Twitter Notes is Coming

But will it impact Substack?

Hey Guys,

Heck I was really hoping Twitter notes would be called Twitter articles, but my wish was to be denied.

The bestest reverse engineer (App feature Ninja) ever Jane Manchun Wong in May, 2022 shared screenshots of a feature named Twitter Notes in some places and Twitter Articles in others.

You guys have no idea how much I admire JMW, but anyways:

jane @wongmjane

The Twitter Article Composer now comes with a “Focus Mode” (that button on the top-right) that expands the composer to the full screen, hides away the side bars

The folk at Substack must be a touch worried. I won’t lie.

In what could be one of Twitter’s more significant changes since doubling the character count from 140 to 280 characters, the company is preparing to launch a new feature that would support the direct publishing of long-form content on its platform. 2,500 words! WTF doesn’t that sound like LinkedIn posts though? No no, it’s way longer.

Twitter Fights Back Against Substack, No!

Twitter announced on June 22, 2022 it was merging its newsletter subscriptions into @TwitterWrite, a brand it’s using to encompass its long-form writing efforts, including Notes and newsletters.

Twitter Write @TwitterWrite

✨ Introducing: Notes ✨ We’re testing a way to write longer on Twitter.

Well Revenue really sucks so what to do? The command from Elon was sent in.

Twitter agonizes over even allowing us to edit our own Tweet, so it’s a big shift. Adding long-form writing to Twitter could drastically change the character of the platform, which has long been defined by short-form writing (at first, tweets were just 140 characters in length, before doubling to 280 characters in 2017).

Fast forward 5 years and a hostile Elon Musk takeover and you got a recipe for some frigging innovation!

I’m not personally a fan of Twitter’s ecosystem at all. But Many of the top Substack Professional writers seem to be, with massive followings apparently from years of activity on the retro platform.

Twitter Write @TwitterWrite

A small group of writers are helping us test Notes. They can be read on and off Twitter, by people in most countries.

It let users write format blog posts complete with pictures, links, and embedded tweets. More screenshots of the same tool were shared in April by another app researcher, Nima Owji, which showed options for users to share posts with their followers, or create standalone links for posts to share elsewhere on the web.

Hey Babe, should we make a Twitter circle?

Nima Owji @nima_owji

#Twitter is working on the “Twitter Circle” intro page for the web app.

I find it odd to be honest, I’m not in it for the Crypto honey!

By incorporating long-form writing into its platform, Twitter could potentially capture more of the value of these posts. It’s confusing to me because in 2021, Twitter bought newsletter firm Revue to take on rivals like Substack and has since integrated Revue newsletters into users’ Twitter profiles. I think maybe 4 people have subscribed to my Revue, I guess Twitter bots just don’t value me that much.

It’s not like Facebook didn’t already try this too eh. You can now “Earn” with Facebook Instant Articles. I’m so over it.

If broadly adopted, Twitter Notes could potentially change how some people use the social media platform to share their more in-depth thoughts and ideas. Or conceivably they could take market-share away from Substack writers though I don’t see why it would.

Still since the reverse app Ninja like to Tweet, at least I can show you their swag.

Nima Owji @nima_owji

#Twitter's new artwork for the “Notes” (Twitter Articles).

Twitter threads with numbers 1) have been some of the worst stuff I’ve ever seen 2 ) from Silicon Valley. Twitter Notes could at least get rid of those annoying af things.

But while Twitter threads encourage engagement as users click to expand the related tweets and replies, they can also be a bit unwieldy to peruse — particularly for longer content.

The company also said newsletter firm Revue, which it bought last year, would now be part of Twitter Write along with the "Notes" feature. The editor of Revenue is god-awful I’d prefer never to enter the UX again. But wtv, Musk is God.

However, the feature does not yet seem to have achieved wider popularity. I think Twitter Notes will hopefully at least have more utility. The clean interface of Substack is hard to beat though, why would I even want to live on poor feeds like Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook clunky sad places any longer than I have to?

I dunno who Nima is, Jane is the original app ninja.

jane @wongmjane

Twitter Article looks pretty polished at this stage

What’s my hobby?

My hobby is Substack.

You’d have to literally pay me to try to write long-form on Facebook or Twitter.

The company is in the middle of a US$44 billion buyout by Tesla's Elon Musk, the world's richest person according to Forbes magazine. Twitter is sort of doomed in the big picture. But journalists and some scientists still love it. Some politicians as well as a high-brow place to pick up a megaphone in a primal sort of Internet history sort of way.

But I’m not a Mountain dog sort of writer, dammit. I’m more of a Celestial kitty.

Whatever journalism has become under the watchful monetization of BigTech, I wish there was an escape from corporate censorship and muddy algorithms.

But then again that’s sort of the value prop of Substack right?

Notes are essentially blog posts that appear within Twitter without the typical limitations of a tweet. - I wish I did actually believe that!

The test will run for two months and involve a small group of writers in Canada, Ghana, the UK and US. I am not amused.

Did Twitter not want me to compose a Twitter Note?

“Screenshorting,” which is the practice of sharing a screenshot of an article written in a note-taking app to avoid Twitter’s character limit has also become pretty common. It’s also highly annoying.

Twitter thinks it can re-invent blogging a bit in the way like a Twitter co-founder created Medium. That sure ended well?

I can just imagine the would-be memes:

That sort of concludes the situation, it’s not a major threat, it’s a product feature.

Twitter has already shown increasing interest in long-form content. But Revue has already failed, Elon must be getting mad behind the scenes. I’m too late to Tweet about it, it’s already been replaced.

But are “Twitter Notes” the Media Future we Want?

I may end up sticking with Substack. How about you?

Thanks for reading!

P.S.

Facebook quietly shut down Notes in October 2020. These days, Facebook is chasing Substack with its newsletter platform Bulletin. Facebook is spending $millions of dollars on cartoon (Avatar) clothing and fashion and calling it “research”? I don’t really get it.