Twitter Acquires Scroll, a Service That Removes Ads and Website Clutters, to be Part of Premium Subscription

Sophie Webster, Tech Times 04 May 2021, 11:05 am

Twitter announced that it is acquiring Scroll, a subscription service that offers readers a better way to read through long-form content on the web, by removing ads and other website clutter that can slow down the experience.

The service will become a part of Twitter's larger plans to invest in subscriptions, the company stated, and will later be offered as one of the platform's premium features for subscribers.

Twitter Acquires Scroll

Premium subscriber will be able to use Scroll to easily read their articles from news outlets and from Twitter's own newsletters product, Revue, another recent acquisition that is already been integrated into Twitter's service.

When subscribers use Scroll through Twitter, a part of their subscription revenue would go to support the publishers and the writers creating the content, said Twitter in an official announcement.

Scroll's service works across hundreds of sites, including The Verge, The Atlantic, The Sacramento Bee, USA Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Daily Beast.

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For the readers, the experience of using Scroll is similar to that of a read view, as trackers, ads, and other website clutters are stripped so that readers can focus on the site's content. Scroll's pitch to publishers has been that it can end up delivering cleaner content that can make them more money than advertising alone.

The deal terms between the companies were not disclosed, but Twitter will be bringing on the whole Scroll team, with a total of 13 people, according to Vox.

Scroll's Recent Move

For the time being, Scroll will pause new customer sign-ups so it can focus on integrating its product into Twitter's subscriptions work and prepare for the expected growth. It will continue to onboard new publishers who want to participate in Scroll's network, following the closure of the deal.

Scroll will be headed back into private beta as the team works to integrate the product into the Twitter platform, according to TechCrunch.

Twitter stated that it will be winding down Scroll's new aggregator Nuzzel product, but will work to bring some of Nuzzel's core elements to Twitter over time.

Tony Haile, the CEO of Scroll, said in the company's post about the acquisition of the company that Twitter exists to serve the public conversation.

Haile said that they have been given by the Twitter team a simple mission, and that is to take the model and platform that Scroll has built and scale it so that everyone who uses Twitter has the chance to experience an internet without friction and frustration, a great gathering of people who love the news and pay to support it.

Twitter detailed its plans this year regarding subscriptions. It is the company's way to diversify beyond ad revenue for its own business.

The company unveiled what it is calling a Super Follow, which is a creator-focused subscription that would give paid subscribers access to an expanded array of perks, like exclusive content, subscriber-only newsletters, badges, deals, paywalled media, and more.

The company is now aiming to use this product to help it achieve its goal of doubling company revenue from $3.7 billion in 2020 to $7.5 billion or more in 2023.