After months of beta testing, publication 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. Which means along with publishing their newsletters to the online, RSS, and sending them out by way of electronic mail, Ghost’s customers may also natively join with providers 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 potential by means of an integration with Bridgy Fed, a service that connects the open social internet often called fediverse to the one known as the ATmosphere. The previous is powered by an open customary for decentralized social networking known as ActivityPubwhereas the latter works with the newer AT Protocol utilized by Bluesky and different apps.
Manton Reecethe founding father of the publishing platform Micro.weblog, identified the distinction between his service and Ghost’snoting that Micro.weblog has been engaged on direct AT Protocol integration whereas Ghost is utilizing bridging.
Ghost 6.0 has been launched, including ActivityPub. Large replace. It’s fascinating how Ghost now talks about Bluesky compatibility, which works by way of Bridgy Fed, however they don’t point out Bridgy Fed. This feels barely improper 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 rivals to Twitter (now known as X) emerged.
Meta launched its different to X in 2023 with Instagram Threads, which has been catching as much as X on cellular units. In the meantime, running a blog platform WordPress, together with the hosted model WordPress.com, now gives the flexibility to combine with ActivityPub, permitting customers to observe WordPress blogs on providers like Mastodon. Different apps have built-in with the open social internet as nicely, akin 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 observe 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’ll observe different articles revealed on Ghost or WordPress. Plus, from Ghost’s admin display screen, publishers could have the flexibility to publish 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 high competitor, the publication platform Substack, which despatched a push notification to customers encouraging them to subscribe to a Nazi publication. 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 embody 404 Media, VesselDavid poor The Lever, TangleJason 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 major promoting level for Ghost 6, this main launch contains numerous 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 fee strategies, suggestions 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 most cost-effective plans now begin at $15 and $29 monthly, up from $9 and $25 monthly, respectively. Ghost publishers with a lot of subscribers, nonetheless, will now see lowered pricing.
