Facebook launches ‘Bulletin’ for independent writers

"The popularity of our local Groups and Pages has shown us that people are hungry for locally-relevant, longer-form content produced by expert and authoritative voices," the company said in a statement.

San Francisco: With an aim to promote independent writers, Facebook has announced a set of publishing and subscription tools Bulletin to support these creators in the US.

The tech giant said that Bulletin will include support focused on content creation, monetisation and audience growth.

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“The popularity of our local Groups and Pages has shown us that people are hungry for locally-relevant, longer-form content produced by expert and authoritative voices,” the company said in a statement.

“Through Bulletin, we want to make Facebook a better place for these creators, and unify our existing tools with something that could more directly support great writing and audio content — from podcasts to Live Audio Rooms — all in one place,” it added.

Each Bulletin creator will have a standalone website under their brand and will be able to customise their publication’s name, logo and colour palette.

Creators can also customise their articles with multi-media embeds and other styling options.

“We want to connect audiences with a range of new and diverse voices and enable them to go deeper into the topics they care about,” the company said.

Bulletin content will be eligible for distribution in Facebook News and other discovery surfaces to help audiences easily find it and subscribe.

The company said it will include tools to distribute podcasts in addition to long-form writing, including externally-hosted podcasts and additional audio features coming soon.

Bulletin will integrate with Facebook Pages to enable publishing across various multimedia formats.

The company said it is also planning to roll out new investments, products and services aimed to support more independent writers and experts this year.