After months of beta testing, e-newsletter platform Ghost has shipped a brand new model of its software program, Ghost 6, that permits its publishers to share their long-form content material natively with the broader open social internet. Meaning along with publishing their newsletters to the online, RSS, and sending them out through e mail, Ghost’s customers can even natively join with companies just like the decentralized X rival Mastodon; Meta’s Threads; Flipboard; WordPress websites which have built-in with ActivityPub, Surf, and WriteFreely; and others.
Whereas Ghost additionally mentions the flexibility to publish to Bluesky as part of this launch, that’s made attainable via an integration with Bridgy Fed, a service that connects the open social internet often called fediverse to the one referred to as the ATmosphere. The previous is powered by an open commonplace for decentralized social networking referred to as ActivityPub, whereas the latter works with the newer AT Protocol utilized by Bluesky and different apps.
Manton Reece, the founding father of the publishing platform Micro.weblog, identified the distinction between his service and Ghost’s, noting that Micro.weblog has been engaged on direct AT Protocol integration whereas Ghost is utilizing bridging.
Ghost 6.0 has been launched, including ActivityPub. Huge replace. It’s fascinating how Ghost now talks about Bluesky compatibility, which works through Bridgy Fed, however they don’t point out Bridgy Fed. This feels barely unsuitable to me since I’ve spent a lot time engaged on AT Protocol.
— Manton Reece (@manton.org) 2025-08-04T15:21:13+00:00
ActivityPub has lengthy been used to energy open, decentralized social media functions. However within the years after Twitter’s acquisition by Elon Musk, there was an elevated curiosity in constructing with this protocol as opponents to Twitter (now referred to as X) emerged.
Meta launched its different to X in 2023 with Instagram Threads, which has been catching as much as X on cell gadgets. In the meantime, running a blog platform WordPress, together with the hosted model WordPress.com, now provides the flexibility to combine with ActivityPub, permitting customers to comply with WordPress blogs on companies like Mastodon. Different apps have built-in with the open social internet as nicely, comparable to Flipboard’s flagship app and newer app Surf, and publishing platform Medium.
Picture Credit:Ghost
Ghost additionally touted the potential community results of connecting with ActivityPub, as a result of it permits folks on federated apps to then comply with a Ghost writer’s posts, in addition to work together with them by liking, replying, or reposting. This probably broadens the publishers’ attain and expands their readership.
As well as, Ghost’s customers can sustain with different long-form content material in an “Inbox” part of its software program, the place they will comply with different articles revealed on Ghost or WordPress. Plus, from Ghost’s admin display, publishers can have the flexibility to submit short-form content material to the fediverse, permitting them to develop their following and join with readers.
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Picture Credit:Ghost
Ghost 6 arrives shortly after a shameful incident from its prime competitor, the e-newsletter platform Substack, which despatched a push notification to customers encouraging them to subscribe to a Nazi e-newsletter. A number of authors have already left Substack over its resolution to host such content material up to now, together with Casey Newton of Platformer, a preferred tech publication. Different notable Ghost publications embrace 404 Media, Spyglass, David Sirota’s The Lever, Tangle, Jason Calacanis’s Inside, SFist, and others.
The corporate shared that its publishers have generated over $100 million, leaving Ghost with annual income of $8.5 million.
Picture Credit:Ghost
Whereas the ActivityPub integration is a predominant promoting level for Ghost 6, this main launch consists of a variety of different adjustments and new additions. Notably, Ghost now ships with a local analytics suite that tracks efficiency, engagement, and conversions throughout the online, newsletters, and subscriptions in actual time.
The software program additionally helps quite a lot of cost strategies, ideas and donations, branded newsletters, content material that may be personalised to particular person readers, and extra.
With the discharge, Ghost adjusted its pricing for its Professional (hosted) plans; its least expensive plans now begin at $15 and $29 monthly, up from $9 and $25 monthly, respectively. Ghost publishers with a lot of subscribers, nevertheless, will now see diminished pricing.
