My name is Philipp and you are reading Creativerly, the internet corner where I unpack my musings, curate and write about noteworthy apps and software, and explore the latest trends in design and tech.

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A couple of days ago, I stumbled across a post by Kaleigh Moore, which she already posted back in September 2021. The topic of the post was "Does Your Writing Take a Stance?", and in it Kaleigh Moore explains while there is a lot of writing out there in the world, the stuff that stands out in our modern and noisy world seems to follow one approach: It takes a stance. My most recent post Approach writing in public as conversation instead of a performance explored a very similar if not the same idea, when writing in public and publishing online, people should put the personal touch and their own point of view first, instead of aiming to write for a broad audience. And Kaleigh Moore confirms one of my assumptions: as she wrote about that she increasingly seek out for writing that takes a stance, she appreciates when writers make the brave choice to share their personal thoughts on a topic.

In my piece, I wrote about the fun paradox that authentic, personal, friend-to-friend styles writing often creates more engaging public content, as readers feel personally addressed and connected, complex ideas become way more digestible through conversational explanations, personal anecdotes and humor make the content memorable, and natural language flows better than forced formality. The one thing you can consider to make your writing better or actually just sit down and write is sharing what you think. Not doing that, can lead to writing that reads as fluff, or it puts you on the sidelines, as you are not sharing your two-cents, as Kaleigh Moore further elaborates in her post.

And I now, that probably a lot of people feel a certain fear or a level of risk when it comes to expressing an opinion online. Yes, people may disagree with you, in case you change your mind over time, some one will dig up your previous opinions to confront you, there is the chance of conflict and confrontation. But ask yourself what you are enjoying most when reading online. Is it the fluff, wishy-washy, and always the same ideas and thoughts that feel dull and mundane? Or is it the thought-provoking, interesting, personal, valuable, insightful post by someone who is coming down on one side of an issue and makes a persuasive case for doing so, providing logic, data, and storytelling? To me, it is the latter, which is the reason I wrote about what matters most when choosing a note-taking app, why there is still the need for a better Goodreads alternative, the underwhelming truth of personal knowledge management, or why team messaging is broken. Another lovely side-effect of writing down what you think is that all those posts created some sort of conversation, discussions, and interactions with readers. I am privileged to have an audience that even if they disagree with my thoughts, ideas, and opinions, they still approach it in a way that leaves room for both sides to further elaborate.

In case you want to write about something and suddenly you stumble across someone who already wrote about the very same topic, please do me a favor and still write about it. This is another solid reason why personal writing matters. It is not about the topic itself, but the words, opinions, thoughts, and ideas that come with it. Although, I did not know that the piece of Kaleigh Moore existed, even if I had read it before, I would have still published my piece about why you should approach writing in public as conversation instead of a performance, because I had some personal thoughts, ideas, and opinions about it. And that is exactly what makes a post interesting, your unique point-of-view. Sure, Kaleigh Moore and I ultimately agree on the fact that you should take a stance when writing online, however, it was still incredibly insightful and interesting to read why Kaleigh Moore thinks like that.

Don't get demoralized by the fact that people have written about almost everything and you have to find a niche. Share what you think, even if hundreds, thousands, or more people have already written about it beforehand.

Your personal touch is what makes online writing interesting and valuable.

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Fresh Updates & News

Jitter introduces Infinite Canvas →

Jitter quickly became of the most popular and powerful tools for motion design, people are now even calling it the Figma for motion design. It enables creators and teams to easily design stunning animated content and interfaces. Adobe After Effects, what has been the industry standard for years, although it is bloated, complex, and hard-to-learn, becomes a thing of the past once you get started with Jitter. As motion design workflows have been slow and clunky for far too long, Jitter introduced the infinite canvas with their most recent update.

Infinite canvas gives users the possibility to create multiple artboards in one file on Figma-like infinite canvas, which means users get to experience a single place where their entire animation process, from conception to hand-off happens in a way that is effortless and natural.

BuzzFeed wants to fight AI-driven social media with a platform of its own →

BuzzFeed announced that it wants to build its own AI-driven social media platform. BuzzFeed's CEO Jonah Peretti released an "Anti-SNARF Manifesto" in which he critiques how AI-driven content recommendation on platforms like TikTok and Instagram has created what he calls "SNARF" content – material that emphasizes Stakes, Novelty, Anger, Retention, and Fear to maximize engagement. And as part of that, he argues that this SNARF content has degraded online discourse and user wellbeing. What is quite interesting to me is that despite acknowledging these problems, BuzzFeed's solution isn't supporting existing decentralized alternatives. Instead, they are planning to develop their own centralized social platform, claiming that they will use AI to give users agency instead of stealing their agency.

What an irony. While Mastodon and Bluesky are gaining traction by addressing platform centralization itself, BuzzFeed is essentially proposing to solve AI-driven engagement problems by... creating another centralized platform with different AI. I am not quite sure if the issues with current social media Peretti identifies, will get solved by introducing yet another proprietary platform.

What is even more fascinating is that while Peretti identifies the core problem as platforms using AI to maximize engagement at the expense of user wellbeing and content quality, criticizing TikTok and Meta for their consolidated power over content distributions, how AI systems have underminde human agency, he doesn't acknowledge existing attempts to solve these problems through decentralization. Platforms like Mastodon or Bluesky are at the forefront of addressing those issues through federation, local community moderation, and algorithmic choice. The fact that Peretti's solution is to build yet another centralized platform - albeit one promising to use AI "differently" - without even considering or mentioning decentralized alternatives could be seen as either a significant blind spot or a deliberate omission.

Tumblr to join Fediverse after WordPress migration completes →

Already back in 2022, Tumblr has teased its plans to integrate with the fediverse. Three years later, the current plan to tie Tumblr into the open social web will come about by way of the site's planned move to the WordPress infrastructure. According to TechCrunch, Automattic, the company who owns Tumblr, confirmed that when the migration is complete, every Tumblr user will be able to federate their blog via ActivityPub, just as every WordPress.com user can today.

Anytype ships web publishing →

The first new release of 2025 for Anytype introduces the possibility to publish Objects as static pages available on the web. Those published pages are uploaded to Anytype's servers as unencrypted HTML files. As this is still an early version of web publishing with Anytype, linked objects, and blocks like Sets and Collection aren't supported yet. However, according to the release notes, multi-page publishing and other enhancements are coming soon.

Mental Wealth

❯ Embracing Uncertainty: A Modern Take On Strategy, Goals, and Roadmaps – “We all strive for certainty — if we do X, Y will happen. Certainty is comforting; it allows us to operate without fear, doubt, or having to think too much. Many of the processes your company employs, especially strategy, roadmap, and project planning, are meant to create certainty — Here’s what we need to do and by when. The plans flow nicely into each other to create a cascading planning process.”

❯ Beautiful, boring, and without soul – “Some time ago I found myself strolling through a quiet, less touristy place in London. In typical style, it was overcast and gloomy but not raining. I decided to make one last stop in a bookshop. It was quirky, almost like the one William owned in Notting Hill, but not quite. While browsing through some books, I felt a deep sense of sadness coming over me. It was the longest I’d been away from home since our kids were born and I was missing them deeply; their laughter, playing dinosaur, and kicking ball. In an attempt to elevate my spirit, I decided to make my way back to a small park I walked by earlier.”

❯ What’s the Goal of the Goal? – “Occasionally, you might discover that your actual work is making a mockery of your mission. To see how that could happen, consider the experience of Ryan Davidsen. On July 15, 2022, Davidsen bought a new pickup truck. A Ram 1500. To celebrate, he planned to take it on a camping trip the next weekend.”

❯ Turning Big Fears into Tiny Experiments – “When I was younger, I badly wanted to live in Japan. Japan is a country with very strict immigration laws, but my university had an exchange program where you could go spend a semester and study in another country. There was only one problem: the Japanese university they had a partnership with was one of the most selective in the country. I remember thinking: “There’s no way I’ll get accepted.” I told my mom about my doubts. “It’s not your decision to make,” she said.”

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Appendix

❯ ICYMI

In case you are looking for simple and lightweight apps that help you convert, resize, edit, and optimize images with ease, make sure to check out Tiny macOS utility apps I love – Part 5, in which I wrote about three apps that help you with mentioned workflows.

❯ Quick Bits

Till next time! 👋‌‌‌‌

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