Substack is adding new capabilities to its Twitter-like Notes feature that bring it closer to the social network now known as X. The company announced Tuesday that users can now post videos directly to Notes in the Substack app and on the web. . Users can now also embed notes on external web pages.
The launch of the new features comes a year after Substack introduced Notes in April 2023, during a time when companies were looking to attract users who were fleeing Twitter after Elon Musk took the reins of the social network in late 2022. Notes allows users to share posts. , quotes, comments, images, links and ideas in a format similar to a Tweet. Short content is displayed in a dedicated Twitter-like feed.
Starting today, users can post videos directly to Notes by recording a video or selecting one from the camera roll on their phone or desktop. The company says more writers and creators are using its video tools and starting new shows on the platform, so it wants them to be able to share their work in Notes, too. Since apps like X and Meta’s Threads allow users to post videos, it makes sense that Notes would offer that capability as well.
As for embedding notes on external pages, Substack says the new capability will allow writers’ content to travel widely across the web beyond Substack. In an example given by Substack, a writer’s note could be embedded in a news article, which happens quite often with X posts. Users can find the embed code for a note by clicking the three-dot menu in the upper right corner and selecting the “insert note” option.
Substack announced Tuesday that Notes has generated more than 3,000 paid subscriptions and 230,000 free subscriptions for writers and creators on Substack in the last 30 days. In his blog post, Substack explains that Notes is especially valuable for users who don’t have large pre-existing audiences.
The company saw an opportunity to capitalize on the chaos on Twitter as soon as it began. In October 2022, Substack directly attacked Twitter and warned in a publication that: “Twitter is changing and it’s hard to predict what will happen next.” The post encouraged creators of all kinds to move their Twitter follower base to Substack. Substack then took its ambitions further by launching a Chat and, later, Notes feature.
As Substack continues to develop its Twitter-like product, effort to curb the platform’s bot problem.
