This article is from WeChat official account:Geek Park (ID: geekpark) , author: Shen Han know, editor: Jingyu, the original title: “inspired by the micro-channel version of the American” public number “, how will the value of the $ 650 million? “, the head picture comes from: Visual China
Recently, foreign media have been discussing one thing: Is Newsletter recovering again?
Actually if you open the mailbox. You will find promotional emails from many merchants. This is Newsletter(email newsletter). In the past, when companies were doing brand promotion and marketing, they sent mass emails of new products and discount information to consumers.
However, recent discussions have focused on one product, Substack, which already has 500,000 paying users. It received a $65 million Series B financing led by a16z last month, with a valuation of $650 million. Many traditional media people have built independent content “empires” through Substack, and pushed them to users’ mailboxes for a fee.
Substack’s product model is very simple, and it uses email as the medium of daily communication for foreign users. But it sounds so commonplace that Substack quickly got a16z financing after graduating from Y Combinator. In China, the frequency of use of mailboxes is not high, and Newsletter has “transformed” into a product that users are more familiar with-the WeChat official account.
Coincidentally, the founding team of Substack once revealed that the success of WeChat gave them a lot of inspiration. Before founding Substack, Chris Best led the development of the instant messaging tool Kik, which is also known as the “Western version of WeChat.” When it comes to Substack, just like the WeChat official account, Substack “ignores” the power of the platform and allows users to subscribe to individuals “point-to-point”.
This is not just a shift in the relationship between news media and users. From some of Best’s remarks, it can be seen that he is dissatisfied with the impact of the rise of the Internet and social media on the news industry. It’s just that the media paywall has existed for many years, and Substack can give the news industry businessWhat changes will the business model bring?
the media people who abandoned the big platform and went to Substack
The relationship between Silicon Valley’s social media and traffic aggregation platforms and the news industry has become more and more complex. When Facebook and Twitter have become more and more important ways for people to consume news, the distribution and media attributes of traditional media have been greatly weakened, and they have become content producers attached to the flow platform.
Traditional media awareness began to awaken, trying to bypass the platform and directly establish contact with readers. For example, the New York Times announced in the middle of last year that it would no longer participate in the bundling and packaging of Apple News, becoming one of the largest publishers to do so. In Q2 of 2020, the New York Times’ digital subscription and advertising revenue surpassed paper revenue for the first time, becoming a milestone event for this 169-year-old newspaper.
However, reporters have also discovered that they can break free from large publishers and exert their influence. Forbes said that research has shown that readers are increasingly inclined to focus on the content of individual journalists, and the importance of the platforms that journalists belong to is decreasing.
For example, the technology reporter Casey Newton of The Verge now writes Newsletter on Substack. Newton has a certain reader base. For those who want to better understand the Silicon Valley technology industry, Newton can almost be included in the “must-read list.” Subscribe to Newton’s Newsletter for $10 per month ($100 per year), borrowing from Kevin Kelly’s “Creators can make ends meet with 1,000 fans” In theory, Substack can indeed be a way out for independent authors, and Newton’s subscribers are far more than that.
For a traditional media person like Newton, if he doesn’t depend on the platform, he doesn’t have to be constrained by the platform’s algorithms, values, and editorial constraints. Later, Newton said that his attention has become very concentrated, and he only needs to focus on the content and the relationship with the reader.
Substack draws 10%, which is not the lowest among all newsletter platforms. If Substack has done something right, it is extremely easy to use and gives absolute power to the creator himself.
Before Substack, independent creators had to face certain technical barriers to open a blog, such as buying domain names, processing payments, and even worrying about community building. Substack not only provides typesetting tools, data analysis tools (for example, authors can know the open rate of emails, detailed to the reading actions of each user, etc.), but also Provide additional payment services, financial support, legal support, etc.
The most important thing is that users are not monopolized by the platform. Without the “middleman”, authors can get the email addresses of all subscribers. Once they want to leave Substack, they can also take away the subscribers at any time. .
At the same time, this relationship is two-way. For readers, close communication with the author and the “intimacy” that can almost be ignored on the platform are very enjoyable. For example, readers’ comments can get the author’s reply the first time, in the relatively private newsletter. In the environment, the interaction is more open and easy to accept.
Best always believes that creators should not “export knowledge” completely for free. However, today, social media brings a lot of extensive and free content. On the contrary, it is not easy for readers to directly pay to support specific individuals. People who work on creative content do not make much money. In his view, this is a social network that makes a living by advertising. The media’s destruction of content consumption.
Newton said that he is not good at judging whether Substack leads to the future of the news industry, but at least many reporters get a good income, which has also proven to be a viable business model.
Inverse algorithm, advocating “active” reading
The Substack page is too simple, and it can even be said to be “not very friendly” to a certain extent. The user must have a clear purpose,Pay form-podcast. When an independent author has very personal characteristics, it is often easier to gain an audience with the ultimate professional in a certain field. For example, the author Bill Bishop interprets China from various aspects such as politics, society, and diplomacy. Because Substack encourages “active” attention and reading.
For a long time, Twitter will still be the main channel for people to obtain news and information. Algorithm-driven content consumption has been recognized by the mainstream public, but the self-awareness and counterattack are becoming stronger. Twitter has acquired Substack’s competitor Revue, and Facebook is also testing related functions of the product, because they know that if they don’t do this, they can only be an information flow platform that sells advertisements.
This article is from WeChat official account:Geek Park (ID: geekpark) , author: Shen Han know, editor: Jingyu