Twitter announced on Tuesday that it had acquired Revue, a newsletter platform for writers and publishers.
Why it matters: The deal marks Twitter’s first step in building long-term content experiences on Twitter, and its first push into subscription revenue.
Details: Although the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Twitter probably did not break the bank to acquire Revue. The five-year-old Dutch company has 6 employees and has raised only about $ 318,000, according to Crunchbase.
- Twitter will acquire the team and plans to expand it as soon as it’s on board.
- Revue offers free and paid newsletter options. The free version allows editors to send newsletters to up to 50 people. The paid version allows you to send email to up to 40,000 people.
- Revue takes a 6% cut of paid newsletter earnings as part of your transaction fee. Twitter says it will cut that cut to 5%.
Twitter says it welcomes all creators to join the platform, including experts, curators, journalists, editors and more.
- He plans to create new features this will make it easier for writers to connect with their audience, including allowing people to subscribe to newsletters from people who follow Twitter and adding new settings for writers to host conversations with their Twitter subscribers.
- “Everything will work perfectly on Twitter”, Twitter product leader Kayvon Beykpour and vice president of products for publishers Mike Park said in a statement.
Revue will remain an independent brand within Twitter, and Twitter will continue to invest in Revue as a standalone service, the company said.
- Twitter says it hopes to expand the Revue team. Over time, this team will be responsible for creating more “discovery, reading and conversation experiences” centered on long-form content on Twitter, “said Beykpour and Park.
- In the future, Twitter will “rev up” Revue’s offer, helping writers grow their lists of paid subscribers.
- Twitter says that writers can expect some kind of paid compensation based on how many Twitter users they convert to subscribers.
- The company says it will continue to develop new ways to support writers, perhaps with other sources of revenue in the future.
Flashback: While this is by far Twitter’s most aggressive onslaught on long-form content, the company has made some changes to its core product in recent years that have helped to introduce longer-form text on its platform.
Be smart: Twitter sets the pulse of the news cycle because many journalists are addicted to it. The addition of long texts can help strengthen the company’s relationship with journalists, thought leaders and subject matter experts who are looking for a space to share deeper thoughts.
- Writers “are a valuable part of the conversation and it is critical that we offer new ways for them to create and share their content and, most importantly, help them grow and connect better with their audience,” said Beykpour and Park.
- They note that the deal will “help people stay informed about their interests, while giving all types of writers a way to monetize their audience – whether through a publication, on their website, on Twitter or somewhere else”.
The big picture: The newsletter publishing space is becoming more crowded as users migrate to email to help resolve the huge scale and confusion on the web.
- There are countless technology companies entering the newsletter business, such as Substack, TinyLetter, Lede and Ghost, as well as several editorial publishers, such as Patch and Forbes.
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