The growing popularity of newsletter tools among independent journalists and writers has forced social media giant Facebook to take notice of an emerging trend and build a product out of it.
Facebook is reportedly working on a similar service which could be rolled out within months.
The new service built by the social media giant could have diverse features that would allow writers and journalists to engage with and build their followers on Facebook, curate their email lists and paid subscription tools.
The growing support for newsletter service has attracted tech giants across the globe to see it as a viable revenue option. US-based microblogging and social networking service Twitter had recently acquired Revue, an email service that makes it free and easy for anyone to start and publish editorial newsletters.
Substack, a newsletter platform focusing on small publishers had recently claimed that its service garnered more than 250,000 paying subscribers as of September 2020. Founded in 2017, Substack’s software allows writers to easily reach out to their followers by publishing and distributing both free and paid emailed newsletters. The San Francisco, US-based company, in return gets a small cut of the sales from the writer’s subscription.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly supportive of the firm’s newsletter project which is part of its Journalism Project. The initiative will support Facebook’s thrust to offer more legitimate news sources.
The social media platform has been in the spotlight for its not-so-effective treatment of misinformation and hateful content.
