Substack is adding new features to its Twitter-like Notes functionality and strengthening its integration with the social network now known as X. The company announced Tuesday that users can now post videos directly to their Substack app and to their Notes on the web. . Users can now also embed notes in external web pages.
The new feature release comes a year after Substack introduced Notes in April 2023. At the time, the companies were aiming to capture users who had fled Twitter after Elon Musk took over the reigns of the social network in late 2022. Notes allows users to share posts. , quotes, comments, images, links, and ideas in a Tweet-like format. Short-form content appears in a dedicated Twitter-like feed.
Starting today, users can post videos directly to Notes by recording a video or selecting a video from their phone's camera roll or desktop. The company says that as more writers and creators use its video tools and start new shows on the platform, it wants to enable them to share their work on Notes as well. Considering that apps like X and Meta's Threads allow users to post videos, it also makes sense for Notes to offer that functionality.
When it comes to embedding notes on external pages, Substack says this new feature will allow writers' content to move widely across the web beyond Substack. In the Substack example, a writer's notes can be embedded in a news article, which happens frequently in her X posts. Users can find the embed code for their notes by clicking on her three-dot menu in the top right corner and selecting the “Embed Note'' option.
Substack announced Tuesday that Notes has generated more than 3,000 paid subscriptions and more than 230,000 free subscriptions for writers and creators on Substack in the past 30 days. Substack explains in a blog post that Notes is especially valuable for users who don't have a large existing audience.
The company seized the opportunity to capitalize on the confusion that followed Twitter's launch. In October 2022, Substack took a direct hit on Twitter, warning in a post that “Twitter is changing and it's hard to predict what will happen next.” The post encouraged creators of all kinds to port her Twitter follower base to his Substack. Substack then took its ambitions even further and released a chat feature, followed by notes.
As Substack continues to develop products similar to Twitter, X is further thrown into turmoil. The company announced Monday that it plans to charge new users a small fee before allowing them to post on the social network. Curb platform bot issues.