Substack today announced the introduction of a new Notes feature designed to help users share posts, quotes, comments, images, links, and ideas. Notes shared on the platform appear in a dedicated short-form feed, much like Twitter. Sharing a note is basically like posting a tweet. Each note shows the number of likes and comments. You also have the option to “restack” or retweet the post.
As Substack points out in its announcement post that Notes “may look like a familiar social media feed,” the company seems to agree that the new feature is similar to Twitter. However, Substack claims that Notes is different from traditional social media feeds because it doesn’t show ads.
“The lifeblood of ad-based social media feeds is attention,” the company wrote in a blog post. “In contrast, the lifeblood of a subscription network is money paid to people doing great work within it. Here, people are rewarded for respecting the trust and attention of their audience. ‘s ultimate goal is to convert casual readers into paying subscribers, a system in which the majority of financial rewards go to the creators of the content.”
Substack also said that Notes doesn’t feel like traditional social media, and that the new product’s goal is not to create a “fully sanitized information environment”, but rather that there is enough common ground to seek understanding. It claims to allow some constructive discussion. while preserving the valuable tension needed for great art and new ideas. “
Image credit: sub stack
Given the company’s penchant for hosting controversial authors and off-platform users, this direction with its Notes feed could go even deeper into the culture wars surrounding what constitutes free speech. there is. The more Substack associates its brand with the more extreme personal brands of fragmented media personalities, the less likely it is to attract the large (and typically moderate) audience that makes up the majority of the network’s user base. There is a nature.
The Notes release isn’t the only time Substack has tried to capitalize on Twitter’s chaos in recent months. The company released a chat feature last November. He also attacked Twitter more directly in a post last year when he warned that “Twitter is changing and it’s hard to predict what will happen next.” The post inspired creators of all kinds to port their Twitter follower base to his Substack. The new Notes product, which is almost a Twitter clone, embraces his Substack hopes of taking more advantage of Twitter’s chaos.
Along with Notes, Substack joins not only Twitter, where there are already threaded discussions between writers and readers, but also other online communities like Discord, where writers have built their own networks. It is worth noting that , Slack, Telegram.
Today’s announcement comes a week after Substack launched a community funding round, allowing writers to invest and own a portion of the company. As of today, Substack has a pledge of $7,138,675.
The company revealed that readers have paid over $300 million to writers through Substack, and that the platform now has over 35 million active subscriptions, including 2 million paid subscriptions. Substack also revealed that over 17,000 writers are making money on his Substack, with Substack’s top 10 publishers collectively earning over $25 million annually.
