After months of beta testing, publication platform Ghost has shipped a brand new model of its software program, Ghost 6, that enables its publishers to share their long-form content material natively with the broader open social net. Which means along with publishing their newsletters to the net, 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 power to publish to Bluesky as part of this launch, that’s made potential via an integration with Bridgy Fed, a service that connects the open social net referred to as fediverse to the one known as the ATmosphere. The previous is powered by an open customary for decentralized social networking known 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. Large replace. It’s attention-grabbing how Ghost now talks about Bluesky compatibility, which works through Bridgy Fed, however they don’t point out Bridgy Fed. This feels barely fallacious 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 purposes. 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 various to X in 2023 with Instagram Threads, which has been catching as much as X on cellular gadgets. In the meantime, running a blog platform WordPress, together with the hosted model WordPress.com, now gives the power to combine with ActivityPub, permitting customers to observe WordPress blogs on companies like Mastodon. Different apps have built-in with the open social net as nicely, resembling 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 individuals on federated apps to then observe a Ghost writer’s posts, in addition to work together with them by liking, replying, or reposting. This doubtlessly 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 power 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 prime 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 choice 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 contains numerous different adjustments and new additions. Notably, Ghost now ships with a local analytics suite that tracks efficiency, engagement, and conversions throughout the net, newsletters, and subscriptions in actual time.
The software program additionally helps a wide range of cost 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 least expensive plans now begin at $15 and $29 per 30 days, up from $9 and $25 per 30 days, respectively. Ghost publishers with a lot of subscribers, nonetheless, will now see diminished pricing.
