July 13, 2016 Subtext certainly isn’t the first initiative to see the appeal in news organizations texting readers. A couple years back, news organizations experimented with using Facebook Messenger to let readers text bots. (It didn’t catch on.) Other early experiments included the texting platform Purple, which was acquired by The Skimm in 2019. Outlier Media pioneered a local-journalism-via-texting service that connected low-income residents with helpful information about issues like housing and utilities.
Subtext differs in that it’s a platform offering texting as a tool for news organizations.
The privacy of texting means users don’t experience the same toxicity or endless doomscrolling that you would on social media, making it a friendlier and healthier interaction. Donoghue said that overall, only one person has ever been removed by a host as a subscriber for misusing the platform.