Hi,

Good day to you. If you’re just joining us, it’s important you know that we are a company of people who love fall. If you’ve been with us for a while, you’ll know that October is when we can barely contain our appreciation for the psychedelic colors of changing leaves.

As usual, there’s a lot to tell you, and a lot of fun things to read in this newsletter. We’re listening to A Visiting Link and thinking about (as always) attention.

What are you thinking about? What are you listening to?

iOS app available to Premium

Something we’re very happy to tell you: We’re now testing the new iOS app with all Premium members. It’s not complete yet, but we’ve been using it in place of the old app. It truly does everything you need it to do, with a smoothness and speed you need to experience to understand.

If you have a Premium membership, the link to the TestFlight is on your perks page waiting for you. Download the new app, and let us know what you think.

If you don’t have a Premium membership, but would like to get early access to the new app, consider upgrading?

And for those who are Premium, a huge (and ongoing) thank you — your subscription goes directly towards funding projects like this new iOS app.

Android app, soon available to everyone

For those on Android, we have even better news. The new Android app will be available for testing for everyone next week. We will drop the link in Discord and also on your perks page.

Personal Business by Charles Broskoski

This month we published the latest in a series by Are.na CEO and cofounder Charles Broskoski on what keeps Are.na going. The new essay is about why taking business personally is an asset rather than a liability. It’s also about how the VC funding model has shaped the current state of the internet.

Part of what prevents people from starting their own software company is the pervasiveness of a singular popular narrative: the idea that money is the primary reason to do so. That the way to make software profitable is to scale, and the way to scale is to get investment from VCs. Software, for better or for worse, plays an increasingly primary role in determining how we view the world, which in turn determines how the world actually works. There should be more than just one prominent funding model facilitating those experiences. There should be more businesses that represent a diversity of people and potential outcomes. It would be a much better internet if there were.

Ultimately, it’s about how our endurance for continuing to work on Are.na comes from having a personal stake in it. Read the full piece here.

Editorial collaboration with Dirt

Charles’ essay was co-published with the digital culture publication Dirt, as part of their October issue. In the same issue, we also co-published a piece by Evan Collins on the brief but influential Factory Pomo aesthetic.

Factory Pomo, like many other postmodern styles, is a melange of several interrelated references and influences. In architecture and interior design, it merged the then-contemporary high-tech architectural movement with revivals of Art Deco, Futurism, and general industrial vernacular and technological iconography from the first half of the 20th Century.

Evan is a founding member of the Consumer Aesthetic Research Institute (CARI), which uses Are.na to conduct their research into design aesthetics in modern consumer culture. It’s definitely worth looking through their channels.

Press

James O’Sullivan mentioned Are.na in the piece “Last Days of Social Media” for NOEMA. Positioning Are.na as a platform built with intention, O’Sullivan writes that “[Are.na] feels like the anti-Pinterest: There’s no algorithmic feed or engagement metrics, no trending tab to fall into and no infinite scroll…. Connections between ideas must be made manually, and thus, thoughtfully — there are no algorithmic suggestions or ranked content.”

Hannah Bowler wrote a piece about Are.na for The Subthread, interviewing Deem Journal’s Nu Goteh and Studio Maxima’s Eli Bucksbaum about how they use it. “Are.na is often framed as an alternative to Pinterest, but it’s more about thoughts, musings, and research, not just images. It lets people go very deep, very niche.”

Art director Matija Gabrilo talked about how he uses Are.na for The GOODStack. “When you’re not being inundated with spoonfed content you take an entirely different approach to curation. Even those small but regular acts of curation can shift what you notice.”

Community

PORTO ROCHA, a NY based creative agency, is using their Are.na group profile to document examples of their work as it appears in the wild.

In London, Daniela Bologna initiated an Are.na meetup and led an art walk through East London. It looked so fun.

If you have any news to share please put it in the Community News channel.

Roadmap

As always, you can check out our roadmap page which goes into the features we're building, our long-term goals, and our current numbers.

There are so many places you can spend your attention, and we’re touched that you spent it reading this letter.

every single day,

The Are.na Team