I like the idea, but 2 things. 1) where did they get the prices of $4.99 a week? Facebook's average revenue per user per quarter is ~$25. That's approximately $1.50 a week, for their most profitable section. Elsewhere, FB makes $6 ARPU per quarter, or around 37¢ a week. I'd be willing to pay $1 a month for a social network if it manages to get around the network effects etc. but ~$20(!) for something Facebook enables…
The TC article says this is the cost if you want to post a conversation starter more frequently than once every 8 hours, or for other advanced features. That sounds like a power-user feature to me (I post very infrequently on social media).