Now that Threads has launched, it’s a good time to look at the Notes app and identify what still needs to be improved.
I think my biggest critique is that Notes just needs to be in the main feed. It should also remember my default settings. Every time I visit Notes, I first have to go to the home page, then click on the Notes tab, and then toggle over to Subscribed. The average user isn’t going to want to go through that many steps.
Substack needs to convince news organizations to start posting to Notes. One of the great things about Twitter was that I could basically use it as an RSS feed to dip in and get caught up quickly on world events. Notes has some great writers and voices, but it needs that newsy aspect that will give it more utility.
I admire the Substack team for tying Notes directly to newsletter subscriptions, but I think it’s time for Notes to offer a more transparent “follow” button. Nobody wants to sign up for 100 newsletters to begin flooding their inbox.
There needs to be a robust Notes search feature!