Digital Garage now says Twitter Japan not adding subscriptions
It would seem Twitter Japan, just like its American cousin, simply can’t make up its mind about making money.
Yesterday we reported that Twitter Japan was going to start charging for users to view some Tweets. Since that story came out, Digital Garage, the owners of Twitter Japan have come out and said the story was a “misunderstanding.”
The story goes that Kenichi Sugi, COO of Digital Garage’s DG Mobile division, was speaking at a mobile conference in Tokyo and brought up the subject of the potential subscription plan, and even went so far as to lay out the exact details of how it would work. For what is now being labeled as a “misunderstanding”, we aren’t quite sure how we got details such as launching in January 2010, that rates would range from JPY100 to JPY1000 (US$1.16 to $11.60) and that Twitter Japan keeping 30 percent of each sale … that’s some “misunderstanding.”
Joichi Ito, director of Digital Garage, took to his blog to explain the situation in more detail:
In response to media reports stating that Twitter Japan will be launching a paid-premium accounts service on Twitter, we would like to officially state that this is not correct. To be clear, Twitter service in Japan is a free service and neither Twitter Inc. nor Digital Garage, Inc. have discussed or have any plans for paid-premium accounts. Also to clarify, Twitter Inc. and DG enjoy a commercial partnership but do not have a joint-venture arrangement in Japan.
The recent media reports are likely a result of a misunderstood presentation by a DG subsidiary, DG Mobile, about potential business opportunities that it could explore as a third party. DG Mobile’s presentation was unrelated and separate from the Twitter and Digital Garage partnership.
DG (and I) apologize for this misunderstanding and for the delay in correcting the information. We hope this clarifies our commitment to helping Twitter Inc. continue to grow and enhance its free service for Japanese users.
Maybe some day in the future? Who knows, but our money is on the possibility that the pretty negative reaction from the public may have changed some minds.
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