trying out are.na
Ever since (re-)starting the blog, I've found so many interesting websites and online resources by reading other blogs. This is a really fun and rewarding aspect of exploring the indie web. I used to find it a bit weird when people said that "surfing the web" was one of their hobbies in vulgaris aerae 202X, but now I think I might be getting into it.
One of the things that I found was a website called are.na. Or rather, I re-discovered it. I had already run into it sometime in the past, but didn't look into it further. And honestly, it's not the most approachable website. On the front page, it says:
- online software for saving and organizing the content that is important to you
- a toolkit for assembling new worlds from the scraps of the old
This sounds interesting, but then blocks and channels get mentioned and it starts getting just a bit confusing.
Basically, if you wanted to be crass, you could call are.na "hipster Pinterest." It has the same kind of goal: Letting you organize your ideas (on Pinterest it would be pins, on are.na they're called blocks) into collections (Pinterest: boards, are.na: channels). The main difference is that while Pinterest is heavily focused on images, are.na also allows other forms of content, like plain text, PDFs, or website links. are.na also has collaboration features: You can create "connections" between channels (both your own and those of others), which allows you to connect "idea clusters" with each other instead of just having individual boards. Additionally, you can choose to let others contribute to your channels. The platform puts a strong emphasis on the lack of the type of algorithms that dominate Pinterest and other social media. That is my understanding of it, at least.
The free plan allows you to add up to 200 blocks. This limitation is one of the drawbacks compared to Pinterest, which lets you add as many pins as possible. Of course, Pinterest forces you to put up with ads and manually filter out AI content to the best of your ability. So there's a tradeoff here.
are.na is run by a much smaller company (currently, they have 4 permanent employees), so I can understand why they can't just offer unlimited space to everyone. My goal for now is to use my 200 blocks to create a collection of images, text and other sources that embodies the concept of this blog, its "vibe" and where I want to go with it. The limitation could end up being a helpful factor here, since it forces me to not just mindlessly add stuff, but pick only the things that I consider to be most relevant.
Once I've built up my collection, I might share it on the blog.