What is Postzine?

I’m finally ready to talk about the project I’ve been working on for the past couple of months (but really have been dreaming for years now). Postzine is a publishing tool for digital curators. It helps individuals and collectives to organize all findings they gather while browsing through the internet and then publish them as a newsletter and digital publication.

From a glance, Postzine is basically a CMS. What differentiates it from other similar software is the ability to integrate data sources from your day-to-day use, such as social networks (Mastodon, Bluesky), music (Spotify, Apple Music), video (YouTube, Vimeo), read-it-later apps (Instapaper, Raindrop), messaging (Telegram), and others. The main idea behind these integrations is to make it as easy as possible for users to navigate and share their findings, and by leveraging the data that’s being shared, Postzine can automate part of the work to create new posts. For example, if you run a successful Telegram channel sharing updates and discussions about a specific topic, you can integrate it with Postzine to automatically create a newsletter based on the content created on that channel.

My main goal with Postzine is to create a tool to help digital curators share their findings in innovative ways. And pursuing this goal feels particularly relevant in the current moment we’re going through on the internet, where it’s becoming harder to find quality content, and every platform is being inundated by AI slop. I believe human curation is at the heart of Postzine, and that society will value it more and more over time. I want to help digital curators organize all data they’re collecting in a productive way that allows them to navigate and publish their content, while also creating an opportunity to monetize their work.

Over time, the definition of what this project is has changed and evolved, and even though most of what Postzine is has crystallized, what I described here might change in the future as I stumble upon different ideas and see new opportunities. But at the core of what this project is, there’s a firm belief that there’s value in every interest we might have for niche topics, no matter how big or small. And I’m also deeply motivated by the current state of media and journalism, which I believe has been failing us over the last few decades. I have some ideas on how Postzine can help journalists create their own independent digital reporting, but more on that later.

Postzine is currently available as a pre-alpha at postzine.com.