In
ancient Rome, newsletters were exchanged between
officials or
friends. The first full "newspaper" was
Relation of Strasbourg, printed in 1609 by
Johann Carolus. Many rivals soon followed, such as the German
Avisa Relation oder Zeitung and the Dutch
Nieuwe Tijdingen. When received unsolicited, they can be seen as
spam. Newsletters are also used by organizations to inform their members of ongoing developments.
The New York Times noted in 2014 that new ways people are consuming media online have led to a resurgence of e-mail newsletters, some of which are distributed exclusively via email and some that are published on websites like
Substack. In 2025,
Inc. magazine reported a new email newsletter boom amongst startups and tech companies. ==Production==