Meta is canning Bulletin, its off-platform newsletter service despite only debuting in June last year.
Facebook’s parent company has announced that it will end the service early next year. Touted as a Substack rival, the Bulletin was only ever available in the US.
Bulletin writers will be able to continue earning subscription revenue through early next year and can retain their subscribers’ email addresses, letting them move to a different platform.
“Bulletin has allowed us to learn about the relationship between creators and their audiences and how to better support them 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,” said a Meta spokesperson.
Bulletin operated as a standalone website from Facebook and users did not need a Facebook account or be logged in to read free newsletter content. However, they did need Facebook Pay to pay for their subscriptions. Plus, a Facebook account was needed to access some related tools and features such as joining Facebook groups for readers.
Bulletin creators did not operate Facebook pages, instead operating their own sites under their own brands with some range of creative freedom. For example, colour palettes and logos could be changed and creators could add multimedia embeds.
Creator also signed multiyear licensing deals with Meta and kept all of the subscription revenue that they generated. However, in July, Meta said that it would no longer pay for news content that it aggregates under Facebook’s News tab and that it, along with Bulletin would be phased out.
The failure of Bulletin might be surprising to some given that around one-third of Americans received their news via Facebook. However, the shift from viral news stories to more considered newsletters might have been a bridge too far for some Meta users.
