In a recent move, Twitter has acquired Revue, a Utrecht-based email newsletter service. However, the exact financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. This acquisition is part of an effort to expand its business and allows users to earn money from their followers.
Founded by Martijn de Kuijper, and Mohamed El Maslouhi in 2015, Revue makes it easy for writers and publishers to send free and paid editorial newsletters.
Fee lowered to 5 per cent
Twitter, in an official blog post, says, “Revue will accelerate our work to help people stay informed about their interests while giving all types of writers a way to monetise their audience – whether it’s through the one they built at a publication, their website, on Twitter, or elsewhere.”
Post this acquisition, Twitter will be making Revue’s Pro features free for all accounts and lowering the fee charged on paid newsletter fee to 5 per cent from 6 per cent.
Martijn, Founder, Revue, says, “We’ve made these changes so that everyone can be a creator on Revue, with the opportunity to scale their newsletters and a paying audience without the added fees or obstacles that can limit growth.”
As a part of joining Twitter, Revue is building a new version for larger creators and publications. This will give users more control, offers new features ranging from custom designs to tools to manage audience, cross-promote newsletters, and include subscription offers.
“Twitter is uniquely positioned to help organisations and writers grow their readership faster and at a much larger scale than anywhere else,” Kayvon Beykpour, Twitter’s head of product, said in a blog post announcing the deal. “Our goal is to make it easy for them to connect with their subscribers while also helping readers better discover writers and their content.”
Remain standalone service
Revue will continue to remain as a standalone service within Twitter, with its team focused on improving the ways writers create their newsletters, build their audience, and get paid for their work. Twitter is planning to expand the team across various areas like engineering, design, research, and data science.
The Dutch company has customers including Vox Media, Chicago Sun-Times, the Markup and competes with services like Substack.
Twitter executives in an official blog post, concludes, “This is just the first step for us as we continue to enhance the public conversation on Twitter, and we welcome all creators – from experts and curators to journalists and publishers – to join us on our journey.”
