Riverside adds newsletter publishing to its recording platform

Riverside, a podcasting and video recording platform, is launching a newsletter publishing feature for its users. The launch represents an expansion of Riverside’s platform beyond its core podcasting and video recording tools. The new tool allows creators to convert their existing video and podcast content into written newsletters using AI tools. While the company is introducing this feature, it isn’t aiming to directly compete with established newsletter platforms like Mailchimp, Substack, Beehiiv, or Ghost. Instead, the feature is designed to help users leverage their existing recordings to reduce the effort required to create written content.

According to Nadav Keyson, co-founder and CEO of Riverside, the goal is to simplify the transition from spoken to written media. “Substack and Beehiiv start you at a blank page. But our creators and business customers are already producing rich, information-dense spoken content on Riverside. For most people, speaking is easier and more natural than writing from scratch, and the ideas are already there, in the conversation. So instead of asking them to start over in a separate tool, we help them turn a recording they’ve already made into newsletter-ready content with far less effort,” Keyson said.

Alongside the newsletter launch, Riverside is updating its recording suite to support multi-camera setups and remote guests. The platform is also adding AI features for drafting recordings and enhancing video quality. These AI video enhancement tools are designed to improve the lighting, depth, and sharpness of recordings. The AI features also include tools for drafting recordings as soon as they are finished. These updates to the recording suite are being introduced alongside the new newsletter publishing capabilities.

The move follows a broader industry trend where platforms are blurring the lines between podcasting and newsletter publishing. Riverside, which has raised over $60 million in funding, joins other platforms expanding their publishing avenues. For instance, Substack launched a built-in recording studio in March, while Beehiiv ventured into podcasting in April. Additionally, the social network Mastodon announced newsletter publishing in June. These developments highlight how recording and publishing platforms are increasingly overlapping.

Why it matters

Riverside is expanding its platform beyond podcasting and video recording into newsletter publishing, aiming to leverage existing user content to reduce the effort of creating written newsletters.