Substack introduces Notes: a competitor to Twitter? 🤔

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Substack, the popular online publishing platform, recently announced a new feature, called Notes. It could be serious competition for Twitter, and Elon Musk doesn’t like it.

With Notes, Subtack moves to short content format 🤏🏾

Introduced in 2017, Substack is an increasingly popular online publishing platform for writers, journalists, and content creators looking to spread their ideas and connect with their audience through email newsletters. With a user-friendly interface, integrated content management tools, and an easy-to-use payment solution, Substack offers content creators a turnkey solution to distribute their content, manage their subscribers, and monetize their work.

The platform recently launched a new format called Notes. This is a short content format designed to promote discovery on Substack. There is also a news feed, likes, subscriptions and the ability to « restack » to share a note in its own feed.

But it doesn’t stop there. While recommendations on Substack allow for the discovery and promotion of publications, Notes will offer the same ability but for anything from articles to links, quotes, comments and images. Writers will be able to share ideas with each other and with their readers.

Source : Substack

If Notes reminds us of the news feeds of social networks, it is fundamentally different from them. Indeed, whether on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, everything is based on the user’s attention. The more viral a content is, the more its creator is rewarded, especially through advertising. Except that the heart of Substack is subscriptions. Thus, it is not viral content that matters, but what is really worthwhile for the readers.

Source : Substack

With this system, Substack hopes to create an environment for constructive discussions, without making it a sanitized environment. If you want to test Substack, you can download the application on Android by clicking here, or on iOS by clicking here. Substack is also available on the web by clicking here.

Elon Musk doesn’t like the competition 😡

Many journalists and writers are used to sharing links to their Substack content on Twitter. But Elon Musk, taking a dim view of the new competition, simply decided to limit the reach of Substack on his social network. For several hours after the launch of Notes, it was impossible to like or share a tweet containing a link to Substack.

Since the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, many users have been seeking refuge on alternative platforms. If Mastodon was for a while highly favored by Internet users, the hype quickly faded away. Beyond the habits that are difficult to change, the different philosophy of the platforms is also a barrier. If Substack already has a good user base, it is hard to believe that all Twitter users will jump ship overnight. Indeed, while most interactions on Twitter are done around short texts, those on Substack are done around newsletters.

Will the Notes format be able to break through without the Twitter-like recommendation algorithm? Will Substack become a serious competitor to Twitter? Only time will tell. In the meantime, what do you think? Tell us in comments.

Source : Substack