On the internet, there are generally two types of users of services: free and paid.
Most of the time, users who register for a service for free, will get the basic of features, nothing more, probably less. Paid users on the other hand, have the privilege of having more. And that same thing applies to users on the social media platform Twitter.
Twitter Blue is Twitter's premium subscription service that costs around $3 a month.
This allows users to have exclusive features, including folders for organizing bookmarks and a "reader mode." It also gives users a way to "undo" their tweets.
At the moment, it's only available in Canada and Australia.
Expanding on that subscription, Twitter is bringing what it calls 'Labs', so Twitter Blue users can have early access to features, before anyone else in the free zone can.
Initially, Labs subscribers can have the ability to upload videos that are up to 10-minutes long from their desktop.
This is a huge upgrade from standard users who can only upload videos that are up to 2 minutes and 20 seconds long.
Additionally, iOS users can also swipe to pin their favorite conversations to the top of their direct message inbox.
Twitter said that features that are released via Labs may eventually roll out to the rest of Twitter, become a static feature of Twitter Blue, or be scrapped altogether based on the feedback it receives from subscribers.
In other words, subscribers of Labs can enjoy experimental features from various internal Twitter teams.
"Labs also provides an opportunity for other internal product teams to submit features, get early quantitative and qualitative data, and then later release to a wider audience. What’s featured in Labs will change as we develop new features," the company said.
What is Labs?
Labs is our way of sharing some of the newest features we’re building so you’ll have it before everyone else. We’ll update you as we build, so check back often!— Twitter Blue (@TwitterBlue) October 27, 2021
As a service on the web and mobile, Twitter needs to regularly introduce and test new features. And among those features that it sees fit, the company needs to test them to a number of users, before the features' official rollout.
And Twitter Blue's Labs is a way for the company to get feedback.
Through the subscription, Twitter Blue users can check out new features, before anyone else. And maybe, they can even try features that won't ever see the light of day.
Just like how Twitter said it, it's like "being ahead of the curve."
Previously, Twitter said that it planned to be more experimental as it released new products, noting that it would share its progress publicly along the way and scrap ideas that didn’t work.
“We believe that if we’re not winding things down every once in a while, then we’re not taking big enough bets,” said Twitter Head of Consumer Product Kayvon Beykpour at the time.