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We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

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Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#341

Post by moviewise »

sachinmonga wrote: post #145
cyberdrunk2 wrote: post #115

Are there any plans to help writers with discovery? It seems the only way to to build an audience is to already have an audience of some sort. This is one of the things that I like about Medium. They will recommend articles based on interests and have great SEO.

Definitely. The current Discover tab in the app is admittedly pretty basic - just search, the same featured publications from the homepage on substack.com, and categories. We have a lot of ideas for how to improve this tab, as well as other discover mechanisms throughout the app. One area I'm especially excited about: discovery through the lens of the writers you trust. What are those writers reading themselves? What…

Discoverability based on more specific categories, like "humor/comedy" "movies" "advice" would be more helpful than trying to triangulate between what a writer/author reads and what a new reader is reading. Writers who are more open-minded subscribe to newsletters that have nothing to do with the content they write about. If a reader is interested in more "humor" writing, for example, it doesn't make any sense to suggest a travel newsletter simply because the author of the article they are looking at reads it, and you are deeming it higher quality because of that when it may not really be better than other newsletters in the same category but rather a reflection of a personal relationship the author has with another author. To a lesser extent the same goes for the readers of a publication. People have eclectic tastes and are not monolithic. But as a reader if I'm enjoying an article under the category "movies" then I would appreciate seeing articles that are tagged with related terms like "film" "cinema" "movie recommendations" "movie reviews." The lack of tagging or more nuance in the categories Substack offers really limits discoverability.

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#342

Post by erikbye »

sachinmonga wrote: post #129
klabb3 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> developing for email is still a pretty big pain. I hear you, it's a shit show! I'm gonna have to do that myself soon and I don't look forward to it. > But there are limits to what you can do [in email] But email will still be a very common entry point for readers (unless you expect to change the behavior of your users), so you still need to link to the app or website from the email. As a user I don't mind an app fr…

> As a user I don't mind an app from a technical perspective. It gives me more options! But what are the things the app can do that the web cannot? A simple but important one: being able to get a notification on your phone when a new post lands in your inbox. There are lots of subtle little things around readability, scroll performance, etc. too. There are also a decent number of Podcasts on Substack now, and listeni…

App notifications are not a feature but a detrimental annoyance.

Also useless, because it is very likely you cannot read the article at the moment you receive the notification, because you are busy.

I don't know what Substack is, but it seems similar to Medium, and as such an app is unnecessary. You don't need apps to display and read text, I already have a web browser. Distraction-free reading? Just make sure your pages are compatible with Reader View, or better yet, make a distraction free design in the first place.

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#343

Post by samglover97 »

awb wrote: post #282
logic_beats_pro wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes: Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. Dr. Robert Malone is not a journalist but a scientist. The analysis of recent medical studies shunned by the mainstream media is worth the time investment.

Greenwald and Taibbi are great examples of writers I see producing ideological opinion pieces that I don’t find useful, but are promoted and prevalent on Substack. I’m trying to get away from folks that make broad, sweeping judgements without much data / firsthand knowledge or dangle open ended conspiracy theory questions about subjects they have little to no expertise in.

I don't do that much on current events anymore but you might find my substack interesting: https://atis.substack.com

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#344

Post by bambax »

isaacremuant wrote: post #336
bambax wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to mention just one example, "The Abbey of Misrule" ( https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com ) pushes antivaxx rhetoric. I don't know if that represents "50% of the population" (let's hope not) but it's abhorrent in any case.

"Antivaxx rethoric" is just more labeling to dismiss people for not complying with whatever the new authoritarian push is. Hell, all the labels get put together and people who opposed Lockdowns and hurtful covid policies got called racist far right anti vaxxers because it's easier than using actual data. Much of the "anti lockdown/mask/covid vaccine mandates" was and is slowly vindicated day by day no matter how much…

Okay! ;-) There you go.

> the right to make their own risk analysis

I really wonder where this comes from though. Do those people analyze the airworthiness of an airplane before boarding it? And the credentials of the pilot? Or do they just trust the airline, and their country's regulator?

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#345

Post by jamil7 »

bathtub365 wrote: post #151
sachinmonga wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a user I don't mind an app from a technical perspective. It gives me more options! But what are the things the app can do that the web cannot? A simple but important one: being able to get a notification on your phone when a new post lands in your inbox. There are lots of subtle little things around readability, scroll performance, etc. too. There are also a decent number of Podcasts on Substack now, and listeni…

Can you elaborate on what “scroll performance” means? The only time I’ve had trouble with scrolling when I’m reading something on my phone is when an app or website thinks they know how to scroll better than the OS does.

I'm not sure how they meant it in this particular context but IMO good scroll performance with a lot of media on the page can be quite tricky to do on the web and a bit easier on iOS. This might be better these days than it was when I last did web dev (3+ years ago).

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#346

Post by high_byte »

cjbest wrote: post #76
native_samples wrote: post #19

Firstly - love love love Substack. It's so simple but it's so rapidly become a place where I do so much reading. I have a few questions (mostly not about the app though, I'll have to wait for Android support to try that). 1. How did you guys manage to attract writers? I know you have been signing fronting agreements. Superficially, Substack is a (fairly basic?) blogging platform + email + payment processing system. T…

2: We do have a strong philosophical stance on this. We think taking a strong stance in favor of freedom of the press is both the right thing to do, and critical to the success of our broader mission. We've written about this a few times, e.g. https://on.substack.com/p/substacks-view-of-content-moderati... and https://on.substack.com/p/society-has-a-trust-problem-more That is incidentally a big part of the answer for…

I enjoyed these articles, you really nailed it. I think if you ever add podcasts and videos you could be the next YouTube, without the click-maximizing algorithms.

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#348

Post by wczekalski »

cjbest wrote: post #98
vosper wrote: post #46

Will there ever be bundles? Or some kind of bulk discount? Pay-per-article? I'm a paid subscriber to a number of Substack writers, and I'd like to subscribe to more, but it can rapidly run into the hundreds of dollars per month - so I really have to pick and choose. I can imagine bundles aren't really your model, and maybe aren't in your authors interest either. But I'd love to get like an Economics bundle and a New…

Thank you for subscribing! The bundle question is interesting. The model right now is really an unbundling. The direct relationship between writers and readers is what makes Substack work: as a writer, your incentive is to earn and keep the trust of the audience who deeply values your work. That's not just a good way to get paid for work you're already doing. It's a model that allows and rewards a fundamentally diffe…

I just thought about writers being able to share things they find interesting from other writers with their audience as an interesting lead.

Also an emergence of a "curator" class, people who could assemble "newspapers" out of the newsletters could be interesting, too.

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#349

Post by klelatti »

ubac wrote: post #128

You continued taking your cut from my subscriptions after I'd left your platform (I think because you didn't really understand how Stripe Connect works) and just refused to pay the money back for over a year. What was the deal with that? It struck me as both deeply dishonourable and not even sensible as a business move. Why did you do that, and what does it say about Substack as a company that you did it?

Hello Uri. Love the browser! Did you get this sorted in the end and have you heard of others having this issue?

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#350

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #232

Simple question: what’s the tech stack, driving the App? I see that you have an Android app, coming soon, so this makes me think that you are using some form of hybrid tech (as opposed to native).

AUa*A?

*almost

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