One of many buzzy apps competing to be “the next Twitter alternative launches iOS “Post” app on Thursday.
Launched in beta just days after Elon Musk finalized his purchase of Twitter, Post wants to reinvent how people get their news on social media. When using the app, you can toggle between three feeds: following, explore and news. The first two feeds are self-explanatory, but the third is where the crux of Post lies.
The news tab shows a feed of new articles from Post’s publishing partners, which include notable outlets like Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, Wired, Yahoo Finance, Fortune, Insider, NBC News and more. It’s free to see headlines and the beginning of the article, but to read the whole thing, users need to make a microtransaction with “points” to read the rest of the article within the Post app.
These aren’t paywalled articles on the publisher’s own websites, and in most cases, you can read them by just going to their website — but some users might find it worth paying for the convenience of easy, in-app reading that’s free of obtrusive pop-up ads.
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Publishers receive 100% of revenue from these micropayments, which would likely change in the future once Post needs to turn a profit of its own. Right now, the platform is funded by Andreessen Horowitz and Scott Galloway, an author and marketing professor at New York University.
The points required to unlock an article vary depending on the outlet. The cheapest in-app transaction is 300 points for $4.29. Articles start at 1 point, and so far, the highest cost seems to be around 29 points. So, at most, a 29-point article would cost around 40 cents, but many articles would only cost a few cents. Users can also tip publishers or creators for their work.
“Premium publishers are seeing an average of $30 CPM equivalents for paid content and an average of $1.3 CPM equivalent from tips for free content,” Post wrote in a press release.
In eight months since launch, more than 440,000 users have joined Post.
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