Twitter Acquires Revue, a Substack Competitor

Kayvon Beykpour and Mike Park, writing on the Twitter blog:

To jumpstart our efforts, Twitter has acquired Revue, a service that makes it free and easy for anyone to start and publish editorial newsletters. Revue will accelerate our work to help people stay informed about their interests while giving all types of writers a way to monetize their audience — whether it’s through the one they built at a publication, their website, on Twitter, or elsewhere. […]

Starting today, we’re making Revue’s Pro features free for all accounts and lowering the paid newsletter fee to 5%, a competitive rate that lets writers keep more of the revenue generated from subscriptions.

Substack charges 10 percent, so this gives Revue a leg up on that front. The path forward for Twitter seems obvious:

  • Let Twitter users attach a credit card (or a Square Cash account — I’m sure Twitter’s CEO can get a few minutes of time with the folks at Square) to their Twitter account.
  • Let those users with a card attached sign up for “Twitter Pro”, which would give them a badge on their avatar like the blue-check verified badge.
  • Sell access to Revue content right in the Twitter app. See a tweet with a link to an article from a subscriber-only newsletter? Subscribe to the newsletter in two taps, right in the app, just like buying apps from the App Store.

This seems rather obvious, and a good idea, so I’m sure Twitter won’t do it.

★ Tuesday, 26 January 2021