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.

Hey and welcome to Creativerly 305 👋

Well, get ready, we have packed newsletter for this week.

But before you get into it, I have a small favor to ask: I am officially looking for my next role, my next adventure. I am a Product Designer operating in the field of design for 10 years and spending more than half of it designing and building user-centric products and SaaS. I thrive in early-stage environments, but I am pretty much open for anything, as long as I can work remotely, preferably within EU. You can check out some of my past work on my website, and I am happy to share more about me via email if interested. In case anyone of you know of a current job opening in the field of Product Designer, or if you are looking for someone, my emails are open, and I would appreciate any lead or connection. Thank you in advance.

But now, back to the newsletter. We are nearing the end of 2024, and next week you will receive the last newsletter issue of the year, packed with Creativerly‘s Favorites of 2024, a selection of apps that stood out to me throughout the past 12 months. In this week‘s newsletter though, I have a lot of news and updates to share. One specific one got reserved for this intro section. Within my timelines, there was a lot of talk about Substack again. Over the course of the past year, a lot of writers left Substack, because the platform was actively host and monetized Nazi content, and when the founders had the chance to speak up, they made it even worse by stating that even the most extreme views need to be heard. Last week, they provided yet another reason to finally leave that hellsite behind, as they announced a partnership with The Free Press, a right-wing reactionary publication founded by Bari Weiss.

Marisa Kabas provided great reporting and reasoning on why you should leave the platform, and Anil Dash wrote a superb piece on the same topic. Substack is doomed, and holds users in custody by providing hyper (fake) growth. It is fascinating what loads of new newsletter subscribers do with a newsletter writer, but I assume it is a similar thing with folks who are still active on X because they have 500, 1000, 10000 or even more followers there, an in case they would leave X those followers would be gone, although they are a representation of nothing. The beautiful thing about email, and especially email lists is that you can take them with you, wherever you decide to host your newsletter.

Substack‘s growth tools are fueled by dark patterns. The whole site is a dark place. And it is sad to see how many great writers and creative minds are still on that platform, trapped by the fake growth Substack is providing.

Anyway, already one year ago, I gathered a couple of lovely Substack alternatives, and I am planning to update the post soon, adding even more alternatives. Let us leave Substack in 2024.

On another note, in case you are celebrating Christmas, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a lovely time ahead.

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Fresh Updates & News

A New Social →

Engineer leader and writer Anuj Ahooja and Open Source Enigneer and founder of Bridgy Fed Ryan Barrett, joined forces to found A New Social, a new non-profit organization focused on building cross-protocol tools and services for the open web. On their website, A New Social states:

Our mission is to liberate people's networks from their platforms, enabling The Last Network Effect and leveling the playing field across the open social web.

The first project A New Social is taking on to work towards this mission is Bridgy Fed, a service that connects websites, the fediverse, and Bluesky, so people can make their profile from one platform visible on another one, follow people, see their posts, and reply and like and repost them. As a next step, A New Social will be recruiting a Board of Directors and a team of advisors as they complete the process of forming the non-profit. Besides that, A New Social announced that it already had discussions with industry partnerships with companies like Flipboard, Bluesky, Mastodon, and Meta, they will work closely with existing organizations building on top of the open social web, focusing on maintaining compatibility and collaborating on features and education.

Zen Browser got a fresh new look →

Zen Browser, the privacy-focused, highly customizable, and powerful browser based on Firefox‘s Gecko framework, got a major visual upgrade, for both its brand and its UI. Zen Browser‘s website received a charming update, delivering a warm and cozy vibe, while showcasing the browser‘s most important features. When using Zen Browser for the first time you will see a lot of similarities to Arc, the browser developed and recently more or less shut down by The Browser Company. Zen Browser is a community-driven project, listening to its users and building the features they want. As Arc is packed with loads of beloved features and interactions, it makes sense that they find their ways into Zen Browser too.

With Zen Browser you can set up multiple workspaces to keep your tabs organized, its compact mode allows you to see more of your content at once, with split views you can work across multiple views at once, the sidebar allows you to quickly access your favorite websites, and with Zen Glance you can preview your tabs to quickly find what you are looking for without the need to switch tabs.

What‘s next for Sketch →

It has a been a packed and feature-rich year for Sketch. In a recent blog post they published, they reflect on the features they have shipped throughout 2024. Among them, you find Smart Animate, to add animations in your prototype and make them more realistic, hover and press interaction, scroll areas, the new command bar to quickly find and run any action, a UI refresh and better handoff experience, and a lot more. Besides reflecting on the features they shipped, Sketch took the chance to look ahead on the things and features to come. Without sharing much details, Sketch will bring auto layout/flexbox-like features to Sketch, improving the command bar, and they are working on nestable projects along with the option to archive individual documents, to help you keep your workspace even more organized.

Flipboard introduces Surf, an app to surf all socials →

The folks behind Flipboard, creators of the online social magazine app, just introduced a new app they are developing called Surf.

As social networks continuously pull us into scrolling sensationalized stories and controversies, the rise of the social web illuminates a brighter path ahead. Therefore, Flipboard introduces Surf, an app to create and browse custom feed for all your interests. It gives you the possibility to combine people and posts from Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, Flipboard, YouTube, and more to create a custom feed for whatever you want. Simply add your favorite sources and use a filter to keep it all on topic. Through the Surf Shop, you will be able to see what others are creating and find inspiration for your own feeds.

Surf is curently in beta, and folks who are interested in getting access, can sign up to the waitlist. Surf is adding new users to the beta on a constant basis.

​Making „Social“ Social again - Ev Williams announces Mozi →

Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter and creator of Medium, just announced his new app Mozilla to make „Social“ social again. Medium never really lived up to its $600 million valuation. In 2022, Evan Williams stepped down as chief executive, and felt no desire to do it again. However, according to a report by the New York Times, Williams felt lonely as he gotten divorced, and moved across the country twice in a few years. In that stage of his life, Evan Williams did a lot of reflecting, as he really wanted to focus on relationships. Back in 2022, Williams created an app that would tell him where his friends were living and traveling. The idea was that it should feel more „social“ than „social media“, with no comments, stories, posts, likes, hearts, or follows.

Since Evan Williams did not want to run a company anymore, he teamed up with Molly DeWolf Swenson, who became co-founder and chief executive. Back in November, they raised $6 million in funding from Obvious Ventures (an investment firm co-founded by Evan Williams). And now, they introduced Mozi, a social app, but not in the sense of „social media“, but rather in the sense of interacting with other people and building relationships. It is not a media app at all, since there is no posting photos or videos, or liking or following, no influencers, nothing. The primary value proposition of Mozi is that it lets you know when you are going to be in the same place (city or event) as someone you know. And with that, the goal is to connect people more often in person with what they care about.

You can download Mozi right now and give it a try.

Every introduces Cora, an AI-powered email inbox →

After Lex, Spiral, and Sparkle, Every, the writer collective publishing various newsletters across the fields of AI, productivity, tech, and more, announced it next product called Cora, entitled as the most human way to manage your email. The team at Every built an entirely new way to manage your inbox with AI. While starting working on Cora, they asked themselves if they were designing email from scratch in a world with ChatGPT and Claude, how it would work. They realised that most of the emails that get delivered do not require a response. Inboxes are packed with purchase confirmations, newsletters, deal negotiations, client requests, calendar invitations, and more. Not every email is treated the same way.

This is where Cora comes in. The goal of it is to turn your inbox into a more human place. So, how does it work?

If you get a time-sensitive email, it will pop up in your inbox immediately. Everything else gets automatically archived by Cora, so when you open your inbox, everything you see should be something that requires your attention. Twice a day, Cora sends you a brief that summarizes all of your non-time-sensitive emails. Besides that, Cora is AI-driven as it leverages the technology to automatically start drafting a few possible responses for your emails, as it analyzes your voice, tone, and style. Once you sign up to Cora, it will scan a selection of your historical emails to understand you better.

I do have to say that all of Every‘s products are beautifully designed and executed. Cora is another example of lovely craft, detail, and design. However, they are currently betting everything on AI, literally everything. And I have no interest to share my personal emails, whether they are purchase confirmations or actually email conversations, nothing can me convince me to let AI scan my emails, and beyond that scan and read every single email I will receive or write. In case you want to give Cora a try, you can sign up for the waitlist now.

Grammarly acquires Coda, Grammarly CEO steps down →

I had two ‚woah‘ moments throughout the past week. The first one was when I found out that Grammarly acquired Coda. I hadn‘t had that one on my radar. Coda has been on the market for 10 years, and now it merges with Grammarly to build the AI-native suite of the future. Besides that, Grammarly announced that Rahul Roy-Chowdhurry is stepping down as Grammarly‘s CEO and hand the company over to Shishir Mehrotra, co-founder and CEO of Coda.

Both teams will merge into one building up on what they shipped so far. Grammarly users will still be able to use the product. With an enterprise AI solution that taps into companies‘ knowledge and data through Coda Brain, the goal is to enable the context the user needs wherever they work. According to the announcement of Coda, Coda Docs and the Grammarly Assisting will get unified to provide users a flexible home for work. However, Coda Docs will continue to work as they do now, but will get powered with the Grammarly Assistant. In the longer term, the plan is to weave the best of Coda and Grammarly together.

Campsite is winding down, Co-founder join Notion →

The second ‚woah‘ moment of the week happened shortly after I found out Grammarly acquired Coda, as I read the announcement of Brian Lovin, that Campsite, the company he co-founded two years ago to build tools to reshape team collaboration, is winding down operations on February 28, 2025. Companies who are shutting down is always a bummer, but what is even more interesting about this one is that the founders are thrilled to announce that they will join Notion and continue to shape the future of collaborative software there. But, what about the rest of the team? What about the users? Well, the users can export their data until February 28, after that, Campsite will shut down.

Mental Wealth

❯ The Power of an Annual Review: Reflect on the Past to Reimagine your Future – “As the end of the year rolls around, it’s tempting to hit pause on everything. Between holiday preparations, end-of-year deadlines, and social commitments, the thought of adding one more task to your plate might seem overwhelming.”

❯ The Science of Learning Movement Skills – “One of my ongoing projects is to learn more about how research in learning is applied within specific fields. You can read my review of books summarizing the literature on language learning here and learning physics here. To that end, I read Motor Learning and Performance, written by the eminent researchers Richard Schmidt and Craig Wrisberg.”

❯ The Psychology of Strategic Relationships – “The difference between stagnation and exponential growth often comes down to one critical factor: relationships. Research shows that high-level connections—those built on trust, mutual value, and emotional intelligence—are increasingly recognized as essential to driving business success (Shah, 2024). To explore this further, I interviewed Julian Kuschner, a seasoned business consultant who has spent over a decade helping businesses leverage strategic relationships to achieve their goals. Kuschner’s approach focuses on the psychological dynamics that drive successful business relationships. This post examines the psychological principles underlying strategic business relationships and explores how these insights can support organizational growth and resilience.”

❯ Society drives how we build products, create brands, and design experiences – “The never-ending debate on whether a brand is more important than the product often boils down to what drives product success: emotional connection or functional quality. However, most of the time, this is not an either-or question as businesses ideally need both to work harmoniously. User experience and service design influence the overall product experience, impacting the product’s success and company image.”

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Appendix

❯ ICYMI

Streamline the discovery process of blogs and podcasts by leveraging feedle's index of independent creators. Learn more about the search engine for blogs and podcasts in my deep dive, The world of feeds.

❯ Quick Bits

Till next time! 👋‌‌‌‌

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