Highlights:

  • The rest of the interface resembles a Twitter clone, with one side panel containing access to the Inbox, alerts, and Notes, and the other panel on the far side including recommendations for artists to follow.
  • Notes makes a lot of sense, but it’s unlikely that many creators will abandon Twitter.

Recently, Substack Inc. unveiled Notes, a platform that closely resembles Twitter. It allows Substack authors to communicate with subscribers.

There are just linguistic distinctions. Users write and post notes rather than tweets. A restack exists, but there is no such thing as a retweet. Most of the interface resembles Twitter like a clone, with one side panel containing access to the Inbox, alerts, and Notes, and the other panel on the far side including recommendations for artists to follow. The news feed is in the central pane.

The company wrote in a post. “You can share links, images, quick thoughts, and snippets from Substack posts. As well as being lightweight and fun, we hope that Notes will help writers grow their audience and revenue.”

Last week, Elon Musk was accused of attempting to prevent Substack creators from making a livelihood when any tweet containing a link to Substack lost functionality. During this time, Substack had just announced Notes. Many believed that Musk was up to his old tactics again, crushing his competition.

Matt Taibbi, one of the most well-known architects of Substack, was not delighted. Taibbi was among the writers who collaborated with Twitter to publish “The Twitter Files.” He stated at the time that he would depart Twitter if the chaos was not resolved, just as Musk was being called a “bully” by innumerable individuals. It is unknown why Twitter reversed its decision, but it did.

Substack tweeted that, “We’re glad to see that the suppression of Substack publications on Twitter appears to be over. We believe that Twitter and Substack can continue to coexist and complement each other.” Although Notes resembles Twitter in appearance, one could argue that such a design is now generic. Substack reiterated in a separate post that Notes was not intended to replace existing social networks.

It is undeniable that the 35 million active subscribers and 2 million paid subscribers of Substack exist in a rarefied universe where users get updates about new content but there is no actual place to see people interacting on the website. Notes makes a lot of sense, but it’s unlikely that many creators will abandon Twitter.

Hamish McKenzie, Co-founder of Substack, stated over the weekend that the company was simply attempting to give creators more control over their work in a social media-dominant world.  Hamish McKenzie said, “Substack may be a small upstart, but the combined power of the writers on it is already tremendous. If enough of us choose to play this new game, it will work, and there’s nothing anyone will be able to do to stop it.”