Meta to Sell Blue Badge on Instagram and Facebook – Facebook-parent Meta has launched a subscription service called Meta Verified, which will allow users to add the coveted blue check mark to their Instagram and Facebook accounts for up to $15 per month by verifying their identity, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Sunday, tapping into a new revenue channel that has yielded varying results for Twitter.
The subscription service, which launched this week in New Zealand and Australia, costs $11.99 per month on the web or $14.99 on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Users will be able to use their government-issued ID cards to verify their identity on Meta. The subscription service will also provide “increased visibility and reach,” improved protection against impersonation attacks, and direct access to customer support, according to the company.
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“Meta Verified is about increasing authenticity and security across our services,” Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook. He stated that the subscription service will be expanded to “more countries soon,” but did not provide a timeline. Meta’s revenues have fallen in recent years as a result of Apple’s decision to implement stringent privacy changes on iOS, which limit the social firm’s ability to track users’ internet activities.
The Zuckerberg-led company, which derives nearly all of its revenue from advertising, estimated last year that Apple’s move would cost it more than $10 billion in lost ad revenue. “Long term, we want to build a subscription offering that’s valuable to everyone, including creators, businesses and our community at large.”
“As part of this vision, we are evolving the meaning of the verified badge so we can expand access to verification and more people can trust the accounts they interact with are authentic,” Meta wrote in a blog post. Subscription services are becoming increasingly popular among social media companies.
Sunday’s announcement comes on the heels of social platform Snap launching its own subscription service last year, through which it has already converted over a million users into paid customers, and Elon Musk revamping Twitter’s subscription service, Twitter Blue, to include a variety of new features such as the blue check mark.
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Twitter Blue has recently been expanded to over a dozen markets, including India and Indonesia. According to The Information, only about 180,000 accounts had signed up for Twitter Blue as of mid-January. Musk is betting on Twitter Blue becoming a major revenue source for Twitter, which he purchased for $44 billion last year.
