Pinning now available, new sticker pack, upcoming channel walkthrough, and more
Hello there, how are you?
Although we like Halloween (do we?), we aren’t the type of company to really mention it or make a big deal out of it. It just so happens that this newsletter is being sent on this day.
We’re listening to this Beach Boys cover, intermittently gazing out the window, and wondering about how things are going where you are. How are they?
Pinning and printing
In our last letter we mentioned Present, and also hinted that we were working on a feature that people have been requesting for a long time. Did you guess what it was? It was pinning. That’s right, you can pin a block to the top of a channel and it will stay there. Forever.
The other thing to tell you about is not quite new but you may not know about it…have you ever wanted to make your Are.na channels into a book? Well now you can, slightly more officially. We built print.are.na a few years ago as a collaboration with Mindy Seu and Ekene Ijeoma (with deep inspiration from Callil Capuozzo) to facilitate an easy way to turn Are.na channels into printed matter. Now you can do this even more easily, directly from a channel.
Are.na Sticker Sheet
We’ve got a new sticker pack in the store. The blue vinyl sticker sheet features classics like our logo; “they don't know I have an are.na account;” “Nothing is separate, everything is connected;” a bubbly and an automotive wordmark; and “what are the odds that someone with an active are.na account is a cia plant.” Something to think about. Buy the stickers here.
Channel Walkthrough with Somnath Bhatt
Mark your calendars for our next Channel Walkthrough event, featuring designer and artist Somnath Bhatt, who will take us through his channel “Desirability Politics.”
The event will take place online on Thursday, December 5 at 5pm est/ 2pm pst.
RSVP and we’ll send you a link to join, as well as a reminder closer to the time.
Editorial
This month we published two pieces that arose from our collaboration with Montez Press Radio. For each of our radio shows with MPR, we ask three or four people to narrate an Are.na channel of their choosing. We’ve been running excerpted transcripts from those audio experiments on Are.na Editorial. For example: Daniela Bologna on storytelling economies and Alex Tell on the transplanted tropical trees of her Manhattan childhood.
We also have some things in the works, including this year’s Are.na Annual, themed “document,” which will be out in December. If you want to prepare for it by reading the previous Annuals, you can find those in the store.
And we recently got back from Ljubljana, Slovenia, where the Naive Yearly conference met for the second year to celebrate and think through the “quiet, odd, and poetic web.” Now we’re busy putting together a publication from those talks, much like we did last year on naive-yearly.are.na.
Just a reminder that if you’d like to get Are.na Editorial pieces and news sent to your email, you can sign up for the Are.na Editorial newsletter.
Press
Are.na CEO Charles Broskoski was interviewed by Bryce Roberts of Indie.vc for his podcast INDIE AUDIO. Bryce said, “What I thought would be a conversation about the tension between creativity in technology ended up being a much more nuanced conversation.” Listen here.
There was also a nice mention of Are.na in Kate Lindsay’s conversation with Elan Ullendorff for her newsletter Embedded.
“I'm more interested in algorithmic agency and intentionality. I think Are.na is a platform that does that very well and when you look closely at the platforms that do it very well, it also becomes obvious why: The incentives are not there. You basically need to decide, “Making money is not the most important thing to me.” Thanks Elan :)
Community
Are.na editorial director Meg Miller (who is not writing this sentence) interviewed Chia Amisola for BOMB magazine.
Jisu L organized an Are.na meetup in Seoul at Birdcall. Friends came and made hand-drawn stars to combine into Are.na logos. Very cute.
Benjamin Earl was interviewed in a new podcast called Inventory-ing that delves into the lesser-known subcultures thriving in the quiet corners of the internet.
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.
Hope you’re taking care.
that’s all,
The Are.na Team