Revue, Twitter's newsletter, is shutting down next month
What's the story
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's career as a newsletter writer on Revue has been cut short, thanks to Twitter's decision to pull the plug on the platform. The service will be shut down on January 18, 2023, announced the company. The firm's announcement comes days after new CEO Elon Musk said that he's open to buying Revue-rival Substack.
Context
Why does this story matter?
First Scroll and now Revue, Twitter is slowly shutting down all its acquisitions from the pre-Musk era. Revue, despite not being as big a hit as Substack, still brought in subscription revenue to Twitter. Therefore, it is odd that Musk wants to shut down Revue, considering how much Musk talks about reducing Twitter's reliance on advertising income.
Shut down
All data on Revue will be deleted on January 18
Martijn de Kuijper, founder of Revue and senior product manager at Twitter, announced the decision to shut down the platform via an article on Revue. Writers will be able to download their subscriber list, past newsletters, and analytics. On January 18, all data will be deleted. Revue will cancel all paid subscriptions on December 20 to avoid charging subscribers again.
Acquisition
Twitter acquired Revue in early 2021
Newsletters were the rage in 2021. Twitter decided to jump on the bandwagon with its acquisition of Revue, a Dutch start-up. The idea was to make Twitter comfortable for long-form writers and compete with rivals, including Substack and Ghost. Twitter also targeted Meta, which was rumored to enter the newsletter business at the time. Ironically, Bulletin, Meta's newsletter, was shut down earlier this year.
Reason
Musk wants Twitter to be simple
Why is Twitter shutting down Revue now? To start with, newsletters don't have their pandemic charm anymore. Secondly, Musk is at the helm now. Musk wants Twitter to be simple. To this end, features including 'Moments' and 'tweet from' labels have been put on the chopping block. Therefore, it is not surprising to see the company discontinuing Revue.
Alternative
Twitter plans to increase the character limit to 4,000
If you're one of those who like to say more, Twitter may have a new option after Revue is gone. Last month, Musk announced that the microblogging platform will soon have the ability to attach long-form texts. Earlier this month, Musk confirmed reports that Twitter plans to increase the character limit to 4,000 from 280. This could provide respite to those who miss Revue.
Twitter Post
Dorsey is gutted by Twitter's decision to shutter Revue
well...after 17 hours, my career as a newsletter writer is coming to an end. post now here: https://t.co/Pu3grIvUNZ pic.twitter.com/iabb4yYXCv
— jack (@jack) December 14, 2022