The purchase, for an undisclosed sum, is part of Twitter’s effort to compete with other social media companies that allow users to earn money from their followings, as the newsletter industry enjoys a spike in popularity.
Revue was founded in the Netherlands in 2015 and has six employees. For now, it will continue to operate as an independent service, but Twitter said it planned to integrate Revue to
work seamlessly within Twitter.Newsletter writers typically offer a mix of paid and free options and earn money primarily through subscriptions. Platforms like Revue and Substack take a cut of those subscription dollars. But while Substack’s cut is 10 percent, Revue’s is 6 percent. Twitter said it would lower Revue’s cut even further, to 5 percent in an attempt to attract new writers.
Kate Conger
Interesting acquisition by Twitter, likely one of the first steps towards building more subscription-based products. While some are skeptical that these plans will be executed quickly, I think this type of extra services targeted at power users could provide a good complement to the traditional Twitter experience – and in this case generate income for both the company and its most active users.
Over the past couple of months, I started publishing a quick daily newsletter on Nuzzel, featuring my own articles together with other recent stories from my Twitter feed. From what I can tell, Revue can do a similar job of collating links and tweets into a newsletter, so I might give it a try at some point.
Update: some reports say Facebook is also working on newsletter tools for journalists and writers, likely developed in-house. With such competition entering this segment, Twitter better move fast to capitalize on its acquisition of Revue.
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