Ghost

Ghost started off as a simple (indeed, simplistic) blogging platform.

Some years ago, I had a blog on Ghost, and I even had a feedback phone call with the founder (he was temporarily living on the coast of Egypt, I remember). He asked me why I used Ghost instead of WordPress. I told him I just liked to screw around with new things, and I didn’t see any advantage of Ghost over other platforms.

Well, something happened with Ghost. It’s become less of a technical tool, and more of a publishing platform.

I was twice reminded of Ghost recently, framed as a competitor to Substack. There’s this New York Times article – Why We’re Freaking Out About Substack – which mentions Ghost as a publishing and email platform. Then a New Yorker article about Substack – Is Substack the Media Future We Want? – also mentioned Ghost.

The feature page on the Ghost website now emphasizes their business and monetization tools. Also, they have an entire section about email newsletters with Ghost.

I’m happy to see this platform get its footing. It was well-done, but had nothing to really stand apart. It seems like it found an angle that worked.