Revue will shut down and all data will be deleted(help.getrevue.co)
help.getrevue.co
Revue will shut down and all data will be deleted
http://help.getrevue.co/en/articles/6819675-we-ve-made-the-difficult-decision-to-shut-down-revue
124 comments
> But he just shut down Revue, which was exactly "Twitter's Substack" version
Google Video was "Google's YouTube" but Google still decided YouTube was worth acquiring.
Google Video was "Google's YouTube" but Google still decided YouTube was worth acquiring.
I suspect the value of something like that isn't the tech but the established writers+audiences. Substack is the best current example of independent journalism and columnists managing and monetizing their loyal readership without the brand umbrella of a major publication.
> Elon Musk replied to a question on how he's open to the idea of acquiring Substack [2].
Every CEO is “open to” any acquisition, just as any VC is “open to” funding any company. At least until someone asks for terms.
The only interpretation of “open to” in the business world is “not a hard, irreversible ‘no’.”
Every CEO is “open to” any acquisition, just as any VC is “open to” funding any company. At least until someone asks for terms.
The only interpretation of “open to” in the business world is “not a hard, irreversible ‘no’.”
He's probably more careful not to say anything legally binding regarding an agreement to acquire after the Twitter misstep.
or in musks case, yes! maybe! no! perhaps! uhh ok fine whatever..
Everyone's open to everything at the right price.
agentdrtran(1)
I'm finishing a Revue data importer for Postcard. If you want to move over your posts + subscribers, there's a form to submit them for import:
https://postcard.page/alternative/revue
https://postcard.page/alternative/revue
What was Revue? I'd never heard of it before today.
Substack competitor acquired by twitter
I'm being honest here, I never heard of substack either.
It's interesting how people's experiences differ - it feels to me like every third link on HN's front page is from Substack.
Have you ever read an article where you scroll down and it fades in a dialog asking you to subscribe to their newsletter, and then you have to click "Let me read it first" to keep going? The platform that site is running on is Substack.
Have you ever read an article where you scroll down and it fades in a dialog asking you to subscribe to their newsletter, and then you have to click "Let me read it first" to keep going? The platform that site is running on is Substack.
I'm sure I seen it, just don't recall. usually if I click a link and its a blog, I'm gone. If its a block with something I have to click to read further, I definitely just close it.
I just don't like the blogging experience, I never did. I'd much rather consume my information in video content. I feel like the ways they can convey the information is much more dynamic, and its painfully obvious if they are just trying to fluff the video for time. With some blogs, they add so much fluff writing and reading isn't something I particularly enjoy.
The video experience is getting worse, with in video sponsors. personally, content creators should be forced to tag the video sections that are for sponsorship and the player should be able to automatically skip them.
I just don't like the blogging experience, I never did. I'd much rather consume my information in video content. I feel like the ways they can convey the information is much more dynamic, and its painfully obvious if they are just trying to fluff the video for time. With some blogs, they add so much fluff writing and reading isn't something I particularly enjoy.
The video experience is getting worse, with in video sponsors. personally, content creators should be forced to tag the video sections that are for sponsorship and the player should be able to automatically skip them.
I thought that experience was a "medium" trademark :)
But yes now that you described it, I remember that experience but didn't associate with the brandname "substack"
But yes now that you described it, I remember that experience but didn't associate with the brandname "substack"
That's why I force my browser to show the full URL, without fancy "we know what is better for you" things.
What is Substack?
It's a blogging platform. A bit like medium.
What is Medium?
A blogging platform a bit like Geocities.
What is Geocities?
Your own personal kinda NNTP posting place?
NNTP? Can you explain that in terms of TikTok please?
Sure, it's unlike TikTok.
how is it your own?
Other people are not allowed to post under you. You can't have some troll proving you wrong in a reply and have it posted in same thread.
if they can just rip it away from under your but it isn't yours.
ergo: wrong proven
ergo: wrong proven
It's like Twitter but longer-form.
Blogging platform aimed for journalists. And kind. Offering paid subscription. Partly marketed as direct to customer columnist platform.
Micah Lerner who publishes a popular Systems Papers newsletter used it. Now he's on substack.
https://twitter.com/micahlerner/status/1608249534676885504
https://twitter.com/micahlerner/status/1608249534676885504
Came to the comments and found my blog mentioned. Aw schucks.
Neither had I. Probably the right decision to terminate it, likely loses several million dollars per year or more.
Discussion from Twitter's acquisition in 2021: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25914865
"Excellent acquisition. Twitter will definitely compete and take marketshare from Substack" did not age well.
I tried launching an ad campaign on Twitter on their self-serve ads platform.
On the very first screen, I'm asked to select my country and time zone.
Except the time zone selector only has +1 hour increments. You can choose UTC+5 or UTC+6, but you can't choose UTC+5:30 (which is my time zone).
So I had to choose UTC+5.
This multibillion dollar corporation was running a multibillion ad platform where customers couldn't even choose their correct time zone.
No wonder they couldn't make any money, even during the pandemic.
On the very first screen, I'm asked to select my country and time zone.
Except the time zone selector only has +1 hour increments. You can choose UTC+5 or UTC+6, but you can't choose UTC+5:30 (which is my time zone).
So I had to choose UTC+5.
This multibillion dollar corporation was running a multibillion ad platform where customers couldn't even choose their correct time zone.
No wonder they couldn't make any money, even during the pandemic.
Comment #2, on the other hand, nailed it:
prestigious on Jan 26, 2021 | prev | next [–]
You would have to be a complete idiot to try and build your revenue on something owned by Twitter. They will shut you down at any time, for any reason, with no recourse.
prestigious on Jan 26, 2021 | prev | next [–]
You would have to be a complete idiot to try and build your revenue on something owned by Twitter. They will shut you down at any time, for any reason, with no recourse.
They will shut you down at any time, for any reason, with no recourse.
True, but this also sounds like Google, or Youtube, or Facebook, or Apple, or the Play Store, or payment processors, or github, or...
True, but this also sounds like Google, or Youtube, or Facebook, or Apple, or the Play Store, or payment processors, or github, or...
I mean that’s not wrong, it just speaks poorly of these tech giants in general. For example dark sky was recently shut down, after being acquired by Apple.
It's like saying "Thanks to the work of (nonprofit) there will be at least a 5% increase in the number of comfortable affordable housing units in New Orleans by the end of the year" before Hurricane Katrina.
Same comment, though:
> Twitter could absolutely become a paid service and move away from ads as its business model. ... Imagine paying $1-3 per month for FB or Twitter. We'd no longer be the product — our data not for sale — and the companies would make more money!
or
> It's almost a running joke, up there with Daft Punk playing at the trash fence, that Twitter just won't release an edit button. With a move towards paying subscribers, maybe Twitter will listen to its real customers -- content writers -- rather than advertisers.
Monkey's paw and all that, but not bad otherwise.
> Twitter could absolutely become a paid service and move away from ads as its business model. ... Imagine paying $1-3 per month for FB or Twitter. We'd no longer be the product — our data not for sale — and the companies would make more money!
or
> It's almost a running joke, up there with Daft Punk playing at the trash fence, that Twitter just won't release an edit button. With a move towards paying subscribers, maybe Twitter will listen to its real customers -- content writers -- rather than advertisers.
Monkey's paw and all that, but not bad otherwise.
"You would have to be a complete idiot to try and build your revenue on something owned by Twitter. They will shut you down at any time, for any reason, with no recourse."
Indeed they did.
Indeed they did.
Probably fired everyone who worked there without realising. ‘Oh crap, there’s no-one left. Quick, write something and stick it on the homepage.’
It’s telling that the sign in with twitter functionality was broken for a few days after the initial announcement. Was seriously worried I wouldn’t be able to download my subscriber list and content.
It’s telling that the sign in with twitter functionality was broken for a few days after the initial announcement. Was seriously worried I wouldn’t be able to download my subscriber list and content.
This has been known for weeks, I'm surprised that it only seems to be appearing on HN now.
Apparently someone submitted it few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33985798
Just never got any upvotes.
Just never got any upvotes.
" it is your responsibility to adhere to any (...) regulations in connection with your subscriber list (...)and Twitter, Inc. has not obtained permission for you to use subscriber information for any purpose. "
What does that mean exactly? > "Twitter hasn't obtained permission for you"?
What does that mean exactly? > "Twitter hasn't obtained permission for you"?
It's poorly worded, but I think they're saying, "this link will let you download your list of subscribers. We're giving this to you with no warranties, don't use it to spam people or otherwise break the law."
Honestly, I don't think that's a particularly strong legal defense, but IANAL.
I do appreciate the revue team for letting users port their subscribers to other services. This is basic decency, but with Twitter banning links to other social media, I don't know what to expect from them anymore.
Honestly, I don't think that's a particularly strong legal defense, but IANAL.
I do appreciate the revue team for letting users port their subscribers to other services. This is basic decency, but with Twitter banning links to other social media, I don't know what to expect from them anymore.
[deleted]
Putting aside product strategy and Howard Hughes for a minute, it's worth paying respect to the Revue team. A little group of good humans in the Netherlands, creating a slick and well designed product in an otherwise competitive space. It's a testament to a lot of good work and the kind of energy that makes this industry such a joy at times.
It's also one of endless examples of the downsides of acquisition for users (if not the founder/team with equity, who know the game they're playing). I often think of the analogy of rich kids from dysfunctional families who buy a lot of cool stuff and don't really do much with it after their social signal moment. Been on both side of this to some degree in the industry and it's never fun to see the users let down at the end of it.
While this is part of what keeps the industry going, it would be nice to see more open source outcomes for such well designed products. But to end on a positive... well done team, hope you all go on to make awesome things again.
It's also one of endless examples of the downsides of acquisition for users (if not the founder/team with equity, who know the game they're playing). I often think of the analogy of rich kids from dysfunctional families who buy a lot of cool stuff and don't really do much with it after their social signal moment. Been on both side of this to some degree in the industry and it's never fun to see the users let down at the end of it.
While this is part of what keeps the industry going, it would be nice to see more open source outcomes for such well designed products. But to end on a positive... well done team, hope you all go on to make awesome things again.
Does anyone know if the Internet Archive is on the case?
A lot of profile and newsletter links of the form "https://www.getrevue.co/profile/..." are going to be dead very soon.
A lot of profile and newsletter links of the form "https://www.getrevue.co/profile/..." are going to be dead very soon.
Check Jason Scott’s Twitter account. I’m sure it’s being worked on.
Surprising they couldn't make this work. It seems like every substack author promotes their work on twitter. Maybe it's just hard to avoid tossing a few babies out with the bath water when reducing headcount by 75%.
I don't think there was an actual attempt to make it work. They've acquired it, slapped it below the profile, and when Musk took over Twitter it was immediately obvious it's going to die.
uuddlrlrbaba(3)
Bring back Nuzzel. https://twitter.com/nuzzel
We have a homage to our beloved Nuzzel at Newslit Social (https://www.newslit.co/social) that you might like. I was one of the Engineers at Nuzzel ;)
Nuzzel kinda sorta exists as "Top Articles" which is a feature of the Blue subscription.
This is a shame. I archived all my Revue posts to my blog: https://xeiaso.net/blog/site-update-revue-backups
Next time I try to run a newsletter it will be something I self-host.
Next time I try to run a newsletter it will be something I self-host.
Sounds like a good time to ask: alternatives to Substack that people actually use?
I subscribe to some writers that have switched from Substack to Ghost (https://ghost.org/). It's open source, seems like a good company from what I know, and the experience as a subscriber is basically the same as Substack.
Maybe superficial but it seemed "tacked on" in terms of UI/UX. I don't think most people go to Twitter to read newsletters, and the way it was implemented just felt weird.
Looks like they discovered that nobody pays for subscriptions.
A good product / VC strategy would be to double down on anything Twitter shuts down about 18 months after
Open APIs > short form mobile video > creator owned long form text?
Open APIs > short form mobile video > creator owned long form text?
Apparently this happened almost a month ago?
Elon gone wild. I'd think this has much more value continuing than not...
It's pretty clear that the service was a failure. The company was formed in 2015, two years before Substack. They were acquired by Twitter in Jan 2021. Two years later they pretty much have nothing to show for it, while Substack has become the dominant blogging/newsletter platform.
Is Substack a success? A piddling $9m revenue after a $650m valuation?
> According to the Times, Substack separately told investors that it saw revenue of just $9 million last year. (It told the Times directly in a story last month that it has hundreds of thousands of paid newsletters now on the platform.)
https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/26/report-substack-the-highly...
> According to the Times, Substack separately told investors that it saw revenue of just $9 million last year. (It told the Times directly in a story last month that it has hundreds of thousands of paid newsletters now on the platform.)
https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/26/report-substack-the-highly...
Interesting. Could the technical part of its user base crowdfund to acquire it?
Just curious, why would it be the technical part of the userbase that raises money to acquire it? After all "raising money to buy a company" is typically more of an MBA activity than something done by the dev team.
Why not? Do you mean intentionally mean to be that linear with that line of thinking?
Keeping the platform running might be more of a tech endeavour than a business management skill.
Who knows, maybe tech people can learn business easier than business people can learn tech.
Still, some argue MBAs rarely have business experience. Others say they usually predict the next 5 years beard in the direction of the past 5.
Keeping the platform running might be more of a tech endeavour than a business management skill.
Who knows, maybe tech people can learn business easier than business people can learn tech.
Still, some argue MBAs rarely have business experience. Others say they usually predict the next 5 years beard in the direction of the past 5.
I meant it more as "why specifically a group of technical users" rather than just any group of users?
alright I'm in need of a move. I tried Convertkit in the past and it was expensive + the editor was extremely slow/buggy and constantly ate my typing.
what's the Revue alternative?
what's the Revue alternative?
Seems like very short notice to delete all the data.
Elon gone wild
But for some reason, Musk would be open to buying Substack[1] (even though it's not for sale[2]).
1. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1607936197602562050
2. https://twitter.com/hamishmckenzie/status/132311671881069363...
Just invest in the Substack competitor that your company _already has_...
1. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1607936197602562050
2. https://twitter.com/hamishmckenzie/status/132311671881069363...
Just invest in the Substack competitor that your company _already has_...
Musk doesn't want to develop a competitor. He wants to aquire the existing userbase
Shutting down Revue moves more users to Substack
Shutting down Revue moves more users to Substack
His interest in Substack is more likely centred around controlling the public conversation in a more direct way than on Twitter.
On Twitter, Musk gets dunked on daily, as do his $8/month boosters, all of whom are at the top of the replies (hence creating a larger dunk attack vector).
Substack is more 'buttoned-down', everybody there is trying to be a "thought leader", so it already skews more "rich guys know better", even without considering all the conservative op-ed writers that have paid gigs there.
On Twitter, Musk gets dunked on daily, as do his $8/month boosters, all of whom are at the top of the replies (hence creating a larger dunk attack vector).
Substack is more 'buttoned-down', everybody there is trying to be a "thought leader", so it already skews more "rich guys know better", even without considering all the conservative op-ed writers that have paid gigs there.
So you do it after you've purchased substack, not before.
Elon doing something stupid without thinking it through? What an unexpected unprecedented situation. /s
That's a stupid hypothetical, alright!
[deleted]
He probably looked at the codebase and decided it wasn’t worth it. Not saying that is a good decision, or a bad codebase. In fact, nowadays, I’d say the opposite. Lol
> "In the meantime, you will be able to download your subscriber list"
...
> "Twitter, Inc. has not obtained permission for you to use subscriber information for any purpose."
Twitter thinks it has permission to provide account owners with their subscriber lists but explicitly says that those same account owners have no permissions of their own for the data.
I do not think this is how how most countries' data privacy laws work.
This is a very murky situation and Twitter seem to be writing it all off with a wink and a nod.
...
> "Twitter, Inc. has not obtained permission for you to use subscriber information for any purpose."
Twitter thinks it has permission to provide account owners with their subscriber lists but explicitly says that those same account owners have no permissions of their own for the data.
I do not think this is how how most countries' data privacy laws work.
This is a very murky situation and Twitter seem to be writing it all off with a wink and a nod.
It's very much how most privacy laws work.
According to Revue's platform privacy policy[0], Revue processes subscriber emails as a data processor. Each newsletter publisher owns the email addresses of their respective audiences. Revue would have a legal obligation to make those email addresses available to the newsletter publishers until the shutdown date.
[0]: https://www.getrevue.co/privacy/platform?locale=en
According to Revue's platform privacy policy[0], Revue processes subscriber emails as a data processor. Each newsletter publisher owns the email addresses of their respective audiences. Revue would have a legal obligation to make those email addresses available to the newsletter publishers until the shutdown date.
[0]: https://www.getrevue.co/privacy/platform?locale=en
Their privacy policy very strongly suggests that they are the data processor only when the account owner (Publisher) provides the email address, which they call indirect subscription.
Direct subscribers are users who subscribed themselves via the Revue service. and the privacy policy says nothing about providing direct subscribers' private data to the Publisher.
Their closure announcement does not distinguish between the types of subscriber.
So either the Publisher is only getting the indirect subscribers' info (and isn't being told they are losing the direct subscribers) or the Publisher is getting direct subscriber info which the direct subscriber never agreed to allowing (unless that is a separate agreement from the privacy policy, in which case presumably some permission was indeed obtained).
Direct subscribers are users who subscribed themselves via the Revue service. and the privacy policy says nothing about providing direct subscribers' private data to the Publisher.
Their closure announcement does not distinguish between the types of subscriber.
So either the Publisher is only getting the indirect subscribers' info (and isn't being told they are losing the direct subscribers) or the Publisher is getting direct subscriber info which the direct subscriber never agreed to allowing (unless that is a separate agreement from the privacy policy, in which case presumably some permission was indeed obtained).
> explicitly says that those same account owners have no permissions of their own for the data
"Twitter has not obtained permission for you" is not the same as "you have no permissions"
You have whatever permissions you brought to the table, and nothing else.
"Twitter has not obtained permission for you" is not the same as "you have no permissions"
You have whatever permissions you brought to the table, and nothing else.
[deleted]
The majority of the team was cut in the first wave of Twitter layoffs on 4 November (wrote about this [1]) - when 50% of people were let go. By this time, most of them were working on Twitter's long form tweets, which feature was being tested with customers.
So this decision was indirectly made on the first week of the Twitter takeover. In the end, it was perhaps two people left from the old Revue team. Today, there's only the founder of Revue, who wrote this article, everyone else let go AFAIK.
What was very, very surprising to me is how, a month and a half later, Elon Musk replied to a question on how he's open to the idea of acquiring Substack [2]. But he just shut down Revue, which was exactly "Twitter's Substack" version with all the same features: newsletters, support for paid, plus first-class integration into Twitter that Substack does not have.
[1] https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/cruel-changes-at-twitter
[2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1607936197602562050