\nPost, a publisher-focused Twitter alternative, launches to public<\/br>
\n2023-04-03 21:46:19<\/br><\/p>\n
Post<\/a>, a Twitter alternative of sorts<\/a> that\u2019s rethinking how publishers should engage with social media \u2014 and how they should monetize their readership \u2014 has opened its doors to the public. The startup, like others in this space, gained ground<\/a> in the wake of Elon Musk\u2019s acquisition<\/a> of Twitter as many began to look for a new place to read and discuss the news or share their own thoughts with their followers. But Post doesn\u2019t want to be just another Twitter clone. Instead, its aim is to develop a platform where publishers can generate revenue from micropayments \u2014 that is, where users pay some small amount of money to read individual news items.<\/p>\n This could include articles from traditional media outlets that would otherwise have been behind some kind of subscription-based paywall, but it could also include other types of media, like subscription newsletters, or even free and ad-supported content that\u2019s offered elsewhere. The latter has been the source of some<\/a> criticism<\/a> for Post, along the lines of \u201cwho would pay for news that you could get for free elsewhere?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n But that response conveniently forgets the miserable experience that is reading free news on today\u2019s web.<\/p>\n Ads and in-house promos are everywhere \u2014 even in the middle of articles as you scroll down. Videos autoplay, often in their own pop-up windows. Cookie consent banners appear, trying to trick you into agreeing<\/a> to hand over more data. Prompts to buy a subscription or sign up for the publishers\u2019 newsletter pop up over the top of the screen, forcing you to dismiss them.<\/p>\n Explains Post\u2019s founder and CEO Noam Bardin<\/a>, previously CEO of Waze at Google, Post\u2019s partnered publishers have already found that users want to read news in their feed, rather than jumping out to external websites \u2014 even if it\u2019s more expensive to do so.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Post screenshot<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYou go to many news sites today and you get bombarded by these ads, email capture forms and subscriptions\u2026you just wanted to read one article. And you wanted to read it because someone shared it. So, a one-time transaction, but you\u2019re bombarded,\u201d he says. \u201cWe think that with a great user experience, the right pricing and the lack of friction, we can add a new business model to the world of ads [or] subscription.\u201d<\/p>\n Bardin tells TechCrunch that, when speaking with publishers, they generally agreed with the startup\u2019s thesis \u2014 that the current subscription structure, outside of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal \u2014 is not good for publishers. They acknowledged that the website traffic from social media shares doesn\u2019t often convert visitors to subscribers and that subscribers account for only a fraction of their larger readership.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone agrees there\u2019s a problem. No one wants to be first,\u201d he says, speaking of Post\u2019s initial struggles with publisher adoption.<\/p>\n The Post website itself first launched in November 2022 into a closed beta that grew to 650,000 people on its waitlist. Of those, 430,000 people actually created an account. That\u2019s when publishers took notice.<\/p>\n As Post now enters its public beta period, Twitter is bent on angering<\/a> publishers by stripping<\/a> their Verified badges<\/a> if they don\u2019t pay. Post instead is offering to pay publishers. That has some draw. The company today has 25 premium publishers on board and several hundred in various stages. Some, like local news publishers, are waiting on additional functionality to be added to the platform.<\/p>\n At launch, Post has signed up partners including The Boston Globe, The Brookings Institution, Fortune, The Independent, Insider, LA Times, NBC News, Politico, ProPublica, Reuters, Semafor, SF Chronicle, MIT Technology Review, USA Today, Wired, World Politics Review and Yahoo Finance.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Post screenshot<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Some of these outlets are posting manually, while others are experimenting with micropayments, and some are doing both. Those who have tried the micropayments option include Fortune, The Independent, LA Times, Reuters, MIT Technology Review, USA Today and Wired.<\/p>\n Bardin claims the average CPMs publishers are getting from Post\u2019s platform is $25 for a paid post. The highest article got a $300 CPM. But, he adds, publishers are also making an average of $1.30 CPMs from their free posts by way of donations and tips.<\/p>\n The micropayments platform Post users, which is powered by Stripe, allows users to buy a bundle of points in packets of 300 ($4.20) up to 10,000 ($126.70). As you get into the higher tiers \u2014 1,500, 5,000 or 10,000 points, you\u2019ll get a discount on your purchase. Post generates revenue by taking a small percentage of these sales, similar to Twitch.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Post screenshot<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Bardin isn\u2019t sharing Post\u2019s current active user base figures but says that when people run out of their 50 free points gifted at sign-up, 80% have entered their credit card information to buy more. That\u2019s a promising number, but it\u2019s still early days for this startup. Twitter, after all, never gained mass market appeal and Twitter alternatives have an even tougher hill to climb as they try to attract a mainstream user base.<\/p>\n What a publisher chooses to charge for their articles is up to them \u2014 we\u2019ve seen as low as 1 point (see image on right), and as high as 89 points when scrolling our feed. Over time, Post plans to add other payment options, like \u201cpay what you want\u201d (which could also include paying nothing, if you choose), a \u201cbuy one, share one\u201d option and an option where the first few articles per month are free.<\/p>\n The site, similar to pre-Elon Twitter, also has a number of rules around user behavior<\/a>. It will kick people out for breaking them but doesn\u2019t yet know how it will draw the line between temporary and permanent bans. Its \u201cfreedom of speech\u201d approach \u2014 a matter of much consternation in the Elon era \u2014 is fairly simple.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it comes to people, you do not have a right to be an asshole. That\u2019s not a God-given right in the Constitution. So, if you want to, go somewhere else. We don\u2019t need you. You don\u2019t have to be an asshole here.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition, Post aims to leverage AI technologies to personalize the news feed to its end users \u2014 an idea also now being tried by Artifact, the news app from Instagram\u2019s co-founders<\/a>. Post also expects that, as a news feed experience, many of its users won\u2019t be active content creators themselves. In fact, there\u2019s an old internet adage<\/a> that says most people on a service consume content, but don\u2019t engage or create. Yet that large majority is often forgotten when services are being built.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t publish. You don\u2019t hear them,\u201d says Bardin. But, he adds, \u201cthey, in many ways, are the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSeventy-five percent of Twitter users have never tweeted,\u201d he continues. \u201cPeople use it to consume information, but it\u2019s built for the people creating the information\u2026there are a lot of things that I think we would all have done differently with Twitter if we started out today.\u201d<\/p>\n Post\u2019s service as it stands today reflects that philosophy. It\u2019s more of a place to scroll and read the news but lacks the active conversations about the news that happens on larger platforms like Twitter, or even newer alternatives like T2<\/a> or Mastodon<\/a>. But that engagement may come in time, as Post intends to eventually adopt ActivityPub \u2014 the protocol that powers the open source, decentralized Mastodon and the broader Fediverse. As an interconnected app, Post could gain more active usage.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started out building on Mastodon\u2026We love what Mastodon is doing,\u201d Bardin tells us. \u201cAnd Bluesky is another approach, but the same concept,\u201d he says. \u201cWe will be adding integration with Mastodon and others.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s still much further down the road \u2014 it\u2019s not in the works for 2023, we understand.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just started the company in May. We\u2019ve been around less than a year. We\u2019ve got a lot of stuff we want to do \u2014 we don\u2019t want to limit ourselves to supporting other protocols at this stage. Once we\u2019ve built the core and we like it, then we can see exactly how these protocols can or cannot plug in,\u201d Bardin says.<\/p>\n Post quietly dropped its invite requirement a couple of weeks ago, but hadn\u2019t yet formally announced its public beta launch.<\/p>\n While the startup isn\u2019t talking about active usage, the site saw its traffic peak with over 5.19 million monthly visits in December 2022, according to data from Similarweb<\/a>. That\u2019s since fallen to 921,000+ visits in March 2023 (as of March 27th). The firm estimates Post had around 946,120 total daily users in the last 28 days. Not bad for the crowded alt-Twitter market these days, where Mastodon now has 1.2 million monthly actives<\/a>, for comparison.<\/p>\n Based in New York with a distributed team of 20, including co-founder Noel Baron<\/a>, Post raised<\/a> a seed round from<\/a> Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), as well as Scott Galloway, an NYU professor and tech commentator. Silicon Valley journalist Kara Swisher also said<\/a> she advises the startup. The company isn\u2019t currently raising but is hiring.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n <\/br><\/br><\/br><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/post-news.jpg?resize=1140%2C562&ssl=1\")
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