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Substack Notes Launched

on.substack.com

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Re: Substack Notes Launched

#91

Post by rvz »

LegitShady wrote: post #9
ARandomerDude wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe that's why Twitter had blocked retweeting links containing to Substack. That seems to have accelerated the shift for some to Substack [1] (imagine if Google blocked searches for Bing or Brave!). Suppressing Substack makes the Twitter brand look weak and nervous. 1. https://reason.com/2023/04/10/elon-musk-matt-taibbi-twitter-...

prediction - substack goes nowhere, like they currently are. Suppressing substack when substack is trying to advertise for a twitter competitor is just common sense. There's no need for twitter to advertise for a competitor. That isn't censorship, thats just normal business. If substack was depending on twitter for free data and free advertising they were the ones who were weak and nervous.

Many had already forgotten that before the so-called villain of the year called Elon Musk took over the blue bird site, there was a social network called Meerkat that Twitter actively suppressed and introduced their own alternative called periscope.

Twitter is within their right to cut off access to their competitors, future or present.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#92

Post by ghiculescu »

m_ke wrote: post #58
ghiculescu wrote: post #48

I love Substack. But apart from to mess with Twitter I really don’t understand the point of this. https://substack.com/profile/241262-casey-newton/note/c-1446... I’d a good summary. I don’t want to subscribe to hundreds of newsletters to see tweet (sorry, notes). But if you change that setup, it really is a Twitter clone with no upside to writers.

They raised a ton of money on a high valuation, spent 25mil to make 1 mil last year and are now scrambling to raise a new crowd sourced round because they don't want to get wiped out in a down round. This notes thing looks like an attempt to pivot to an advertising based business model and I'm guessing they think they have "influencers" on their platform to bring in a decent audience.

Where is the 1M number from? They take 10% of subscriptions and https://sellcoursesonline.com/substack-statistics says that just the top writers made 20M in 2021. I bet there’s a long tail.

(I don’t think you’re wrong by a factor of 10, just curious where you got your number from.)

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#93

Post by snotrockets »

0xDEF wrote: post #72

Substack is an "absolute free speech" app. They have gotten away with it so far because nobody could see the highly offensive content unless they actively sought after it and subscribed. However now that Substack is becoming more like a conventional social media platform they will have a harder time being an "absolute free speech" app.

You make it sound like a bad thing. Being proud of harboring hate speech puts one in a very specific category of people, one I wouldn't be proud to be part of.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#94

Post by JumpCrisscross »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #84
m_ke wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They raised a ton of money on a high valuation, spent 25mil to make 1 mil last year and are now scrambling to raise a new crowd sourced round because they don't want to get wiped out in a down round. This notes thing looks like an attempt to pivot to an advertising based business model and I'm guessing they think they have "influencers" on their platform to bring in a decent audience.

>This notes thing looks like an attempt to pivot to an advertising based business model The announcement for the feature on twitter[1] literally emphasizes the lack of ads, pointing out subs are their revenue source, so that would be some 4D enshittification chess. [1] https://twitter.com/hamishmckenzie/status/164362995302659686...

> announcement for the feature on twitter literally emphasizes the lack of ads

Guessing that’s now how they’ll pitch it to an acquirer once it takes off.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#95

Post by LordDragonfang »

ghiculescu wrote: post #48

I love Substack. But apart from to mess with Twitter I really don’t understand the point of this. https://substack.com/profile/241262-casey-newton/note/c-1446... I’d a good summary. I don’t want to subscribe to hundreds of newsletters to see tweet (sorry, notes). But if you change that setup, it really is a Twitter clone with no upside to writers.

>I don’t want to subscribe to hundreds of newsletters to see tweet (sorry, notes).

There's an option to just subscribe to notes and not newsletters on desktop, apparently, under the three-dots menu:

https://substack.com/profile/34072171-katie-substack/note/c-...

That UX is awful, but I'm sure they'll work it out in the coming weeks.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#96

Post by paxys »

Confiks wrote: post #66

Compare the two homepages without cookies [1][2]. The rounded buttons in orange instead of Twitter-blue. The footer nagbar. The similar navigation menu. Following the whole banning-saga my impression was that Notes was a genuine extension of the Substack platform, but it being a frontend clone explains why such a tantrum was thrown by Musk. [1] https://twitter.com/ [2] https://substack.com/notes

Seems just like one of the many cookie-cutter Twitter clones out there. I don't think people would even be talking about Substack Notes had it not been for Musk's tantrum.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#97

Post by rchaud »

Wow, didn't exactly stick their necks out on the design did they? Almost zero visual differentiation from the noisy flamewars of Twitter this is supposed to be the antidote to.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#98

Post by galdor »

AlbertCory wrote: post #75
ghiculescu wrote: post #48

I love Substack. But apart from to mess with Twitter I really don’t understand the point of this. https://substack.com/profile/241262-casey-newton/note/c-1446... I’d a good summary. I don’t want to subscribe to hundreds of newsletters to see tweet (sorry, notes). But if you change that setup, it really is a Twitter clone with no upside to writers.

Elon showing the number of impressions a tweet or reply actually got was an eye-opener for me. Probably about 1-2% of "Followers" -- not just mine but most people's. Twitter has been completely worthless anyway for promoting my Substack channel. In their Dashboard, it doesn't even show up in the top five referers.

I’m curious, what works better than Twitter for this kind of use case? Mastodon is better than Twitter for me, but it still is very slow.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#99

Post by rchaud »

m_ke wrote: post #58
ghiculescu wrote: post #48

I love Substack. But apart from to mess with Twitter I really don’t understand the point of this. https://substack.com/profile/241262-casey-newton/note/c-1446... I’d a good summary. I don’t want to subscribe to hundreds of newsletters to see tweet (sorry, notes). But if you change that setup, it really is a Twitter clone with no upside to writers.

They raised a ton of money on a high valuation, spent 25mil to make 1 mil last year and are now scrambling to raise a new crowd sourced round because they don't want to get wiped out in a down round. This notes thing looks like an attempt to pivot to an advertising based business model and I'm guessing they think they have "influencers" on their platform to bring in a decent audience.

Next on the product roadmap:

- Infinite scrolling feed w/ ads

- Video Substacks

- Infinite scrolling video Substacks w/ ads

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#100

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

inpdx wrote: post #60
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thanks. Social networks are non essential. Twitter and Substack Notes can go away tomorrow and no one will bat an eyelid. In these cases, people just want to go to a website or a mobile app, click around and have some foolish fun for sometime. Banking networks need protocols, not social media, which is intrinsically about dumb fun. That is why Mastodon and these things will never be as popular.

You seem to have no recollection of how Twitter has played an outsized role in fast reporting on breaking events, such as the Arab Spring.

Twitter is not important. Breaking news were always there on TV from the beginning of time.
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