmed a test for professional profile types to help businesses display their information more easily. While the new experiment is an advantage for businesses and creators, in particular, other users may benefit from an improved quantity and quality of content, while Twitter itself may benefit from increased traffic and ad-serving.
Unearthed by app researcher Jane Manchun Wong, a tip jar button is shown on the user profile. It appears to allow users to link their accounts from various payment platforms so that others can choose how to send a tip. Among those shown are Bandcamp, Cash App, Patreon, PayPal, and Venmo. A previous test unearthed by Wong for a tip jar in Twitter Spaces showed the same payment services. There has been no official confirmation of the feature and therefore it's not clear when, or indeed if, it will roll out, but it seems unlikely that it wouldn't.
Twitter's Features For Monetization
Among the other features Twitter is thought to have been testing to help users monetize their accounts is a subscription platform via which creators could limit some of their content to paying followers, similar to how Patreon handles its content. Super Follows would allow users to get paid for certain tweets or content. And, after Twitter's purchase of Revue, users will be able to generate revenue through newsletter-type content before too long as well.
Twitter's continuous work on new features of late shows that it is keen to develop and extend the platform for users and provide more ways to monetize content. However, it must be careful not to alienate users who use Twitter casually and for the accessibility of its content. Not everyone will be interested in premium subscriptions and an open and equitable experience is what Twitter has been built on.
The tip jar solution alone would make payments optional for users, instead of limiting the available content. Its support of numerous different payment platforms would also give users choice and ensure that it would be accessible for a large proportion of users. More casual users could use the new feature to send money to each other too. It's perhaps more likely, though, that Twitter will introduce a mix of monetization features, but it will need to be careful not to put users off.
Source: Jane Manchun Wong/Twitter