Today Facebook announced Bulletin, a subscription-based newsletter that allows writers to publish content and send it directly to subscribers’ inboxes.
In a live audio call on Facebook’s Live Audio Rooms, a ripoff of Clubhouse, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg announced Bulletin, a ripoff of Substack. He stated Bulletin is “focused on empowering independent writers, helping them reach new audiences and power their businesses. The goal here across the company is to support eventually millions of people doing creative work.”
Currently, Bulletin isn’t accepting new sign-ups or writers. It’s using this beta period to bring several writers in and will add more “over time.”
Other subscription newsletters like Revue and Substack have seen a significant rise in popularity recently, and it looks like this is Facebook’s answer to the popular market.
Facebook announced that Bulletin won’t take a fee from writers at launch, but this may be subject to change. Currently, Revue takes a 5% fee, and Substack takes a 10% per cent fee.
The timing of the announcement is interesting. Facebook has been in the headlines recently when it was sued by the US Government and 48 states and districts. This conglomerate accused the company of abusing its market power in social networking to crush smaller competitors.
Good news (for Facebook) came on Monday, as US District Judge James Boasberg ruled that the lawsuits were “legally insufficient,” and there wasn’t enough evidence provided, to prove that Facebook was a monopoly. This ruling only dismisses the complaint, not the case. However, it seems that Facebook has taken no time at all to announce Bulletin, a very similar concept to other startup businesses already out there.
