Twitter acquires newsletter publishing startup Revue to expand business

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.

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.