The Jonas Brothers want to text you with Scriber

Future. The Jonas Brothers are investing in a newly-launched subscription media startup dubbed Scriber, which allows celebrities to launch subscriptions to exclusive content via text message. With text messaging becoming cool again, Scriber may turn out to be the simplest, most efficient way to keep tabs on what your favorite creators are up to.

Premium DMs
The Jonas Brothers want your number.

• Nick, Joe, and Kevin are investing in Scriber, which allows celebrities to offer paid subscriptions to share exclusive content — links to secret shows, access to limited-edition merch — to fans via text message.
• Celebrities just need to upload the content to an online portal, and Scriber will handle all the distribution.
• The service is launching with all the Jo Bros on the service, with more musicians, actors, influencers, athletes, etc., being added throughout the month.

Fans can subscribe to the membership by simply texting “GO” to a number that a celebrity provides on their socials or via marketing material. The user then just sets up a recurring payment via Apple Pay or a credit card. They can then cancel whenever they want by simply texting “STOP” or “CANCEL” in the same text thread.

Fan service
Scriber CEO Brian Goldsmith said that the company hopes to target the most fervent 1%-5% of fans. While that number may seem small, that’s a potentially huge windfall. For example, the Jonases are offering their subscription for $4.99 per month. Axios calculates that if 1% of the brothers’ combined 50 million Instagram followers signed up, that would bring in $30 million in revenue (they plan on donating half of whatever they make to charity).

Also, by offering the service via text message, the company is working around the Google and Apple app store fees that everyone complains about. Instead, Scriber takes $1 of every subscription fee and passes off Stripe’s 2.9% payment processing fees to the celebrity