I agree completely. Substack needs a random button. Heck, they could even just borrow Google's classic "I'm feeling lucky" button. But I think you bring up an interesting point - would that button go to the newsletter's individual homepage or would it go to a random post? And it got me thinking, what Substack needs (IMHO) is better indexing.
At this point, I'm 4 years into my newsletter (shameless plug - http://learned.substack.com) and even I have a hard time finding related posts or topics. (I mean, I have a spreadsheet on my computer but that only works for me.) Ideally, I think, we'd be able to use categories and tags on posts that could then be accessed from the homepage. I think this would make a random button even better as you could include optional granularity; the button could go to a truly random post or it could go to a random post within a given set of tags.
On a last, tangential note, you mentioned better searches, which got me to thinking about the incredible corpus Substack is building. Corpora are incredibly useful in linguistics as a tool for delving deep into our language and seeing how we really use it. So, if Substack offered creators the option to opt-in to a corpus, to have their work included in a downloadable, anonymized, database available to researchers, would you join?
I'm always for options, along with the basic button or search that "just works."
I'm also a believer in the power of corpora. (Incidentally, I've mused about what an AI might do with access to hundreds of thousands of Substack posts.) So I think I'd allow my posts in a Substack corpus.
That's basically what I made https://sample.findka.com for, though it's not completely random (at this point, it is mostly random though to tell you the truth!). BTW if you want to compile a directory of Substack newsletters, you can get a ton of them super easily by using Twint, a Python library for scraping Twitter. I wrote a little script with it a while ago to scrape the 1,000 most recently tweeted links to Substack and then sort by # of tweets (i.e. popularity). Happy to post the code if you want.
Thanks! I'll have to look at your pages more closely; they are intriguing. And I just knew I'd be using Python eventually. While I can't (yet?) program in Python, I'm guessing I should try to use Twint (as long as it's really ok under the Twitter TOS).
I think a random button is a great idea (and a better search engine 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻) - there's a newsletter called The Sample that does something similar https://sample.findka.com/?ref=links
You've reminded me that I used to love StumbleUpon (but maybe in those early days of the internet we were more easily impressed?)
I'm trying to imagine a random button and what kinds of posts would show up that I would have no interest in. There are now hundreds of thousands of Substack users with a million different subjects. I wouldn't be interested in all of them, or maybe even most of them. And since many of my posts are political opinion, I don't think they would be welcomed in everyone's pages.
Still, I think not being able to discover other Substack writers is a real drawback. I realize it's a newsletter format and not a typical website, but it's growing as a form of social media so it needs to recognize the 'social' aspect.
Wordpress shows a random post at the top of the page from writers I follow, so that might work--as long as we can convince other Substack writers to follow us. When we find Substack writers we admire we can add them to a blogroll now. I've started one on my Substack sidebar, which will be helpful as I draw more readers, I think.
My Substack page is at https://ramonagrigg.substack.com/. I've been working at it for a while now, and it's still a work in progress, but I'm happier with it now than I was last month. LOL.
You triggered me to finally build this into the Thanks for Subscribing directory. Get random newsletters with the click of a button at https://thanksforsubscribing.app :-)
😮😲🥳 Is this brand new? May I shout (happily!) about it on my newsletter and social media? Or would you / Substack prefer that I wait for an official announcement?
My gosh: A Substack randomizer AND maybe possibly probably the first Alice From Queens newsletter post on THE SAME DAY!
** faints **
You realize of course that I'll be turning this link into an actual button in my posts. And clicking this button often when requiring something new and inspiring. 😁
Now you must excuse me while I examine the Substack website to see if a random link/button has made a surprise (one might say "random") appearance there...
I agree completely. Substack needs a random button. Heck, they could even just borrow Google's classic "I'm feeling lucky" button. But I think you bring up an interesting point - would that button go to the newsletter's individual homepage or would it go to a random post? And it got me thinking, what Substack needs (IMHO) is better indexing.
At this point, I'm 4 years into my newsletter (shameless plug - http://learned.substack.com) and even I have a hard time finding related posts or topics. (I mean, I have a spreadsheet on my computer but that only works for me.) Ideally, I think, we'd be able to use categories and tags on posts that could then be accessed from the homepage. I think this would make a random button even better as you could include optional granularity; the button could go to a truly random post or it could go to a random post within a given set of tags.
On a last, tangential note, you mentioned better searches, which got me to thinking about the incredible corpus Substack is building. Corpora are incredibly useful in linguistics as a tool for delving deep into our language and seeing how we really use it. So, if Substack offered creators the option to opt-in to a corpus, to have their work included in a downloadable, anonymized, database available to researchers, would you join?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
I'm always for options, along with the basic button or search that "just works."
I'm also a believer in the power of corpora. (Incidentally, I've mused about what an AI might do with access to hundreds of thousands of Substack posts.) So I think I'd allow my posts in a Substack corpus.
That's basically what I made https://sample.findka.com for, though it's not completely random (at this point, it is mostly random though to tell you the truth!). BTW if you want to compile a directory of Substack newsletters, you can get a ton of them super easily by using Twint, a Python library for scraping Twitter. I wrote a little script with it a while ago to scrape the 1,000 most recently tweeted links to Substack and then sort by # of tweets (i.e. popularity). Happy to post the code if you want.
Also just remembered that I have a sort-of secret random newsletter issue page (for the newsletters I've imported into the sample): https://sample.findka.com/api/hn-demo?topics=all
Thanks! I'll have to look at your pages more closely; they are intriguing. And I just knew I'd be using Python eventually. While I can't (yet?) program in Python, I'm guessing I should try to use Twint (as long as it's really ok under the Twitter TOS).
I think a random button is a great idea (and a better search engine 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻) - there's a newsletter called The Sample that does something similar https://sample.findka.com/?ref=links
You've reminded me that I used to love StumbleUpon (but maybe in those early days of the internet we were more easily impressed?)
I'm trying to imagine a random button and what kinds of posts would show up that I would have no interest in. There are now hundreds of thousands of Substack users with a million different subjects. I wouldn't be interested in all of them, or maybe even most of them. And since many of my posts are political opinion, I don't think they would be welcomed in everyone's pages.
Still, I think not being able to discover other Substack writers is a real drawback. I realize it's a newsletter format and not a typical website, but it's growing as a form of social media so it needs to recognize the 'social' aspect.
Wordpress shows a random post at the top of the page from writers I follow, so that might work--as long as we can convince other Substack writers to follow us. When we find Substack writers we admire we can add them to a blogroll now. I've started one on my Substack sidebar, which will be helpful as I draw more readers, I think.
My Substack page is at https://ramonagrigg.substack.com/. I've been working at it for a while now, and it's still a work in progress, but I'm happier with it now than I was last month. LOL.
You triggered me to finally build this into the Thanks for Subscribing directory. Get random newsletters with the click of a button at https://thanksforsubscribing.app :-)
A present for you: https://random.substack.com/
😮😲🥳 Is this brand new? May I shout (happily!) about it on my newsletter and social media? Or would you / Substack prefer that I wait for an official announcement?
My gosh: A Substack randomizer AND maybe possibly probably the first Alice From Queens newsletter post on THE SAME DAY!
** faints **
You realize of course that I'll be turning this link into an actual button in my posts. And clicking this button often when requiring something new and inspiring. 😁
Now you must excuse me while I examine the Substack website to see if a random link/button has made a surprise (one might say "random") appearance there...
Feel free to share! It's a "secret menu item" for now
I'm imagining a customer at McDonald's saying, "I'd like the *secret* menu item. You know...'The Random.'"
I'm guessing "The Random" will typically be far better on Substack than at McDonald's. 🙂