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Twitch is raising prices for its ad-free Turbo service
Twitch’s ad-free Turbo subscription plan is raising its price, jumping from $9 to $12 per month in the US. Twitch has offered no feature changes or add-ons to accompany this price hike. The monthly cost for Turbo is going throughout the globe, with an average hike of around 25 to 30 percent.
YouTube trials a cheaper 'Premium Lite' subscription that only removes ads
YouTube is testing a cheaper, ad-free Premium Lite streaming subscription plan in parts of Europe.
HBO Max expands beyond the US to 39 new territories
As it announced earlier this year, HBO Max is finally moving outside the US, expanding to 39 territories in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Mozilla combines tracker blocking with paid, ad-free browsing
Last year, Mozilla partnered with Scroll -- a subscription service that enables ad-free browsing of its partner publications -- to analyze if a select group of users preferred paying a small fee rather than being served ads, and if the strategy was cost-effective for the publications. After seeing promising results, the two companies have announced the Firefox Better Web with Scroll beta program. The name is a mouthful, but essentially, it combines Firefox's tracker-blocking technology with Scroll's ad-free experiences on any browser. Users can opt in and pay an introductory price of $2.49 for the service, which enables them to read publications like The Atlantic, The Onion and USA Today, add-free. The publications, meanwhile, receive a share of the revenue that Scroll makes from the subscription costs.
Ello's ad-free social network comes to the iPhone
When Ello came into the social networking scene late last year as an ad-free alternative to Facebook, it was pretty barebones in terms of features. That didn't stop it from gaining hundreds of thousands of users in a few short days and around a million new sign-ups in under a month. Ello's growth has slowed since the initial hype, but its feature set has blossomed -- search and notifications are much better, you can now post videos from YouTube and audio from SoundCloud, there are now ways to block bothersome users and you can also now "love" posts so you can revisit them later. A couple of weeks ago, Ello even removed its invitation-only restriction. Today, it's making an even bigger announcement: after months simply relying on the phone's browser for its mobile presence, Ello finally has an app.
YouTube's ad-free video subscription could arrive before year's end
Google announced YouTube's Music Key streaming subscription last fall, and an ad-free video service is also said to be on the way. Bloomberg reports the paid plan that nixes those pre-roll advertisements will launch before the end of the year, citing a source familiar with the project. The company sent a letter to YouTube partners today painting the broad strokes, including a mention of the upcoming paid tier and updated terms. "By creating a new paid offering, we'll generate a new source of revenue that will supplement your fast growing advertising service," the letter explains. Details are scarce at the moment, but we'll certainly hear more about things like pricing and offline playback in the weeks to come. The aforementioned Music Key service launched late last year, and there was a pilot program for paid channels in 2013, so the idea of paying for YouTube content isn't new. It also offers a Kids option, and there's likely a ton of folks who'd pay a (small) fee to skip those awful Progressive ads.
Songza introduces paid ad-free service that costs $0.99 a week
Songza joined the ad-free music streaming club today with a club of its own: Club Songza. Like the premium services on Spotify and Slacker, you'll have to cough up a few pennies to belong -- about 99 of them a week, to be exact. Listening to music without commercial interruption isn't the only benefit however; apparently paid subscribers will get additional goodies like twice as many skips and access to more premium content as well. Songza diehards can go ahead and sign up for the service at the source or simply live with that pesky advertising in the free version.
App.net edges closer to 20,000 users, drops subscription prices to $36 to fuel the social fire
When App.net kicked off its Twitter rivalry, the $50 yearly subscription fee was based on the assumption that the ad-free social service would maintain 10,000 customers. Founder Dalton Caldwell may have underestimated year-one adoption by just a tad: he now has nearly 20,000 customers on his hands in less than two months, which throws the previous economies of scale out the window. The pain for Caldwell's business model is a pleasure for fans, however. App.net's price of entry has dropped to $36 per year, with existing memberships' durations extended to match the new yearly rate. Anyone on the fence also has a chance to try the service for a short stint through a $5 monthly plan. While it's hard to know if the price drop will sustain the early runaway pace, it reflects a determination to play for keeps in the social media game -- an important trait when the chief opponent isn't sitting still.
Rdio rolling out free, non-ad-supported version 'in the very near future'
Rdio knows you work hard for your money. That's why the social networky music service announced its intentions to offer users free access to its massive music library without dropping dollar one, turning over a credit card number or getting served up ads, Spotify-style. The company isn't revealing much in the way of details beyond that, only promising that the offer will be made available to all consumers "in the very near future." The deal certainly sounds like too good to be true territory, but Rdio adds that it's "confident" users of the free version will be enamored with the service enough to pony up and subscribe.
