X Pro, Formerly TweetDeck, Rebrands and Becomes a Paid Blue Premium Service
Key takeaways
- X (formerly Twitter) has rebranded TweetDeck as X Pro and made the service part of the premium subscription
- X has struggled to attract paid users to the service, which offers longer tweets and editing
- Elon Musk recently commented advertising revenue had dropped 50%
X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, is now starting to revamp the services around it. X Pro, which used to be TweetDeck, is now only accessible through a paid Blue subscription. It’s the latest move in a wild timeline of changes for the social media brand — here’s the lowdown.
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What happened to TweetDeck?
First, they came for the name. Then, they came for the access. That’s right — X Pro, formerly TweetDeck, is now exclusive to premium subscribers only having previously been free. First acquired in 2011 by Twitter for $40 million, TweetDeck was one of the most popular free services for Twitter.
It’s not exactly a surprising move, given X had said at the start of July that changes were coming to the beloved message scheduling and analytics platform. Power users, journalists and researchers all used the tool to keep track of lists and trends on the social media platform.
For free users, it’s obviously a blow. But for paid users, the Blue premium subscription, which costs $84 a year, looks increasingly attractive. The service already includes an edit post option, something Twitter users have been asking about for years, longer posts and even ad revenue sharing.
How is Twitter doing financially?
It makes sense for X to rebrand TweetDeck as X Pro and make it a paid-for subscription in a bid to boost the Blue subscription uptake. The novel idea hasn’t exactly gone as planned — the most up-to-date figures show that by the end of April, only 640,000 users had taken out a Blue subscription. Musk recently boasted that the monthly users of X had now hit 530 million.
The company hasn’t fared well since Musk bought the platform in October last year, sending advertisers running for the hills. Musk said earlier this month that X was struggling with negative cash flow due to a 50% drop in advertising revenue and a “heavy debt load”. He didn’t elaborate further.
The bottom line
X building out its premium subscription offering makes complete sense and might entice more users to take the plunge. From a financial point of view, the company needs to shore up its revenue streams away from advertising if it wants to stop bleeding money.
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