Twitter acquires newsletter startup Revue to expand business

Twitter will eliminate some of the service’s fees to encourage more people to create newsletters, and will take a 5% cut on subscription revenue collected through Revue.

Twitter Inc. acquired the newsletter publishing company Revue for an undisclosed sum, part of an effort to expand its business and give writers who distribute their work on Twitter more features.

The Twitter app icon on a mobile phone in Philadelphia. (AP)

Revue’s service, which lets people manage newsletter publishing and subscriptions, will continue operating as a “standalone service” within Twitter, the company said Tuesday in a blog announcing the deal. Twitter will eliminate some of the service’s fees to encourage more people to create newsletters, and will take a 5% cut on subscription revenue collected through Revue.

Part of Revue’s appeal to Twitter is that it could help expand the business outside of advertising, which generates more than 85% of Twitter’s annual revenue, and give some of the site’s more popular users a way to make money from their followers.

“You can expect audience-based monetization to be an area that we’ll continue to develop new ways to support,” Twitter executives wrote in the blog. Twitter has also confirmed that it’s considering options for its own subscription service.

Twitter has made a number of acquisitions in recent months, primarily small startups to bring on their personnel. Since early December, Twitter has purchased social video app Squad, podcast company Breaker, and a 50-person design firm Ueno

Revue’s six-person team, which is based in Utrecht, Netherlands, will join Twitter, which said it will hire to expand the unit.