In this week’s edition of Five on Friday, Twitter Blue experiences high churn (raise your hand if you’re surprised), Apple Music Live launches a new season returns with artists like Ed Sheeran, Amazon acquires AI company Snackable for podcasts, Hy-Vee launches a Healthy You standalone membership service, and Peloton is relaunching and rebranding to remind people what Peloton is really all about. It’s not just a bike.

Twitter Blue struggles with a high churn rate

Twitter Blue has had nothing short of a dramatic life. Since Elon Musk took over the social media platform, Twitter Blue has gone through a number of changes – including price increases, requiring advertisers to be subscribers and/or pay at a certain level, and diminishing the value for the once-coveted blue checkmark, to name a few. It comes as no surprise that Twitter Blue is hemorrhaging subscribers.

In a new report from WIO News, more than half of Twitter Blue’s early subscribers have canceled the service. Of the service’s 150,000 earliest subscribers, 80,000 of them have canceled the service for one reason or another. Given that the overall churn rate for subscription businesses sits at 5.57%, Twitter Blue is in some hot water. As for conversion rates, Twitter Blue has only been able to convert 640,000 users into paying users since Musk took over, Mashable reported.

More interestingly are the types of accounts that are currently subscribed to Twitter Blue. It appears that most accounts that have opted into Twitter Blue have 1,000 or less followers:

• Roughly 220,00 subscribers have under 1,000 followers
• Roughly 78,000 have under 100 followers
• Roughly 2,200 have no followers at all

Why are so many subscribers backing out? They could feel they aren’t getting what they are paying for, or they may be deleting their Twitter accounts altogether. It’s hard to tell, but Musk has made changes to the service that include the removal of legacy verification checkmarks, no longer promoting non-paying subscribers’ Tweets, and allowing publishers to charge users on a per-article basis. We won’t even talk about his arbitrary decision making and inconsistent application of the new Twitter “rules.”

Considering Twitter had around 450 million monthly active users this time last year, this may not bode well for Musk’s reign. The monthly active user milestone has dropped considerably since the Tesla owner took over, decreasing to 330 million monthly active users, a loss of a quarter of their traffic. It is anybody’s guess what Musk will come up with next, but rumor has it that ousted news host Tucker Carlson is going to produce a version of his show on Twitter, reports Variety. Musk contends they did not make a deal.

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Apple Music Live returns

Apple Music Live saw success when it rolled out last year, and they announced they are coming back with another season. This season will kick off with Ed Sheeran, playing his newest album in its entirety for the first time, including a 12-piece band. For Ed Sheeran’s performance, Apple shared that they will be releasing behind-the-scenes footage as well as exclusive content. These will land on the Shazam app after the show. Sheeran’s performance streamed on Wednesday at 3 PM ET, and is now available to watch on both Apple TV+ and Apple Music.

Little is known about the rest of the season, but 2022 had a star-studded lineup. Last season contained artists like Wizkid, Luke Combs, Billie Eilish, Mary J. Blige, and Harry Styles. All events came with a subsequent live recording of the performance in Apple’s signature spatial audio.

What’s different this season is that Apple Music Live will be expanding to Apple TV+. All events from this season will crossover to the streaming platform, allowing for more visibility to the series. Lifewire shared that it doesn’t appear that one needs to be a subscriber to both services to see the performance. This could mean that Apple is hoping to draw more subscribers to their music service.

Apple has been making headway into the music space for quite some time, but with their moves into Live recordings, as well as being the sponsor for the Super Bowl halftime show, music appears to be in Apple’s hands now.

Amazon acquires AI for podcasts

Amazon wants to expand their podcasts and further their reach into AI. They recently acquired Snackable, an AI program designed to find impactful points of audio or video. The product could help their podcasting venture stand out more than podcasts on Spotify or Apple.

“In December 2022, Snackable joined Amazon to continue innovating and exploring new experiences on behalf of Amazon Music’s podcast customers,” Snackable’s LinkedIn page read. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Snackable raised $3.1 million from investors before Amazon acquired them, Gadget Show reported.

Amazon mentioned wanting to invest further into AI in their earnings call last month, said the New York Post. Brian Olsavsky stated they hoped to build out large language models and generative AI, which could be input into features like Alexa.

However, large language models are likely beyond what Snackable would bring to Amazon Music’s podcasts. There is little known about the project, but Snackable’s previous project history could be indicative of what’s in store. The brand’s product listing on Product Hunt showed it could put structure around longform video and audio by generating chapters, highlights and more.

Amazon was a latecomer to the podcast market, launching them on their platforms in 2020. However, they have been quick to catch up with features like synced transcripts to make audio more accessible. In addition, they made their top podcasts ad-free for Prime members. Their newest feature allows listeners to preview a podcast, TechCrunch reported.

Depending on how Amazon’s venture into AI with Snackable goes, it could give an indicator on how future projects will go. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy expressed optimism over the idea and said there will only be a small number of companies that want to invest time and money into years-long AI products, and that Amazon “would be one of them.”

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Hy-Vee launches health and wellness subscription

Hy-Vee is launching a different kind of subscription than one would expect from the grocery store. On May 3, they announced the launch of their service, Healthy You, which provides wellness services to customers. Healthy You will cost $99 per month.

On their website, Hy-Vee shared the new subscription service will include two 30-minute appointments with a Hy-Vee dietitian to go over strategies with subscribers to help them achieve health and wellness goals. Other features include unlimited access to 40+ fitness videos, wellness classes and a private chat portal to a dietitian. There will also be nutrition programs to help interested subscribers create healthy habits, balance their blood sugar or manage their weight, according to Drugstore News.

In addition to what a customer can access at home, the service will offer two free health screenings per year at participating store locations. With the health screening, customers will receive Hemoglobin A1C, Biometric, Omega-3 Index and Vitamin D screenings.

There are stipulations with the subscription service. Due to the nature of working with health and health decisions, subscribers must be 18 or older to sign up. In addition, customers must sign up for the service for at least three months.

Store Brands reported that anything meal related will promote the retailer’s privately labeled products, helping leverage extra grocery sales. Assisting customers in meeting their health and wellness goals could also allow for a more meaningful relationship between the customer and the grocer, PYMNTS shared.

Healthy You is a standalone subscription service, and not paired with Hy-Vee Plus, the grocer’s other subscription product. Hy-Vee Plus is aimed for customers of convenience due to free grocery delivery, as well as express pickup. The service also helps customers save on gas.

Peloton to rebrand to shatter ‘at-home bike company’ image

Barry McCarthy, Peloton’s president and CEO, wants to shatter Peloton’s image as an at-home bike company.  

“Later this month we will relaunch our brand in order to better communicate the brand value proposition, and we will re-introduce the Peloton App with a tiered membership structure as a mobile gateway to our amazing fitness content from strength and meditation to outdoor running,” Peloton shared in their 2023 Q3 Shareholder Letter. “Our goal in relaunching the App is to engage new categories of customers, drive top-of-the-funnel awareness for Peloton, and become a meaningful contributor of revenue for our business.”

Currently, Peloton offers a tiered subscription of sorts, but the two highest priced tiers have a barrier to entry. Their app membership is $13 per month and requires no Peloton equipment. The Peloton Guide membership is $24 per month. The All-Access Membership requires either a bike, treadmill or rowing machine, and is $44 per month.

Little is known about the new tiered approach. Liz Coddington of Peloton shared that app tiers will have variety among the tiers, dependent on price, The Verge shared.

One way that Peloton is breaking free of the bike company mold is by less utilization of it in their content. More than half of their classes were not cycling related in the last quarter, MediaPost reported. They instead focused on strength training, yoga and meditation.

Customers may only see value through the subscription, and Peloton may see it the same way now, according to The Street. Peloton has had many issues with their hardware, but software for an app is by far easier to keep up with. The company has also figured out how to get their hardware to those who couldn’t pay for it outright, through refurbished machines or their rental program.

The company shared they could potentially expand their Peloton Certified Refurbished program to Tread and Row, according to PYMNTS. The programs led to 24% of Peloton’s connected fitness hardware sales in Q3. Time will tell for Peloton if their rebrand is a hit or a miss.

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