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Tag: Scroll

  • Twitter Buying Scroll to Serve as Foundation for Subscription Service

    Twitter Buying Scroll to Serve as Foundation for Subscription Service

    Twitter has announced it is buying Scroll as it looks to establish a subscription service for premium content.

    Twitter has been looking for ways to diversify its services and new ways to monetize its user base. Despite being one of the oldest social media platforms, Twitter has been surpassed in many ways by newer, upstart platforms.

    The company is purchasing Scroll in an effort to introduce paid subscription services, free of ads. Twitter VP Mike Park announced the company’s plans on the company’s blog:

    That’s why we’re excited to announce that Twitter is acquiring Scroll. Scroll has built a way to read articles without the ads, pop-ups, and other clutter that get in the way, cleaning up the reading experience and giving people what they want: just the content. Meanwhile, publishers who work with Scroll can bring in more revenue than they would from traditional ads on a page. It’s a better Internet for readers and for writers.

    Twitter also hopes integrating Scroll will help it to assist the journalism industry, one that has experienced major setbacks as a result fo the digital transformation.

    Those who create and consume news know that reading – and more broadly, journalism – deserve a better future. Scroll will help us build that future, solving one of the most frustrating parts about reading content online. We want to reimagine what they’ve built to deliver a seamless reading experience to our hyper-engaged audiences and allow publishers to deliver cleaner content that can make them more money than today’s business models.

    To do this, we plan to include Scroll as part of an upcoming subscription offering we’re currently exploring. 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.

    Park said Scroll will pause new sign-ups while the service is integrated with Twitter. After the integration, Twitter will work on growing Scroll’s subscriber base.

  • Mozilla Launches ‘Firefox Better Web with Scroll’ Test Pilot

    Mozilla Launches ‘Firefox Better Web with Scroll’ Test Pilot

    Firefox has announced the launch of a new Test Pilot program, Better Web with Scroll, aimed at improving the web experience for both publishers and users.

    Firefox is one of the most privacy-oriented companies in the world, and is constantly working to tackle problems related to privacy and the overall health of the web. Its latest initiative is designed to help publishers who have been hard hit by various privacy features, while at the same time incentivizing them to focus on quality content, rather than ad-driven quantity.

    “If we’re going to create a better internet for everyone, we need to figure out how to make it work for publishers,” writes Matt Grimes. “Last year, we launched Enhanced Tracking Protection by default and have blocked more than two trillion third-party trackers to date, but it didn’t directly address the problems that publishers face. That’s where our partner Scroll comes in. By engaging with a better funding model, sites in their growing network no longer have to show you ads to make money. They can focus on quality not clicks. Firefox Better Web with Scroll gives you the fast, private web you want and supports publishers at the same time.”

    The new initiative is based on Mozilla’s previously announced efforts to find alternative ways for publishers to monetize their content, without relying on ads. This is what led the non-profit to partner with Scroll. To join Firefox Better Web, users need to sign up for a Firefox account and install an extension. For the first six months, the service is discounted 50%, costing $2.50 a month. The money goes into a fund that is used to compensate writers and publishers. According to Mozilla, early tests show sites make at least 40% more than they would relying on ads.

    “Firefox Better Web combines the work we’ve done with third-party tracking protection and Scroll’s network of outstanding publishers,” adds Grimes. “This ensures you will get a top notch experience while still supporting publishers directly and keeping the web healthy.”