iOS app ready for testing, Are.na is 14 years old, Pawn Chess Club event, and more
Hi, how are you today? We are experiencing some very long but definitely not unpleasant August days. This might be our favorite point of Summer, when you know that fall (the best season) is right around the corner. We're listening to Nala Sinephro, Space 1.8.
We’ve got so much to tell you, and even more in the works but nevertheless, we wonder, what’s going on with you? What are you thinking about? What are you listening to?
Investor report
We just sent out our bi-annual investor report to our investors and the folks on the Premium Supporter tier. We covered metrics, revenue, what we worked on during the first half of the year, and what our plans are for the rest of it.
It also might interest you to know that inside the investor report is a link to test an early version of our WIP iOS app 👀.
If you’re an investor or on the Premium Supporter tier ($120/year) you can access this report by heading to the perks page. If you’re not on the Premium Supporter tier and you’re interested in accessing this report, consider upgrading?
Testing iOS app with Investors and Supporter tier members
If you just glazed over that last section, you might have missed that we have an iOS app that is available to investors and Premium Supporters for early testing and feedback. We have to say, as a beta, it’s more full-featured than you might expect. We’ve been using it exclusively instead of the old app and it’s feeling good.
The other interesting thing you might like to know about this app is that its development was led by Yihui Hu, the genius behind the unofficial (but also fully featured) Are.na app called Are:na (note the colon).
If you’re an investor or on the Premium Supporter tier ($120/year) you can access the TestFlight link by heading to the perks page. If you’re not on the Premium Supporter tier and you’re interested in testing the new iOS app, consider upgrading?
We’re very excited to work with Yihui and very excited about this app. Also Yihui’s birthday is the same as Are.na’s birthday (August 9th). Happy birthday to all.
Pawn Chess Club x Are.na x Restaurant Manor Rock
Speaking of celebrations, we’re also excited to tell you that we will be with our friends Pawn Chess Club at Restaurant Manor Rock in Hudson, NY on Sunday August 24, from 4-8pm. If you’ve been with us for a while, you’ll remember that this is not the first chess-related event we’ve done (by far).
Anyway, if you’re in New York, this could be the excuse you’re looking for to get out of the city and come upstate to enjoy a nice evening of chess, food, and drinks in the courtyard of one of the nicest and most delicious restaurants in the Hudson Valley. If you’re already upstate then you have to come, no excuses. RSVP here.
Limited-edition T-shirts from Blacks of Are.na
Last newsletter we told you about two limited-edition T-shirts produced by Blacks of Are.na in honor of Juneteenth: Written in Our Image and Written in Our Imagination. We’re excited to update you that they are now shipping.
If you received your shirt, B.O.A. wants to know how it looks. And if you haven’t ordered one yet, there are still some available at the store, don’t miss out.
The shirts feature paintings by artist Mitchell Reece and 25% of the proceeds go to The Reading Room in Houston. All shirt purchases come with a Blacks of Are.na vinyl sticker.
Are.na Editorial
Meanwhile, over at Are.na Editorial we’ve published two new essays.
Luiza Dale’s “It’s telling how telling a telling can be” goes deep on footnotes, margins, and typographic hierarchies. Mostly it’s a piece about presenting possibilities for otherwise. “It isn’t just who tells the story that makes a difference,” Luiza writes, “it’s how the story is told on the page.”
And Joanne Lam writes about the documentary film The Work and sound as a tool for emphathy in the essay “Disarming at the Precipice.” “Listening is a mirror, being heard and received is the remedy.” Joanne’s piece is a re-pub from Are.na Annual vol. 6 “document,” available in the Are.na store.
Community News
In case you missed it, August 2 was HTML Day, an annual celebration of HTML initiated by HTML Energy. What started out as a local HTML free write is now a global phenomenon and we’re honored to have it documented on Are.na.
The Cybernetics Library published their impressive Cybernetics Image Library. The visual archive is browsable by image, with each image linked to a record in their catalog or integrated from their Are.na channel.
Writer Adam Moritz was spotlighted by the New York Public Library for the research he’s doing on avant-garde New York print and publishing history. He said some nice things about using Are.na for his research projects, and shared his channel collecting interesting items in the NYPL’s Research Catalog.
And Marco used Are.na to experiment with building a recommendation engine to curate images.
As always, if you have any news to share please put it in the Community News channel.
Our Birthday
Lastly, just wanted to mention that (ahem) it was our 14th birthday last week (August 9th). We say this every year, but we would not be celebrating our 14 years if it weren’t for you.
Thank you ♥️♥️
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.
The Are.na Team