I created a very simple tool that helps me keep up to date with sites I find interesting.
The point of putting together this little application was to attempt to solve a very specific problem that I have had for the past few years of using the internet: I’m interested in too much stuff, which means there are a lot of sites I want to visit. It’s hard to manage that list of sites.
I wrote about this in the summer of ‘09, and I lightly suggested that one way to keep up with lots of different topics across the web was to assign a topic to each day of the week. Monday would be web design, for example, Tuesday would be architecture, Wednesday would be music, and so on. It seemed like an overly structured way to consume content, and I never actually intended to try something like this (but it was fun to think about organizing a Google Reader account organized by day of the week, instead of category).
Recently, the same frustration has emerged: I want to learn about lots of different topics from lots of different sources, but I’m unsure how to change my browsing habits to see everything I want to see on a regular basis. There are a few sites I’ll check out because they’re guaranteed to lead to interesting content (mainly Hacker News and Twitter), but other ones — the ones I forget about — offer glimpses into various subcultures and niche interests that I’ve always enjoyed learning about. Scouting NY, Second Avenue Sagas and Flux Blog are good examples of one of those niche interests.
The solution I came up with is as simple as I could make it. I’ve added a single bookmark to my browser’s bookmark bar called “daily read” which links to a simple app I’ve built. When I click the link, I’m redirected to a random page in a queue of “daily read” sites that I want to visit regularly. The list of sites is a simple comma-separated list that is always editable by visiting another webpage.
Why does this work for me?
The biggest advantage of this little tool is that it removes any friciton in deciding what to visit when I have time to sit down and read, or a spare moment at work between tasks. Not only would I usually forget about the fringe sites I wanted to visit again, I would let muscle memory take over, visiting the same few sites only to realize that I had missed the chance to read about something else just because I wasn’t in the habit.
By maintaining a separate list of sites that I want to visit regularly, I can trust that over a period of time of using the app — two weeks, say — I’ll see everything that I wanted to see. Once I’ve gone through the queue, the sites are shuffled and the list starts over again.
What’s more, and probably the most intriguing, is that this way of browsing helps me get a better handle of each site’s “personality.” As I visit these sites regularly, I can get a better sense of the editorial team or individual behind the project.
I want to reiterate that this is a tool I built for myself, not something that will ever “go viral” or be sold for millions. Anyone with basic coding skills can build their own version in a few hours.
The point of the project, and the most satisfying part of the experience, has been in reducing the problem down a very simple solution: a single button. Whenever I come across an interesting site that seems like it’s got some spunk, I’ll add it to the list. Sites that turn out to be boring get removed from the list. There’s no overhead to make this work because it lives in the browser. You don’t even need to create a bookmark for the site. You just have to remember one URL, and that’s the key to the other sites you’re interested in.
There are a million other ways to deal with this problem (um, regular bookmarks, right?), but to me, this is the most dead-simple solution to guarantee that I’ll always see everything I want to see on the interweb, without stressing about what to view, when.
Because, admittedly, I stress about that kind of stuff.
How I decided to download, trust and use another app
I’m fascinated by the way we discover “stuff on the internet.” With an increasing number of input channels feeding us all the data all the time, it’s is hard to know where you first heard about something, or where you found it originally.
A few weeks back, like many other days, I found something cool on the internet. I realized that I have a complete history in head of not only how I found it, but how I recognized, and suddenly trusted it. This is an extended look into the signals that led me to recognize one app out of many.
Step 1: I visited a blog a year ago.
Last year, I came across a blog called ISO50. I don’t know how. Since it was pretty cool, I created a bookmark:
Step 2: Forget about the blog for a 17 months.
When had I originally saved the site, I saved a link to one of the specific blogs posts that was timestamped June 2010.
Going through some older bookmarks the other day, I visited the site again and assumed it hadn’t been updated in over a year. I was actually just looking at an old post.
Step 3: See a tweet.
I see this tweet the other day and think “huh, I thought that blog was dead.”
I favorited the tweet.
Step 4: Visit Android Market.
While checking the Android Market for some stuff related to work, I noticed an app called “Nosh” in the featured section:
Step 5: Finally visit that blog.
After seeing the tweet, I remember to visit iso50.com. Sure enough, the latest post was in November 2011, meaning that I was an idiot for thinking it was dead. I scrolled through the front page. Towards the bottom, a phrase catches my eye:
I currently am working on Nosh…We had great success with the 404 page, and the Jotly project was my next move.
It’s under a post labeled “Jotly: Share Everything with Everyone.” I realize that the guy running this blog is a designer working in web, and that he’s done something that clever designers do: made a sweet 404 page.
There’s a link to this funny video, which opens again with the name “Nosh”:
The full post has this funny video:
I watch the video, then read this:
If you click almost anywhere on the Jotly website it will take you to Nosh. I was optimistic about Jotly getting at least a tiny bit of press and I wanted Nosh to be able to benefit from this, at least in a small way.
Step 6: I get it.
Nosh is an application for rating stuff, created by a bunch of people who appreciate high-quality, well-produced funny things. Jotly is a clever teaser campaign to drive Nosh downloads.
With all of this in mind, I go back the Android Market and download Nosh. I appreciate the effort, and my download is an indication of that small point. It’s a story that began 17 months ago. (Since writing this, Jotly is also a real app that’s available on iOS and Android).
Wait, why does this matter?
Aside from exposing a little too much about how I use the internet, my underlying point is that our content consumption is an incredible mix of signals and noise. Each day is a constant struggle to find the most signal-y signals among all of the noise via social media-ing.
More importantly, I’m interested in Nosh because I like the people behind it. In addition to the Nosh.com 404 page, they’ve got a sense of humor and and have fun with what they’re building. This might be just another MoLoSo app, riding the “add a layer on top of the real world” wave like Yelp and Oink, but I have a “personal” reason to like it.
This mini experience shows me me that personality is really important when it comes to products. Apps are more than just services and gimmicks. They’re about connecting with a lifestyle that you’re either a part of, or aspire to join.
Downloading apps has become a thoughtless ritual for some of us that are a little too involved in consumer-mobile-tech space. I feel myself losing interest in the latest and greatest, and more interested in community, personality and curation. This little story behind how I found about Nosh shows that our discovery channels can be most satisfying if they’re organic and dripping with authenticity. Authenticity is the holy grail of marketing. Make someone feel like that thing is just for them, created by people who know what they want, and they’ll bite. Of course, the second you realize that someone is trying to fabricate that experience, the illusion of authenticity fades.
While I’m busy “noshing” the world around me, take some time to think about why you like the things you like. Why do they make you happy? How did you find them? Why do you trust them? What is it about those things that you appreciate the most? How much time do you spend looking for things to like, instead of just enjoying things you like?
I thought that links would be a distraction from writing I hoped would be interesting enough in its own right to hold the reader’s attention.
But that was a long time ago and I soon came round. Today, when working on a post, I look forward to planting links that will shoot their tendrils outwards from the text. I want the links to be truly useful and I spend time trying to pick good ones. I work on the basis of an idealized image of a super-motivated reader who will be so committed to the subject that she will want to pursue every lead I can offer.
This is something that has always interested me, and it’s refreshing to see someone articulate it so well. Basically, it’s easy for us to want something despite a complete lack regard for the work required to get it.
The fallacy points out that your penchant for coffee shops is completely disconnected from the responsibilities of owning a coffee shop. The environment created in the coffee shop is the public result of the owner’s hard work. That experience is explicitly devoid of the mundane behind-the-scenes responsibilities like cleaning, payroll, and maintenance. That’s all hidden from the customers because they just want a nice place to sit and drink coffee — not bothered with ordering supplies or paying rent.
It’s like Hollywood. Customers at the coffee shop are like the audience in the movie theatre. The audience doesn’t care about quibbles with casting departments, production budgets or deadlines. They just want to watch the movie, and it’s the producer’s job to ensure that gets done. Hide the shitty stuff and make it look easy.
The problem is that people don’t understand that there is a shitty part. That, by definition, is the coffee shop fallacy: a mismatch between the work one imagines to be involved in a pursuit and the actual day-to-day labour.
The shitty part isn’t unbearable or exclusive; it just requires more attention, focus and dedication than most people are willing to give. Productive people, however, are willing to put up with the shitty-ness because they know it will yield an awesome final result. They understand what needs to go on in the background to “make it look easy” and ship the final product or experience.
The guy who sits in the coffee shop, looks around and wants his own someday is just dreaming big.
However, my friends who have the most serendipitous lives are actually planners. They throw parties, organize dinners, or have pub crawls. These planned events give rise to chance encounters. I can say very confidently that if you’re looking for a serendipitous life, you have to plan for it.
Trying to be strategic about location, I decided to go with a place that’s close to the office so that, ideally, I could go on my way to work in the morning, or after work in the evenings. That seemed completely reasonable.
I figured that in order to get to the office by—on a really good day—around 9am, I would have to leave my apartment around 7:45 to be at the gym by around 8am, get in a good workout, shower, and then take off. That also seemed reasonable.
Thinking backwards from 7:30am, that would mean I’d have to be in bed around 11:30 to get my 8 hours of sleep. But that’s in bed. I would have to start winding down around 11pm. That would mean that everything I would want to do during the day would have to be done my 11pm at the absolute latest. That seemed reasonable, but considering that I’m usually not considering bed until around 12:30am, it would be tough. But so be it.
Then I realized that in order to get stuff done in the evening—friends, parties, hanging out, food, events—I would have to leave work and get to whatever was happening, make it happen, and then be leaving for my apartment at around 10:30pm, assuming I would be about 30 minutes away.
This is all seems sensible, but it’s starting to feel a little ambitious. Fine. I’ll just have to set some time aside to plan my week ahead. That’s definitely not going to happen during the week, because as soon as I wake up I’m heading to the gym (apparently), and after work I’m heading off to do something really interesting. That’s time for living, not planning.
FINE. That leaves Sunday. Sunday evening I’ll have to sit down and go through everything, but I just have to make sure I’m in bed in time to be up at 7:30pm. But what if I “don’t feel up to it,” or have something going on Sunday night? I’ll just stay up late, right?
Let’s be honest, my life isn’t this busy.
Even so, it can feel like it at times. As soon as I joined the gym, and told myself that I want to get there at least 3 times a week, a hail storm of time-constraints descended upon my schedule that suddenly made things feel a lot more complicated. I realized that if I wanted to have to be on top of my time management if I actually wanted to get my sleep in to be ready for my gym excursions.
I’ve read a lot about the fact that while we are very quick to sacrifice sleep, it’s “more important” than food (this just means that 3 days without sleep are a lot worse than 3 days without food). It is undoubtedly time in your schedule that you should defend. However, in order to defend your bedtime, everything else in your day has to finish up by that bedtime minus 8 hours. Or 7 hours. Or 6, whatever you realistically think you can get away with.
If you can manage to get in bed at night in time for 8 hours of sleep and still be up in time to go to the gym, that’s huge. You’re now controlling a variable that gives you the energy to do everything else you want to do. It’s all about the bedtime, because if you’re sleeping enough, you’re setting yourself to get a lot of other stuff done as well.
Concessions, or, why I’m not lame.
I hate waking up early, and I don’t like going to bed early. In fact, I like staying out late and am not opposed to sleeping in. However, it’s starting to feel like a vicious cycle, even on the weekends, when you’re not constraining your evenings or respecting sleep time. Sure, if the night is HAPPENING and you have to stay out, do it.
But here’s the kicker.
If you’re starting your weekend with the thought of “I’ve got to have my fun by 2am,” you’re going to be a lot more interested in making the most of your night, rather than waiting around for something to happen. An easy counterargument is that you automatically suck by giving yourself a bedtime. You’re working for the man. You’re not letting life HAPPEN.
The thing is that there are ALWAYS constraining factors on EVERYTHING we do, they’re just more interesting and harder to notice when they’re imposed by someone else. If someone has to leave because they’ve got a flight in the morning, well, shit, they’re going to leave. If that chick is tired, she’ll go home. If your other friend wants to stay out, that sounds great, let’s party.
It’s tougher to impose a restriction like a bedtime on yourself because it also feels like you’re going to miss out on something, like you’re missing an opportunity. But it’s more challenging, and adds structure to your life that will pay off in other ways. I’m not arguing that every weekend should be lame, but respecting a bedtime is a compelling way to run your life.
Disclaimer: This post is being written past midnight.
