Additionally, Durov also announced that the company is exploring the possibility of allowing channel owners to disable ads in their channels for all users. It is currently “calculating the economic conditions” for this feature. “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,” Durov said (via). These measures will allow Telegram “to break even,” he added.
Telegram will soon launch a subscription service
Telegram had originally promised to be always free, with no ads neither any subscription fee. But as the company grows in size and userbase, partly due to its rivals’ faltering and partly due to the service itself getting better, it can seemingly no longer operate in that manner. The messaging platform is now introducing both ads and a subscription service. After all, ads have become an integral part of the digital world we are living in. Last month, Telegram launched “Sponsored Messages” which are essentially ads that will appear on public channels. These messages will appear in public one-to-many channels with more than 1,000 subscribers. They will not appear in your chat list or your one-to-one and group conversations. The ads will also only contain links to a bot or a Telegram channel. The app will not show ads containing links to third-party platforms. Moreover, these messages will also be limited to 160 characters. Durov has said that Telegram will not harvest user data to target ads. Instead, the ads will be based on the topic of the channels. “Our main priority is protecting the private data of our users,” he said. The company is now preparing a subscription service that will let users disable all official advertisements in Telegram channels. Durov said the feature is already in development and is planned for launch this month. However, he didn’t provide an exact date or timeframe. We will keep you updated regarding the launch as well as pricing.
