Why Substack?

I've been working online since 1995. This is the first time in many years that I've been excited about a new platform.

The loosely connected network of independent networks model of Shady Lanes meant I needed to have

• a core platform to provide information to the public, to newcomers and to existing participants with some material open to all, and other material accessible only to selected and/or paid members with automated subscriptions

• each autonomous planting project in the network with their own similar platform reaching out and also providing for their audience and members able to be managed by people with minimal technical skills

• interactive community features for sharing content and peer-network

and all these platforms need to link together to make a larger loosely-connected network of platforms each under the control of their respective organising entity.

Some Issues with Current Online Platforms:

1. I am catering to diverse individuals, often with limited very technical knowledge and resources. I had considered providing simple managed wordpress websites at minimal costs for group projects but there are considerable support, maintenance and security costs.

2. Many interest groups moved to Facebook pages and groups over the past 15 years thinking it was easier than websites, but Facebook is becoming less and less useful for groups with increasing numbers of members and internet users refusing to use it. Few non-professionals use Linkedin. However, you do need some presence and activity in various social media platforms to reach some audiences (and try to bring them across).

3. You have to go to where your people are because they won’t come into your silo without a good reason. Setting up online forums and discussion group platforms is relatively easy, getting people to participate is not. For every platform like Twitter or Facebook that drew people in to create value, there are millions that never got the momentum. And even for those that succeed, it doesn’t last forever. (Remember Myspace and Livejournal, and watch the decline of Twitter and Facebook) When that shift comes, whether it’s your own platform or someone else’s, you need to be able to download your content and take your people with you.

4. The business models of automated advertising that relies on profiling, eyeballs and endless scrolling is incompatible with the work of creating good quality content and focused conversations.

5. Email is becoming less viable for small business and organisations. Standard emails and especially automated emails like password resets, aren’t getting through the “free” email providers and spam filters. Mailing software services like Mailchimp are geared to commercial direct sales, can be expensive, and are difficult for untrained users.

6. When you create any sort of platform, the platform has to support and be part of the processes of the organisation. Otherwise, you end up with ghost websites that are years out of date, blogs with 1 or 2 posts then silence, or a wasteful duplication of effort.

7. Most internet traffic these days is on mobile devices, and most people start at a search engine, look at one page, and then go back to the search.

What Substack Offers

Substack is a great example of recombinant innovation. Many people will shrug it off as nothing new, and even a little old-fashioned. That’s the point. They’ve taken the best of many things from the last 30 years and recombined them into a platform that aims to cater for creators, especially writers, to reach and connect with their audience and earn some money directly from their efforts.

So, Substack is…

• A replacement for your blog with web posts that you can make public or available to subscribers only

• A replacement for your newsletter as you can send each post as an email

• A reading app for phones

• A replacement for your Patreon, membership plugins, and requests for donations. You can have three levels on Substack - free, paid, and full. Substack manages all the subscriptions and integrates with your Stripe account. You can also have private and invitation only communities.

• A replacement for forums and community plugins

• A replacement for online course plugins. Story Club with George Saunders is an example.

And Substack offers…

• Referrals between posts and between different Substacks are built in. Every substack can recommend other substacks. These build all those cross-linkages that reflect your networks as well as create the permeable boundaries.

• Freedom from advertising with the associated profile building of current social media and search engine business models. Note: if you add G analytics to your substack you are still passing your readers information to G but if they use Chrome or Android, G has it all anyway.

• You can download your subscribers email addresses and the content of your Substack for backups and to use for other purposes and so you don’t lose all your followers and materials when platforms change.

• Substack provides support for your subscribers and network so you don’t have to do all the user support for logins, subscriptions, etc.

• Growing options for chat, video, and podcasts. They have to keep innovating for their own survival and you get the benefit of that.

• A wider network for you and your members to be part of, as much or as little as you wish.

See it in Practice

The post below is from my Substack where I explain to group project leaders how to set up their substack and how it fits with the wider Shady Lanes network.
I’ve put that here simply by pasting the URL (web address)

Setting Up Your Group Substack

It’s this interlinking both within and between autonomous Substacks that provides such potential for a loosely connected and evolving network.

You can build communities and networks with comments on posts and other tools to encourage discussion.

This is just the beginning

Like all platforms, Substack is evolving, with new features being added, and others adjusted as it grows. We are at the start of the next stage of the Internet.