Twitter has "kicked around" the idea of creating a special premium or subscription membership service, and isn't taking that business model off the table.
That's according to CEO Jack Dorsey, who spoke to Twitter investors Monday at the company's annual shareholder meeting in San Francisco. Dorsey was asked if Twitter would consider a Twitter membership model that would presumably include access to special features or services.
Dorsey said yeah, this is an idea the company has considered in the past and that it's something it would consider in the future, too.
Here's his full answer:
"Yeah so this has been kicked around for quite some time. We do believe that there is a real importance that Twitter is accessible to everyone in the world no matter what their economic stature is and where they are in life, so the general case has been to make Twitter free and open. We're always talking with our customers around what could be and what they'd like to see, and this is an idea that has come up. We don't have any particular plans to announce today but we're always looking at those patterns, that feedback and understanding if it's the right thing to do for the greater Twitter audience."
Reuters reported back in March that Twitter was considering a premium version of Tweetdeck, and there are many Twitter diehards out there who would probably pay for special features. (There's even a group that wants to buy the company and run it as a co-op, so yeah, there are lots of Twitter enthusiasts who might pay a few bucks per month to use the service.)
It's an interesting idea, at the very least.
Other news from Twitter's meeting: Three board members — Chairman Omid Kordestani, Marjorie Scardino and Bret Taylor — were all re-elected for another three-year term. And Twitter's board rejected a proposal that would have required the company to consider a sale to its own users, who want to turn Twitter into a co-op.
—By Kurt Wagner, Recode.net.
CNBC's parent NBCUniversal is an investor in Recode's parent Vox, and the companies have a content-sharing arrangement.