Telegram, famous for its personal information security messenger, has launched its first subscription-type paid product after 9 years of service launch. The price is $4.99 per month, and it is interpreted as a product that focuses on improving convenience functions for heavy users and adding design differentiation elements.
Telegram announced on the 19th (local time) that it had launched a monthly subscription product, ‘Telegram Premium’. As a major feature, premium users will be able to transfer large files from 2GB to 4GB. It can also download files “as fast as possible” compared to normal users. According to Telegram, this speed may vary depending on the network the user is connected to.
The available chat size will also be expanded. Premium subscribers can subscribe to up to 1000 Telegram channels and create 20 folders each holding 200 chats. In addition, you can pin up to 10 chat lists to the main list and save up to 10 favorite stickers. You can register a profile with a moving picture, as well as a self-introduction with a specific web link. In addition, premium users are distinguished from general members by putting a ‘★’ mark in front of their profile in all chat rooms.
If you do not want to hear the voice message, you can convert it to text and check it. However, like most STT (voice → text conversion technology), the conversion quality may not be perfect. To complement this, Telegram also provides a user evaluation function for the converted content, adding that this can help improve the quality of conversion in the future.
The means of expressing emotions that can make users stand out will also be expanded. Animated stickers that cover the entire screen are provided to premium users. The collection will be updated monthly. In addition, premium users will be able to use more than 10 new emojis compared to regular users of ‘message response emojis (small emojis attached to the bottom of message balloons)’ introduced in messenger platforms such as KakaoTalk and Slack. In addition, message-type advertisements that have been used for Telegram operation are no longer displayed. A premium-only icon is available on the home screen. The company introduced the premium product, saying, “We will support Telegram’s continuous development and be the first to access additional features that will be exclusively provided in the future.”
Meanwhile, Telegram, developed by brothers Nikolai Durov and Pavel Durov, who were born in Russia in 2013, has grown into a giant messenger platform that has secured 700 million users worldwide through word-of-mouth as of June without paid app advertisements. It is currently the 5th most downloaded app in the world. The biggest feature of Telegram is that it is difficult to track all chats by applying ‘end-to-end encryption’ technology, and it strongly guarantees user anonymity. For this reason, it has gained great popularity mainly among users who value privacy, but the side effect that it is easy to use as a criminal conspiracy channel that abuses it is also continuously pointed out.
