Substack is introducing a live video feature to its newsletter platform, enabling creators to engage with their audience in real-time. Initially, this feature will be available to writers with the Bestsellers badge, but the company plans to expand it to all users in the coming months.
The live video feature allows creators to broadcast directly from the Substack app, with options to restrict the audience to all subscribers or only paid subscribers. Subscribers will receive notifications when a live video begins, and creators can invite other Substack members to join the broadcast. Currently, only iOS users can send invitations, but Android users can accept them, with full feature access “coming soon.” After a live broadcast, a recording will be saved as a draft post, allowing creators to include it in a future newsletter. A clipping tool is also available for basic video editing tasks.
Substack’s foray into live video content is an interesting move, given the platform’s existing focus on written content. The asynchronous nature of emails, which can be read at any time, is at odds with the immediacy of live videos. While the option to include recordings in newsletters is useful, it’s unclear whether creators and readers will adopt live viewing as a regular part of their Substack routine. The success of this new feature is uncertain, and it remains to be seen whether most newsletter creators and readers are interested in engaging with video content.
