Earlier this year, Twitter bought out the email newsletter service, Revue, to engage writers and make them showcase their creativity beyond the platform’s 280-character limit. What we are now witnessing is better integration, which comes in the way how people sign up to Revue newsletters directly from tweets.
When you share a Revue newsletter, the tweet now includes a subscribe button, clicking on which will bring up the option to subscribe. The very acquisition of Revue has put Twitter ahead in the paid newsletter game because popularity of one’s newsletter is helped if you have an audience.
If your Twitter account is linked to an email address, you can sign up to receive newsletter updates with a single click. This is an advantage over Substack and other similar services, since writers on these platforms have to handhold subscribers through a slightly longer signup process.
But that doesn’t mean Substack is not worthy of your attention. Founded in 2016, it has strong financial support and there are plenty of good features besides the option of editing your publication design. There is a lot more in way of customisation on Substack.
The advantages Revue offers are already being felt by many users on Twitter, who are gaining subscribers quickly.
On the platform, it is free for anyone to publish a newsletter and the free tier allows unlimited subscribers, unlimited team members, custom profile domain, custom colours, and the option to set up a paid newsletter. You can add a paid version of your newsletter and earn money from subscriptions. If you do opt for it, you will be charged a small fee of five per cent of your revenue.
Facebook too has entered the newsletter space with Bulletin, which supports creators in the US at the moment. It’s helping the platform to branch out from traditional publications and go independent.
Meanwhile, Twitter is busy with acquisitions, announcing its acquisition of Sphere, a group chat app, a few weeks ago. Roughly 500,000 people have used the first version of the app that was founded by Tomas Halgas and Nick D’Aloisio, who previously founded news summary app Summly, which he sold to Yahoo! at the age of 17 for a reported $30 million.
