As Elon Musk plays around with Twitter which has frustrated its users, a Twitter alternative called Post that allows publishers to engage with people and monetise their readership has opened up for the public.
The Post was launched in November 2022 with a beta version that grew to 650,000 people on its waitlist, reports TechCrunch.
Of those, 430,000 people actually created an account on the platform.
"You go to many news sites today and you get bombarded by these ads, email capture forms and subscriptions... you just wanted to read one article. And you wanted to read it because someone shared it. So, a one-time transaction, but you're bombarded," Post's Founder and CEO Noam Bardin was quoted as saying.
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"We think that with a great user experience, the right pricing and the lack of friction, we can add a new business model to the world of ads or subscription," added Bardin, previously CEO of Waze at Google.
However, Post doesn't want to be just another Twitter clone.
"Its aim is to develop a platform where publishers can generate revenue from micropayments a" that is, where users pay some small amount of money to read individual news items," said the report.
The website saw its traffic peak with over 5.19 million monthly visits in December 2022, according to data from Similarweb.
Post has signed up partners including The Boston Globe, The Brookings Institution, Fortune, The Independent, Insider, LA Times, NBC News, Politico, ProPublica, Reuters, Semafor, SF Chronicle, MIT Technology Review, USA Today, Wired, World Politics Review and Yahoo Finance.
Some of these outlets are posting manually, while others are experimenting with micropayments, and some are doing both.
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The average CPM (cost per mille) publishers are getting from Post's platform is $25 for a paid post. The highest article got a $300 CPM.
"Publishers are also making an average of $1.30 CPMs from their free posts by way of donations and tips," according to Post CEO.
