One year of Substack Notes—now with video and external embeds
A growth machine for writers and creators
The past two decades of social media have shown that conversation is the most powerful driver of online discovery. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in particular have proved that they can bring attention to stories, video, and audio at a scale never seen before.
A year ago, we introduced our own place for online conversation: Substack Notes. For the first time, people in Substack had a place where they could “snack” on content and discover, discuss, and share great works and writers from around the ecosystem.
In the past 30 days, Notes has generated more than 3,000 paid subscriptions and 230,000 free subscriptions for writers and creators on Substack.
Individual notes now have the power to send publishers thousands of dollars in paid subscriptions. One note on its own—an 11-word post announcing a new research report—resulted in $8,000 worth of subscriptions. Another—a one-paragraph TL;DR that introduced a news story about political espionage—drove more than 50 paid subscriptions. A note by
celebrating the recent launch of Zeteo sent ’s new venture close to $2,000 in subscriptions.
There’s so much more to come. Today, we’re making two important additions to Notes.
We want to help Substack writers’ work travel widely across the web, so we’re making it possible for anyone to embed notes on external web pages—for example, as part of a news story. To find a note’s embed code, you click on the three-dot menu in the top right corner and select “Embed note.” We hope that these external embeds will help writers’ notes get more reach and recognition outside of the Substack network.
Learn more: How do I embed Substack posts or notes on a website?
Meanwhile, as more writers and creators use Substack’s video tools and start new shows on the platform, we’re making it easier for them to share their creative work on Notes, too. Beginning today, you can post videos directly to Notes in the Substack app and on the web. We’re excited to see more movement and sound in the Notes feed as people explore possibilities beyond images and text. To post a video to Notes, you can select a file from your phone’s camera roll or your desktop—or just open the camera to record a video directly.
We are making these investments in Notes because we think that discovery powered by online conversation is critical for writers and creators but at risk of disappearing.
Social media is increasingly at odds with the rest of the media ecosystem. Once upon a time, social media was symbiotic with traditional media. The two systems fed each other: social networks pushed traffic to the media, and the media provided content for social networks. Unfortunately for traditional media, the two systems relied on the same business model: advertising. In a zero-sum competition for ad dollars, traditional media didn’t stand a chance. Social media’s success has now been corroding the traditional media business for more than a decade.
As ad-based social media platforms have grown, they have increasingly turned away from links to outside media sources, which makes them ever more insular. These companies want people to spend as much time as possible glued to their feeds so that more ads may be put in front of them. Or, as Elon Musk himself has put it: “The algorithm is trying to maximize what is most interesting to you, based on time spent on X.” That’s bad news for writers, creators, and publishers, because their links then get treated as irrelevant, or even harmful, to the social media companies’ bottom line. It’s also the reason that X is attempting to replicate the features that Substack offers, and it’s why Musk has suppressed Substack’s links on his platform.
Substack serves as a home for both traditional and social media, encompassing the publishing and the conversation. Notes offers a new place on the internet where posts can go viral—as seen in the poet
’s piece in praise of crying, for example, and ’s appeal to bring back dance-floor make-outs—and where readers are only a click away from subscribing.Notes is especially valuable for people who don’t have large pre-existing audiences, since it allows them to collaborate with other writers and connect with new communities. Writers such as
, , and have dramatically grown their mailing lists through their savvy use of Notes.
Notes is a growth machine for writers and creators built right into the place where they also publish their work. What’s more, they get real ownership. They own their mailing lists and their content, and they can take it all with them at any time. And, in contrast to traditional social media, the vast majority of the revenue generated on the platform goes directly into their bank accounts.
Notes blends the fun and immediacy of social media with the creator-friendliness of the Substack model. While other platforms tune their algorithms to maximize ad revenue, we tune the Notes algorithm to maximize value for audiences and money for creators. This machine becomes only more powerful when it operates alongside Substack’s other growth features, including Recommendations, Explore pages, and Boost, which handles subscriber conversion and retention without writers having to lift a finger. Today, the Substack network drives more than 50% of all subscriptions on the platform and 25% of paid subscriptions.
We will continue to pour our efforts into making Notes an enjoyable and edifying place to hang out, packed with smart conversations and a different social dynamic than the ones offered by other platforms. It’s the way the internet should be.
Notes has become the main place I hang out on social media. Feels better here! 💥
It's become my main Social Media now, too. The others are pointless, because as soon as you try and post any Links to your work the post gets suppressed and hardly anyone sees it! 😎
Same.
Feel so too
GRACIAS CRISTINA DIOSKRISTINS GOD
100% agree. It's a nice place to be.
I'm still mainly on Twitter(X), thinking on making the switch.
Me too. It's different
I've said it before: Notes is the best fiction writing meet-up I've ever been to. And it's just there, whenever I need it.
It's a great place to connect with other writers, yes. And there's lots of fun little challenges going on for Fiction Writers, too, on Notes. I've just started getting more involved with them myself and it's been very enjoyable.... 😎
Notes is a game changer. Perfect for bantering with other writers, reaching new readers, punchy shorter thoughts, and resurfacing older posts. Thrilled to make a video debut on Notes: https://substack.com/@yuribezmenov/note/c-54051367?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=j3a7
Congrats 🎉🎉🎉 love Notes. Awesome social media platform inside Substack
Super with the video feature!! I love video content
I'm really enjoying it, too. There's a lot of great people on there who are posting some excellent content that is always fun to browse through and engage with... 😎
Notes is my only social media platform (after quitting or never joining the rest). I find it such a kind, uplifting place to hang out. And being there has absolutely boosted free and paid subscriptions to my newsletter.
I completely agree. You're far better off going all-in here, as it's so much more welcoming and refreshing to be a part of. There are so many great writers here to connect with and of course, there are lots of readers floating around, too, looking for things to enjoy... 😎
Notes is a failure so far. Substack tried to attract the Twitter crowd during its turbulent period but failed. The algorithm is broken. It’s not open to non-subscribers and users are yet to understand how to follow a writer. Substack should stick to being what it originally wanted to be and not copycat other social platforms. That’s why writers have invested in the platform.
Genuinely curious: if you think notes is a failure, what does success look like for it? From my perspective, it seems like more and more folks are using it all the time, and it’s certainly helping me discover people I’m interested in hearing from and connecting with. That seems like quite the success to me.
They haven’t figured out the right algorithm formula yet. It can become what they want it to be ‘new Twitter’ if they get it right.
Ok so I think you missed the point. They do NOT want to be Twitter or other social media. Other social media goal is to attract a crowd to serve ads so the company profits. Substack is crowdsourced as well as crowdfunded. The artists/writers get paid direct what they're worth instead of a label gets the money and distributes as they see fit.
You are right though; as a money grab for Substack itself, Notes is a failure!
I think the problem is that Substack is focused too much on getting big names to move to Substack and have not set up a system where aspiring writers have much of a chance of growing and making money at the same time. If they introduced a microcurrency where you could buy "Stackers" (someone can do better than that) that allow people to purchase one off reads or subscribe at very low prices it wouldn't hurt anyone and would give the small guy a chance. Furthermore, the email sign up is 10 years old, they need a modern, phonebased quick sign up, subscribe, buy micro currency,etc with two clicks. .
Absolutely!
🥃
https://substack.com/@duell/note/c-54061118?r=8mqdm&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
💯
💯
LOL hi did you get up on the wrong side of the bed today? Hamish is repeating what I have heard quite a few say just hanging out here. What payoff do you get from griefering nice posts?
Griefering is a new one to me but I love it!
There you go Notes is working.
lol yes it is!!
Excited for this feature! Will be fun to share videos and engage with my audience that way ✨
Yes, Video and Audio content is often much more engaging. So I think this will add a lot to the Notes experience... 😎
Notes is absolutely fantastic. I've been investing a lot more time in it over the past few weeks and it's been really paying off. I've made some great connections and had some very enjoyable conversations. I'm posting a lot more content there myself, too, and have actually turned my Notes feed into a 'mini publication'. Thanks for confirming Twitter are suppressing Substack Links, too. I've been saying this for a while and it's a big reason why I've pretty much stopped using Twitter now. It's pointless trying to build a community around my work there if I can't talk about my work or show anyone where it is! This is a much friendlier and supportive place anyway, and I'm very happy to be here... 😎
Notes is a happy place but like any social media I need to curtail my addiction to the scroll. I’ve seen more new subscribers and followers from Recommendations. It’s fantastic. Unsure how to know if new subscriber is from Notes. Great news about posting videos!
Would be great to know whether someone found you via Notes. I often see Substack Network. Maybe that's meant with it? But I think it also includes some more factors
Yes. Just an N would do the trick. 😉
GRACIAS
That's an interesting point. I would assume that 'Substack Network' probably means the reader has come from Notes. It would also be great to know how many views a Note has been getting, as well, as sometimes mine go by without engagement and I do wonder if anyone saw it or not... 😎
There is a huge group of writers who have choosen Substack for being different than all this social media cr*p. I know Hamish is very focused on this area which generates for many no subscribers. Or just followers which don't convert.
I am using it for now, but if I don't see any growth from Notes I might abandon it.
I love notes! Thanks Substack!
There's a huge amount of stuff happening on Notes these days! It's a fun and vibrant place! 😎
Thanks for the mention, Hamish!
exciting news everyone plz be sure to buy my "Notes & Nots: A Do's and Do Nots guide to Substack Notes" it costs $3990
😂
thx mat I'll send an invoice
Wow can't believe it's been a year already, it was a great addition to the platform, but I still don't use them nearly enough!
Soon I'll share an interview with David about using Notes!
Looking forward to your atomic newsletter interview too. Will send you and Evan an email. I think it will be in May ✉️
Sounds good, looking forward to both :)
Another downside of Notes for bilingual writers is that Notes are bound to the writer and not to the Substack.
So you cannot write 2 separate note streams - one for each language, because you have only one writer-handle. Many readers don't like bilingual posts, because they are confusing for the reader.
Yes, I would love to have individual profiles for my two Substacks and my writer profile. But that kinda just makes it more like Twitter.
If you are trying to copy social media it's better to copy the upsides than the downsides. Notes seems to be made by people who don't understand how the customers work.
One would hope. But yeah, the problem with Notes being able to embed videos or share videos directly is that it doesn’t increase the visibility of the actual newsletter. Which is where you’re going to actually make money. Unless Substack is going to start paying for every view of a video or Note, there’s no benefit to the writers.
You got it!
I'm interested to know how Notes helps new writers. Is there a random seed algorithm that puts notes into people's feeds? That would be the way to get engagement for people organically within Substack rather than having to rely on other platforms.
I don’t know how I feel about the video feature on Substack. I mean, I’ll use it. Because you’ll have to. If you don’t you’ll be left behind. But there was something nice about being forced to write out your thoughts. It feels a little like the platform sold out to the TikTokification of the world, doesn’t it? At least a little?
*sigh*
The very big shame is that you consider only the US market without taking in account what happens in the rest of the word.
That's why this sentence "Notes is especially valuable for people who don’t have large pre-existing audiences, since it allows them to collaborate with other writers and connect with new communities" is completely false for countries (many in Europe) where Substack has a smaller audience and nobody knows what Notes is.
Result? Having completely demolished the positive effect of recommendations, turning them into worthless followers (people become followers but do not follow Notes at all).
What a shame!
If you want to read about poetry and literature (in that order) as written by someone in an active war zone you are more than welcome to join me.
It's good to see the continued product development but if there a toggle to disable Notes embeds on 3rd party sites like Twitter, Instagram and others offer? Thanks.
Would love to see this, and also a toggle to disable videos for those that don't want them on their feed.
As a relatively new Substacker, I've found that notes definitely increase discoverability.
I know how to write a comment but how do I begin to write on substack? Can anyone help- my computer skills are definitely lacking!
Hi Michal, welcome. You can start by editing your welcome poat which I already see on your publication page.
You can edit it and write a short about me story.
The best way to access your post editor is via 🖥️ Desktop.
Click on dashboard and then on write post. You can send me a DM and I'll show you the steps.
You can also find the steps in Substaack's Help Center.
On YT you can find multiple tutorials by me but this one is still missing. Only inside my Substack School there's a video. I guess the screenshots will help. You can DM me ❤️
I wrote a post and lost it because I didn't know what to do with it! I need a tutorial. I thought I was following the beginning and writing a post but I don't know how to save it, send it or where can I put some friends' email addresses so that they can see it! HELP (yes, I printed out a copy of my post, but I would have to write it over.
Great, Notes are booming... So much so that no one still reads a full article.
Substack used to be about long form content. Now it's about self-promotion and cat videos... like any other social medium. 😓
GRACIAS EN SUBPILA
Hello, I like using Notes but I now find that the Notes I publish don't show up on my home page feed. They are out there somewhere as I do get responses but it would helpful if they were there on my stream. Not sure if this is a feature or a glitch and I have to say I don't find the substack helpbot at all helpful...
I'm very pleased with all the new features Substack has to offer.
But at the same time, there seems to be a setback in other areas. I can no longer reach support by email. I'd like to know if other people are experiencing the same problem. I sent an email and got an automatic reply telling me to ask my question at substack.com/support where I found a Chat with Substack window managed by https://decagon.ai/, i.e. by AI. No more human answering?
For the second time, I wanted to tell them about a serious bug: I have two publications in French on Substack. However, the first tag on their pages indicates <html lang="en">, i.e. it announces to search engines that the publication would be in English. From a search engine optimization point of view, this is catastrophic: my publications will hardly appear in the results of a French search!
Have other people with French publications already reported this bug? Can they join me in supporting my request?
Thank you for your response or for the response of a Substack member!
Wow. Can't believe they've abolished real platform/user support.
I guess there was no announcement about that new 'feature' of using Substack.
GRACIAS EN SUBPILLA
Re:videos on Notes. That queasy dulling of mind and slight nausea I get from too many
undigested videos hurled my way is my biggest worry. I can tip toe past unwanted or uninteresting (to me) written posts. Videos are invasive in a way the written word is not. How about a feature to turn off any posts with video content so they are not pushed to me? Some days I might want it turned on and mingle a bit. Other days I’m just not feeling it. It would also be a useful metric that tells you oh Substack Archdeacons just how useful and popular this new feature really is.
HOW DO I AND ANY OTHER PEOPLE FIND WHAT I JUST POSTED IN NOTES JUST MINUTES AGO?
Navigate to, at the top right, three line button. Touch it and select "Following."
Please go easy on all caps, please; it is equivalent of shouting. Thanks much!
Ok so this got a lot of attention here is another much better method.
Go to your Dashboard follow the prompts to add the "Notes" tab to your profile.
Then go to your profile, hit the tab and read all your notes!
It appears to me good ideas survive of their own volition the number of comments on an eight hour old post seems to speak for itself. As per the usual opinions differ greatly. It is all good, a spirited dialogues are very healthy for us all.
Don't ya' ll think?
Cool, re video uploads on Notes. I'll start using that feature soon!
Will there be a way to churn followers into subscribers (free or paid) sometime soon? A tip jar would be nice as well, but that's not a biggie for me at the moment 😀👍
Tip jar best one is Buy Me A Coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/leomhann?t=true
I want to know the answer to your other questions also!! Seconded!!
I use https://ko-fi.com/moviegoing. It's ok.
I got over 100 new subscribers off one Note. It’s an amazing discovery tool and I’m excited for the new features. I feel better here in comparison to other platforms. It’s really a great space and has remained so. Great job Substack team!
Have you ever seen a War Criminal with a Purple Rinse? I have, his name is Benjamin Netanyahu. Not only a Sociapath , but Grandmother friendly. Weird.
Can we be honest about the fact that Substack has apparently suppressed links from X too? I used to embed all kinds of things I found there in my Substacks - oddly, these embeds still work in my old posts where they originally appeared. But I can’t do this in my current posts, and it hurts my work. X and Substack are my two most-used platforms, and they refuse get along.
I like so much of what Substack has built here, but I’m tempted to go back to Wordpress just so I can market my writing on X where my audience is 7X larger.
I’ve gotten just 9 paid subscribers from internal Substack referral methods. I write twice a week, I’ve got 2k free subs, but everything is stagnating here. I’m sure there are things I’m also doing wrong, but I feel that the platform is limiting growth because it’s becoming too insular.
I’m feeling frustrated. I’m trying to make the most of what Substack offers, I’ve built large audiences before, but I can’t get traction here.
X blocked us from embedding their tweets. We wish we still could!
Great work I am glad I chose to move my house to Substack country after years on the road. My goats finally have a place to graze on the grass they always dreamed of..
thank you so much for including me! substack notes has quickly become my favorite social media vice- looking forward to seeing how video transforms the space!
One issue with the app that I hope will be eventually addressed: for video posts that have a video at the top and text commentary below, when displayed on an ipad in landscape orientation, the video takes most of the screen and you can hardly read the text underneath. On protrait mode, typically used on phones, it is acceptable. However for people using tablets in landscape orientation, it would be better if one could just scroll off the video if they want to read the text. One possible way to fix that would be to make the behavior dependent on the orientation of the screen (landscape vs portrait).
Good feedback; will pass it on!
A better suggestion is give the reader the option of unpinning videos completely. And stop autoplay in notes. Can be done in settings.
I’ve been following Substack for a while but would be interested to know more about its machinery and dissemination of content. How can I learn more?
a big fan!
GRACIAS
GRACIAS
GRACIAS EN SUBPILA
GRACIAS EN SUBPILA
This was cinematic. Well done, Substack! I love you(r work).
Will we be able to embed audio into Notes at a later time?
Love, love! I love creating and sharing short videos but I'm over Instagram. ⚠️Question for you—I don't see the option to add video from mobile. Do I need to delete the app and reinstall?
I honestly didn't know that Notes was so active and lively.
I've been writing on Substack for like 7 months and can count the times I have opened the Notes feature with one hand.
Notes is a terrific platform. Short form writing content when you have a few minutes to scroll, easy to engage with other writers, and a great place for others to share their work for discussion. I’ve loved it here!
Lets be honest notes is horrible very twitter feel to it and that ship sank
I love this place. Thanks, Hamish!
Thank you Hamish and Substack! Notes by far is where I spend my time scrolling - so many gems to discover via restacking, and I appreciate when others restack mine and subscribers grow!
One wish is: would you consider allowing us to record our screen and post it on notes/post so we can discuss a chart/talk/topic with our screen and voice!
Anyone finds this useful? Thanks again!
thank you
GRACIAS
Notes what the feature that made me use Substack. But it doesn't look it is succeeding. People still prefer Twitter and Threads over Notes.
Substack definitely has better content than both, but it is not doing a good job in attracting people.
I've stumbled into a beautiful place/platform for connection, ideas, and positivity!
Elon says X is trying to optimize for what is best for you- based on what? what you have clicked on in the past? how is that different than click bait or some short term dopamine hit provoking title? is that the measure of 'interest' ? Of course I am a fan of Substack, but under the hood, what criteria does Substack look at to determine what is of interest for me? In fact Elon says 'time spent on X' so how is that different than Substack. I am not saying Substack is stooping to the same crap as X, I am just wondering how is the criteria different, why will it get a different result?
Noted!
I hope I find new readers and audience too ✨
Adding video support to Notes is a game changer - thank you, and congrats. The ability to embed individual notes on external webpages could be one as well, but here's a question for you Hamish, Chris B., and whoever else:
On Twitter/X, when they suspend/ban someone for an alleged TOS violation, they will often also WIPE OUT THEIR ENTIRE POST HISTORY.
This creates a huge problem as far as publishers' ability to safely embed posts from that platform into news stories, since you have no way to know if the poster(s) will get suspended a week, month, or year later, thus screwing up your story/possibly killing a key piece of it.
As a result, we often end up taking a screenshot of the tweet in question and embed that instead of the tweet itself, and just link to the original. It's more work than just embedding the tweet and a worse user experience, but it's more future-proof.
On top of that, when an account is completely nuked like this -- thousands of posts that someone made over the course of years in some cases -- the exponentially higher number of INTERACTIONS with it (replies and quote tweets) are also rendered fairly useless, since you can't see what those people were responding to. There's a huge ripple effect.
Will you agree to NOT do this? In other words, if you ban someone for a TOS violation, will you LEAVE ALL OF THEIR NON-OFFENDING POSTS ALONE? (Assuming it wasn't just a full on spam account or something)
It might be worth following the reader journey from opening the app to closing it. Do we want them to focus on Substack posts, or scrolling the Notes feed? If the former is more important, perhaps let the first tab be your Substack inbox, with a second Explore tab for those who want to discover new publications?
Thank you...this was very much needed!!
Video is awesome!
I'll be sharing a ton of videos from my journey in Indonesia.
Why are the featured posts on Substack anti-Biden, anti NATO? Do Substack administrators really want a second Trump administration?
This is not what I see. I don't know why it selects like that; I have the ultimate anti-Trump feed lol.
Impressive. What was the engagement of your Notes at first? I often see people post that they wonder if anyone sees their notes. How often per day do you post on Notes? Does frequency fill that void of not being seen? Although, we all know the importance of not being seen, like Mr. Nesbitt. 😅
Oh, this is gonna be fun! I learned that the size of the video in the feed will hide captions at the bottom (or anything at the top). Maybe I’ll crop videos to be that exact size. First one: ✅ https://substack.com/profile/110757-nick-simard/note/c-54089634
BEFORE you go on and on about your new plans perhaps it would be a good idea to make sure comments stay in the correct place when replying to another person.
A lot of confusion is caused by substack not working properly.
Fix the older thing first please.
Would really like to be able to "save" notes (the same as we do posts) to be able to get back to things later.
Oh how exciting. I was just thinking it would be nice if I could post a video in notes. Thanks, Substack team, all you’re doing to create new possibilities in this space.
I'm super excited about the option to post videos. Thanks, Substack!
I’m excited about this addition, and notes has been great for me. I have gained new followers, but most importantly, I have found a community through notes
i used to do videos, but lost my confidenc
Rock on and many thanks to the Substack team!
I've been listening to an album a day and posting my thoughts on Notes, it's been a blast so far and having some great conversations.
Celebrity guest appearance by Kevin Alexander!
Came here to say the same thing!
The cat is out of the bag now! Let's tag him in the comments.... oh wait. Doh!
So Notes is basically just Twitter now?
Thank you for all you do for free speech and supporting basic rights!
Very encouraging developments. I will try Notes asap.
Still think this should be its own app. Threads and Bluesky (and sorta Mastodon) have blown up in the same period while Notes is in sleeper mode as an add-on to Substack. It won’t get wide adoption until you decouple it.
Noooo please, not another app
I love notes! Definitely my favorite space on the internet lately!
Thanks for the feature! 😊
I really appreciate all this helpful advice. It’s one of the reasons I’ve hung around but what I can’t get my head around is how much can we expect people to pay for all their favourite reads? I haven’t paid to subscribe to anyone myself yet because I like way too many 🤔 can’t choose or have the budget to.
Definitely that sort of thing could be a choice. I just don’t think people can afford to do all this subscribing.
I just tried to post a video to "Notes" according to your directions, and it failed to post two times. Is there a size limit on the video . . . the one on my phone was 6.5 minutes. Too long?
Laurie videos post better if you run rhem through an editor. I like InShot https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.camerasideas.instashot but there are many editors out there! Just loading and saving it shrinks it #1, and also stabilizes it (fixed frame rate 30 is ideal.) It also allows you to trim to length limits, in this case five minutes. Good luck with this!
Thank you.
5 minutes, sorry, we should be clearer about this!
I'm not surprised. Just another bug.
I’ve been enjoying notes more and more recently - and have met some great people because of it. It’ll be interesting to see how video is used here!
Is there a way to embed a Notes feed (not individual notes) on our websites? I have the Substack embed but it will be great to have non-subscribers to my Substack who land on my website first see the kinds of conversations I'm engaging in and the daily shares I do via Notes to, perhaps, convert them into subscribers? My website is www.mansimakes.com
Calling all voiceover people!
Can you share your recommendations for some beginner-friendly equipment for better quality audio recordings?
I’ve surprised myself by loving to make voiceovers on my Substack posts but my hardware is sub-par. (Old iPhone headphones 😬)
I’ll gladly take your recording tips too if you have some insights you feel like sharing.
Thank you!
I got over 30k likes on a note. I kid you not. That's high right ?
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Ah, the social media competition expands with Substack another wanna be Twitter or now X, or is it a wanna be You Tube, or another Truth Social?
Why is it shifting from the "idealistic" source of exposure for small independent writers?
MONEY of course and with that power and other base human endeavors..
Don't fret! This is good! We need expansion and, therefore, competition with Facebook, Google, and Amazon monopolies that can now control minds more than ever imagined by any dictator.
What is sad is the hurt wanna be writers on Substack, Why did they ever think Substack was a savior , a Crusader Rabbit thinking of them and not money?
Let's instead be realistic and hope more and more social media platforms are created on the internet so that we don't have the monopolies of today and don't evolve like TV did with just the big 3, ABC, CBS, and NBC to warp our brains.
Just stop and think, who are the super rich now? Musk is projected to be the first Trillionaire, Zuke, Brin, Bezos, Gates are just behind him.
Lets open up the billionaire class, you know, those who recently decided to dump Biden, the real power behind the facade of democracy.
.
I'm strongly considering ditching the other social media platforms and only using Notes. I know it's something of a walled garden as you need to be a member of Substack to get the most out of it, but it's a small price to pay for the (mostly) brilliant people on here.
Quick question; at the risk of becoming too Twitter-y, will there be an option to embed our Notes feed on websites? I'd like to have one on my on-line portfolio.
I agree with all these improvements. But I think Substack has major technical sign in issues, their focus on subscriptions rather than single essay consumption is flawed, Substack seems focused on pulling in major media figures and converting them to Substack rather than developing writers. I teach e-comm and social media marketing at uni and I think, without becoming part of the attention economy, Substack can do much better.
https://www.freedomtoffend.com/p/a-modest-proposal-to-improve-substack?r=iy2ds&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Guys, don't forget that for many writers "followers" are NOT being converted into paid subscribers - and you can't take your followers with you if you decide to leave the platform. I guess it depends what you're on here for - to build a media business? Or to connect with other writers? If you just wanna have fun, then Notes might work for you, but really what does it offer that you can't find on Threads or LinkedIn? This platform is overwhelmingly American. If you want to reach a specific business community outside of the US, then both Notes and the Follow function are really quite useless.
I love, love, love Notes as a concept — and as Meta continues to make itself less and less useful to me, the more I want to migrate my link-sharing to Notes. But I also want to bring some of my recent shared links/content over here... and I can't, because some of it is months old and there's no way for me to backdate a Note like there is with posts.
I get that the fundamental idea of Notes is that it's literally like social media — "immediate". But I do sort of wish I could migrate a few more of the very short posts I've written over the last year or so into that feed, instead of having to create innumerable tiny, useless "posts" that don't really belong in the same feed as my 1,000-word essays. I think that's the thing that would finally get me to delete Facebook and tell my friends to use something else to invite me to parties.
After two months on Substack, I'm liking it a lot. One thing I especially like is that free speech seems to be valued.
For example, I see opinions on the opposite end of the political and religious spectrum from mine, but I don't see any of the trolls and hatefulness toward me, or from my side toward them. I like that.
Everyone seems to be free to express themselves and that's a good thing, even if we don't agree.
Where is notes on the substack app. I want to enter writings there!
Where do i find notes on substack so i can write notes?!
Do you have any plans for audio?
Substack just keeps getting better and better! Am I correct, though, that Notes with uploaded video can't be edited if they also have an embedded link? I just tried an experiment in my Notes, and found that my uploaded video just disappeared.
Here's a test I did, where I uploaded a video as well as a link. When I posted, everything looked fine. But when I went back in to edit a bit of text the video disappeared: https://substack.com/@debbieohi/note/c-54752522
No problem if my Note *only* has the uploaded video; I can go in an edit without the video disappearing: https://substack.com/@debbieohi/note/c-54752623. It seems to be only when the Note also includes a link AND uploaded video, and then the Note is edited.
FREE WILL
There is a new group of Philosopher Kings online. Many of these people are highly educated and articulate. But what is now coming to the forefront of these Philosopher Kings, is that we, as humans, have no free will. I watched a discussion between Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and author of The Selfish Gene and Brian Greene, the astrophysicist who is still working on proving string theory that would allow for multiverses. It was a cosy chat on stage at a prestigious university. Free will was mentioned and they both agreed that we have no free will because of the Big Bang! So because of the laws of mathematics and physics everything has been predetermined. How is that any different than religion? That God, being omnipotent and omniscient- because of this belief everything, including whether we go to heaven or hell has been preordained. This is the belief of most evangelical Christians.
On the matter of free will, Greene says, ‘You’re just a bag of particles controlled by physics.’ and ‘There is no place for us to supersede in the mathematical unfolding of ‘these strings that are pulling us’ that are governed by the laws of physics.’ Astrophysicist Brian Greene.
Now, when he says ‘these strings that are pulling us’ is that an intentional metaphor for a puppet?
All HAIL the PHILOSOPHER KINGS, my lowly ‘bag of particles’ bows and pays homage to your omnipotence and omniscience!
HOWEVER- I ALWAYS HAVE A HOWEVER
“Emotions and ritualised behaviour are built deeply into us. They are part of our humanity. But they are not characteristically human. Many other animals have feelings. What distinguishes our species is thought. The cerebral cortex is a liberation. We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited behaviour patterns of lizards and baboons. We are, each of us, largely responsible for what gets put into our brains, for what, as adults, we wind up caring for and knowing about. No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain, we can change ourselves.” Carl Sagan The most respected astrophysicist of all time who wrote and narrated the first series of COSMOS.
In 1944 Viktor Frankl and the surviving members of his family were transported to Auschwitz, where his mother and brother were murdered in the gas chambers. His wife, Tilly died of typhus in Bergen Belsen. Viktor survived and wrote a book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ which speaks of his experience in the Nazi concentration camps. Here is a small excerpt.
“The experiences of camp life show that a man does have a choice of action. They were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress. We who lived in the camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way, the way in which a man accepts his fate, and all the suffering that it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity- even in the most difficult circumstances- to add a deeper meaning to life.” Viktor Frankl
KEEPING QUIET
For once on the face of the earth
Let’s not speak in any language;
Let’s stop for one second
And not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic movement
Without rush, without engines.
We would all be together
In a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
Would not harm whales,
And the man gathering salt
Would look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
Wars with gas, wars with fire
Victories with no survivors
Would put on clean clothes
And walk about with their brothers
In the shade doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
With total inactivity.
Life is what it is about.
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
About keeping our lives moving,
Perhaps a huge silence
Might interrupt this sadness
Of never understanding ourselves
And of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
As when everything seems dead
And later proves to be alive. Pablo Neruda
Before rolling out new features, dear Substack people, can you folks take care of existing malfunctioning features first? The "Notes" feature is so buggy that even the presence of a single external link triggers your bots to ban the user. The funny part is: the issue might be with a particular note, but instead of just banning that note Substack choses to blanket ban all the newsletters of that user. No email notification arrives, I get to know from my readers that newsletter is banned. The only way out is to send an appeal. Even there on first appeal a terse reply comes from what appears to be another bot, "yes indeed you committed a crime, we won't lift the ban". You write again, and this time a human replies, "oh sorry, our bot made a mistake, we are reactivating all your newsletters". You lose readership for a week and Subtask is happy with a monopolistic grin. The culprit notes? One of them contained links to my own Podcast, and another pointed to a mainstream media article on environmental impact of EV batteries.
This has happened twice with me, and both the times similar pattern of replies from Substack. I am now stopping the use of "Notes" altogether (in fact started using it, because Substack constantly cajoled to use the feature, similar to DM feature its pushing now), and parallelly publishing all my posts at my personal sites and Medium, because you never know when they will ban you again and you lose all your content and readers. This platform is not reliable anymore.
Kindly add more languages and currencies.
Greetings from Denmark :)
Is there no mobile-friendly way to become a paid-subscriber on a creator's publication?
I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn and that has considerably grown my Substack audience. But thats leveled off now. Time to go all in on Notes.
Jealousy, stay away from me. Got me a better ride soaring up in the sky. I see who you are, The Accusers.
"In the past 30 days, Notes has generated more than 3,000 paid subscriptions and 230,000 free subscriptions for writers and creators on Substack. "
Why not write out the number for followers? Or is it too high for you to share?
Happy Anniversary … and thank you for creating Notes. It’s the place I hang out, connecting with folk, sharing the inspiring stuff we’ve discovered, celebrating the writers whose words we admire, layering in depth the relationships we’re building in this place.
I need to try the embed function!
Looking forward to what’s to come! It’s been fun engaging with other writers this way and discovering publications and articles that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. ✨
Congrats on creating the most friendly social space on the internet - bravo!
notes is nice, but proper sharing options for threads would also be helpful. :)
Are you people telling me that substack’s workers have their ears to the ground? Wow. I’m supper impressed with the addition of video, now I can embed the videos I have always wanted to!!!!
You can't, it's all about money not you.
As a cherry grower I relate to your fruit tree watering comparison but you also need fertilizer diverse input and SUN, aka no censorship.
Those who own or control social media love the power of control, (yes they are human,) of what we are permitted to view and, therefore, think.
The internet has become the social method of communication which is akin to language. Did you ever try to think not using words, aka language? Very hard to do. That is why dictators attempt to control the language of those who they rule.
BTW, don’t take life too seriously, we are on a one way street to death, the joke is on us.
Here is an irony. Substack was idealistic in creation but is totally money driven now while Twitter was totally money driven but was bought with billions on billions for an idealistic reason, to stop censorship.
Of course there was a different intent behind my question,
And I too experience the world around me and interact with it without words-through colors, images, ,sensations and feelings as do most animals.
It’s words. By which we quantify and communicate these. It’s why the African song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight “ bridges this concept when the woman yodels, she’s human, more than an animal.
Of course there was a different intention behind my reply.
And yes, I too, do experience the world around me and interact with it without words-through colors, images, sensations and feelings. So do most animals but it’s words by which we still quantify and understand them as well as communicate them. It’s why the African song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight “ touched on this transition as the woman yodels in song,