Today I’m taking a look specifically at the community opportunities available to Substack writers and creators. There are many interweaving features that can be used to build and nurture a vibrant community around your publication.
Community has always been the bedrock of the internet for me. The entire point of the technology was to link people together, removing the geographical barriers that had always existed.
My earliest use of the internet was on Usenet, in the newsgroup scene of the 1990s. It was a bit like Reddit, but smaller, friendlier and less performative.1
The 2000s shifted into web forums, and then in the 2010s shifted wholly into the social media model. I have thoughts on how that went down, but that’s a larger topic for another time.
And now, here we are with Substack and the reborn newsletter scene more generally. It’s the most excited I’ve been about online communities for at least a decade. We’ll see how it goes — but in the meantime, this video should get anyone who is just starting out fully up to speed.
Enjoy!
alt.babylon5.uk was the place for teenage Simon to hang out online.
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