Facebook to launch newsletter tools for journalists and writers

Social media giant Facebook is also planning to roll out newsletter tools to help writers and journalists, The New York Times reported on Friday.

Facebook's newsletter service could include features to help writers and journalists build their followers on the social media platform, curate their email lists and paid subscription tools, said the report, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

The report suggests that interest in the newsletter space is growing among social media platforms.

Twitter this week announced it has acquired Revue, an email service that makes it free and easy for anyone to start and publish editorial newsletters.

Newsletter service Substack claimed to have over 250,000 paying subscribers across its service as of September 2020, according to a report in The Verge.

Founded in 2017, Substack's software allows writers to easily reach out to their followers by publishing and distributing both free and paid emailed newsletters.

The company, in return gets a nominal cut of the sales from the writer's subscription.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly supportive of the company's newsletter project which is part of its Journalism Project.

The initiative is part of the social media network's plan to provide more legitimate news sources.

*Edited from an IANS report