Flavoured software; Hyperconnected culture; Social's wave
Issue #348
💡Think
Hey everyone 👋
This week has been tough, primarily for what’s happening over in Turkey and Syria.
It really does put things into sharp focus when you’re sitting at your desk pushing pixels around a screen whilst there is natural destruction happening to people you have a few degrees of separation from – my family has rich ties to Turkey in particular.
If you’re looking to help, I tweeted out a few organisations that can help. They are UK links, but I’m sure will operate internationally.
Stay safe, and have a great week.
📷 Look
📖 Read
❶ Flavoured software, or “the beauty in boring”
This is a great angle on software – that striving for unique or quirky can be detrimental to your success. Remember that Instagram-like app Dispo, which was more like a digital Polaroid? It failed to properly compete with the comparatively vanilla Instagram. This article argues that boring software is probably what you want to build.
❷ Hyperconnected culture and its discontents
As we “democratise” culture, by making it possible for anyone to contribute to the online discourse (think how easy it is to create a TikTok video), are we enabling many more millions of creators or removing the need for creative skills altogether? Is this access we’re creating making us all a bit..less talented?
❸ Social’s next wave
What next for social media? We’re fed up of Instagram trying to turn itself into a shop, Twitter is crumbling in front of us, and TikTok is forcing addictions left, right and centre. This article puts forward 4 strategies for how social could/should develop and the trends they will jump on. There’s an amazing quote in here: “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it“.
—
Bonus round
On Saturday, I spent way too long clicking around this interactive map of the air quality index across the globe. It’s fun, I promise
🎧 Listen
Generative AI, a primer
I know, I know, AI is basically everywhere at the moment. Buuuut, it’s hard to know the terminology, and we don’t want to be embarrassed at a dinner party, do we? This podcast is a light intro with practical use cases, and more importantly – WHY?
Listen to this podcast (35 minutes)
Spotify – Apple Podcasts
Have a great week,
@disco_lu