Over the weekend, Telegram’s CEO and founder Pavel Durov announced from his official Telegram channel that the messaging platform plans to release a subscription service to remove ads for users soon.
One of the services that benefited from the Facebook/WhatsApp outage is Telegram, but it remains to be seen how many people will become long-term customers or return to their “first love.”
What is Telegram?
Telegram is a messaging app created by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov. It debuted on iOS and Android in late 2013 and has an estimated 550 million monthly users. When a privacy issue emerges among one of Telegram’s major rivals, its user base grows.
One of Telegram’s unique selling propositions is its emphasis on privacy, encryption, and an open-source API. There are many unofficial clients to go with the official Telegram apps and web interface. Another proposition is that Telegram allows the usage of different devices with the same account (verified by SMS), as well as multiple accounts on the same device.
New updates on Telegram
The past several weeks have seen the messaging service add several new features, and we expect more to come soon. Durov made a few remarks over the weekend about the advertisements that appear on huge channels with over 1000 members.
If you’re viewing one or more of these channels and seeing adverts, you’ll be pleased to hear that Telegram will soon offer a companion subscription service to remove them. Naturally, if you don’t wish to pay for it, you will still see those advertisements, but it’s good to know that the option is accessible.
“We have already started work on this new feature and look forward to launching it this month. It can be issued in the form of an inexpensive subscription, which will allow any user to directly financially support the development of Telegram and never see official advertisements in the channels,” said Durov.
Furthermore, Telegram’s CEO stated that large channel owners will be able to turn off official advertisements in their channels, which will affect all of its users. For the time being, the firm is examining “economic circumstances” in order for it to happen, but it’s unclear how that would work.
“Advertisers will soon be able to place an ‘invisible’ ad on any channel that – assuming there is sufficient cost per impression – will result in no ads on that channel,” Telegram says.
Because Telegram is still working on introducing this function of removing advertisements to consumers, no subscription cost has been revealed yet, but we’ll learn more when it’s ready for use.
