Twitter Japan had always been isolated from rest of the Twitter Global herd. Earlier Twitter japan had launched the Twitvideo service
and is the only country to have different services compared to its parent company. With ad rates ranging from US$5,500 to $33,000 for a customized page and banner and additional initial fees, the site also charges advertisers for targeted exposure to relevant groups making Japan the only country which runs a ad-enabled Twitter service and shows tremendous profit.
With signs of Twitter Premium/Paid Accounts around the corner, DG Mobile – a subsidiary of Japanese Twitter partner Digital Garage announced that Twitter.jp would introduce paid subscription options starting very soon by January that will allow account holders to charge audiences who want to look at their tweets and access links to their external websites.
Why for Twitter.jp?
Being affiliated to local partner, Twitter has the ability to experiment with the Japanese internet market with the Analysis made by Digital Garage, the plan will allow audiences to view some excerpt of the posted 140 characters on all tweets but will charge a fee to unlock access to images, external URLs and complete text.
Credit card payment model would be introduced to make it easy for users to pay and buy the monthly subscription and view the premium account tweets. Along with monthly subscription there are plans to introduced prepaid tickets which either could be bought online via credit card or local convenience stores. Finally, audiences can choose a pay-per-tweet option, which is charged to credit card, convenience store top-up cards or carrier billing for Twitter-on-mobile users. This is the rough idea of the payment model to be introduced.
Its assumed that this model would be ideal for account holders who deliver real-time information, news and educational content, and include original photographs, video images and audio. According to the reports, the amount charged to each user will vary according to the charging account holders and is likely to range from JPY100 to JPY1000 (US$1.16 to $11.60). Twitter will take 30 per cent cut of the transaction fees.
The Japanese Twitter site did launch its official mobile site last month and wireless technology booming in Asia, it’s likely that most of its traffic will come through mobile in the future. But Mixi.jp, the most popular social networking site in the country, receives approximately 70 per cent of its traffic through account holders on mobile. Which could make it tougher for Japanese Tweets to capture the market.
Similar Twitter Payment model would or wouldn’t work for Twitter in most global markets, but in Japan, Twitter has real potential to sustain the system. The ad-based twitter system did work well and showed tremendous profit.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.