A Text Renaissance

Substack isn’t the only player that has sought to figure out small-scale publishing in the platform dominance era. Medium, for instance, has been home to a rotating roster of small publications, but has pivoted often and failed to emerge as the media force many once hoped it would be. Best said Substack’s main focus is the connection between an ind... See more

There has been lots of talk about the current battle between “old” media platforms like The New York Times and upstart newsletters on Substack, and I believe tokenization could emerge as a key differentiator for forward-thinking media companies. Especially for new companies and products, allowing early subscribers to benefit from future upside can ... See more

These days, we get so much of our content in bite-sized, isolated bits — links in an email, tweets, Slack messages, blog posts. We consume information because it’s in front of us, rather than because it’s relevant for us. This continually present dynamic discourages reflection and thought. The future of content is about interfaces that can help us ... See more

Newsletters are booming right now: since the pandemic started, the number of readers and ‘active writers’ on Substack have both doubled, and other providers such as Mailchimp have seen similar spikes in users. Newsletter platforms are attracting big names: Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, New York Magazine columnist Andrew Sullivan and Buzzfeed’s Anne ... See more

To oversimplify, here’s where we ended up. The Internet really did bring new voices into a national discourse that, for too long, had been controlled by far too narrow a group. But it did not return our democratic culture and modes of thinking to pre-TV logocentrism. The brief renaissance of long blog arguments was short-lived (and, honestly, it wa... See more