Meta has decided to shut down Bulletin, the company's newsletter subscription service, by early 2023, according to The Verge. Creators on the platform were notified of the upcoming shutdown through an email.
Bulletin was launched by Meta in January 2021 as a response of the company to Substack. At that time, Substack was attracting journalists and other writers to its subscription newsletter platform.
Meta Says it Will Maintain its Commitment to Community Engagement
Meta's announcement was made months after it stated that they "reevaluate their products routinely to ensure meaningful experiences for consumers," according to The Wrap.
According to Meta, Bulletin has let them learn more about the relationship between creators and their audiences. Likewise, the service enables them to know better means of supporting creators in building their community on Facebook.
"While this off-platform product itself is ending, we remain committed to supporting these and other Creators' success and growth on our platform," a Meta spokesperson said.
With Bulletin, readers can subscribe to newsletters of contributors. Writers are also provided with an independent website, along with the chance to distribute on Facebook News and other publishing and analytic tools.
The company is initially not taking a cut of the writers' subscription revenue in order to attract them to the platform. Likewise, the writers are given full ownership of their subscriber lists and work published on the platform.
Bulletin works by having readers subscribe to newsletters from the writers that they prefer. In return, the writers could charge a certain amount for the materials that they made available to the readers.
As there was no sign-up process, Meta signed writers into the services. Some of the writers in Bulletin are Malcolm Gladwell, Tan France, and Malala Yousafzai.
According to Meta, despite having to shut shown Bulletin, the company will maintain its commitment to community engagement and creator efforts.
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Writers Will Earn Revenue Until 2023
Signs were observed that Bulletin wasn't a particularly popular service. According to Meta, the platform had more than 115 publications late last year. Meanwhile, over half of the creators had over 1,000 free email subscribers.
According to TechCrunch, creators on the Bulletin platform will keep on earning subscription revenue until 2023, when the service shuts down.
Since writers have access to their subscribers' email lists, they can notify them in case they choose to move their newsletter to a different platform.
As Meta ends Bulletin's operation, the company is planning to move more of its content to Facebook directly. This is the company's strategy in order to make Facebook more of a discovery platform.
It can be recalled that in June, Meta also discontinued its podcast business and integrated its live audio offering into its Facebook Live service.
As the economy experienced a downturn, Meta has also decided to cut back on some projects. Tuned, a messaging app for couples, has been shut down. Reports also said that the company has scaled back on new exploratory products.
Although Meta is shutting down Bulletin, Meta expressed that it remains committed to the support that they render to creators.
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