My name is Philipp and you are reading Creativerly, the weekly digest about creativity and productivity-boosting tools and resources, combined with useful insights, articles, and findings from the fields of design and tech. The newsletter built for the creative community.

Hey and welcome to Creativerly 263 👋

A packed past week means a packed newsletter. Besides new apps launching, others shutting down, Bear landing on Vision Pro, and Figma acquiring an app that turns spreadsheets, databases, and APIs into web apps, we are especially focusing on the news that have unfold at WordPress and Tumblr.

Since the newsletter is a bit longer than usual, I will keep this intro section as short as possible, and wish you only the best for the day you are reading this newsletter on, whatever you have planned for today, you got it, I believe in you, take care, and much love.

It is time to ditch WordPress, finally.

As 404 Media reported on Februarz 27, 2024, both Tumblr and WordPress.com (both owned by Automattic) are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney an OpenAI, as the team at 404 Media obtained internal documents showing that Tumblr staff compiled users' data as part of a deal with Midjourney and OpenAI. According to the documents obtained by 404 Media, it is unclear what the exact types of data from each platform going to be, but internal communications made it clear that deals between Automattic and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent.

The post revealed that in a messy and unclear process, Automattic compiled data that it should not share, but it was also unclear if and what has already been shared with OpenAI. For websites and blogs hosted on WordPress.com, there will be an opt-out setting to prevent content getting shared with OpenAI. Yes, you have to opt-out, since obviously no one would opt-in a setting to allow AI scraping your data. WordPress is also offering an open source CMS which people can use for their self-hosted websites. As 404 Media reported, it is unclear "whether self-hosted WordPress websites that use Automattic plugins like JetPack to connect websites with Automattic's infrastructure are subject to the company's AI-scraping deals". I highly recommend reading the superior reporting by Sam Cole from 404 Media to get all the insights on the whole situation.

I am not an opponent of AI, I believe that the technology can be used for good, ethical, and powerful flows and causes, but I am definitely an opponent of setting up such AI-scraping deals and then telling your users to opt-out instead of opt-in. For the longest time, I had the impression that Automattic is "one of the good ones". I built my very first website with WordPress, and I was always fine to pay some money here and there for a additional functionality, hosting, or anything similar. I never had the impression that WordPress, but especially Automattic turns into such an unethical, creepy, privacy-invading company.

According to Web Technology Surveys, 43.2% of all websites online are running on WordPress, which is insane. Imaging that probably a chunk of that number will get used to scrape data for AI must be worth such a huge amount of money, that Automattic just said "go for it". I assume that most people who are using WordPress put their trust into their services, especially since they are one of the biggest players in the open-source field. The people who appreciate the ease and quickness of setting up a WordPress website to just write and publish a blog suddenly have to find out that the company powering their websites became a victim of the disturbing, data-scraping field AI has become recently. WordPress has opened the door to the internet for so many people, but it seems like that it is finally time to ditch it.

By agreeing or factoring in such deals, Automattic has shown its true colors. While, as of now we are only talking about Tumblr and websites hosted on WordPress.com, but there are already concerns about self-hosted WordPress websites which are using Automattic's JetPack plugin, it is safe to say that you better migrate off WordPress for the good, simply to be not exposed to the risk of getting your data scraped. What is equally worying and yet another alarming part of that deal is the fact that Automattic not only owns Wordpress.com and Tumblr but also apps like Pocket Casts (a Podcast Player), Simplenote, a cross-platform, simple, and free note-taking app that has often been praised for its privacy focus, as well as Day One, which is probably the most popular journaling app used by people to input their notes, thoughts, ideas, images, and more, so basically it is a gold mine for data. I am not saying that Automattic will expand its deals across those products too, but simply the fact that they own them, knowing that they are fine scraping and selling their users' data is indeed worrying. With this AI-scraping deal, Automattic showed its real face, it showed what they have planned, how they will make more money, and that they do not care about their users.

As reported by Sam Cole within the 404 Media post, Automattic shared content posted on Tumblr and WordPress between 2014 and 2023 without users' permission, beyond that, the data that has been exchanged included private and deleted posts, private answers, and content from premium partner blogs. How can you trust a company who did that long-term? The simple answer is, you can not, you can not trust them, and if you are using Tumblr or WordPress, it is the right tome to seriously consider moving your website to an CMS alternative. Speaking of that, Creativerly runs on Ghost* since years, and while it has been the most joyful experience for me personally, there are also other lovely WordPress alternatives like Kirby, Craft, or simply blogging and writing tools like Write.as. Besides that, I created a blog post which contains a bunch of website builders, blogging platforms, and CMS to quickly and easily build your personal website, blog, or publication.

WordPress has once been the home for a lot of writers and publications. Those are the folks who turned WordPress into what it is today. Automattic treated that situation with the outmost disrespect.

It is time to finally ditch WordPress.

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Fresh Updates & News

Noor →

I had my eyes on Noor, which is a beautiful and calm space focused on and designed for a balance of deep work and intense collaboration sessions, for a while, therefore, I am excited to let you know that v1.0 of Noor is now available to everyone. The team of four behind Noor have been working the past 18 months to build and ship the presence and chat app for teams who are embracing threads (to simplify channesl, groups, inline threads, async threads), backlinks (yes, backlinks within your chat app), following threads, rich link previews, and more.

Noor is a lovely app packed with exciting features that you haven't experienced. There is no doubt that Slack and Microsoft Teams are overwhelming and keeping you away and distracted from a deep focused work state. Noor has been built to eliminate back and forth switching tools, to stay on top of important messages, focus on your work by muting all notifications and unread badges, collaborating with your team, and finding any messages and threads as fast as possible.

Transno →

Transno announced that it will shut down and delete all user data on March 30, 2024. Transno initially launched while outliner note-taking apps and bi-directional linking took off, but it struggled to compete with all the different apps and tools out there. Transno did not offer the same level of innovation, craft, and features as similar apps, so I was a bit surprised to see that they have been operating until now. Nevertheless, it is always sad to see an app shut down, but as mentioned the area of note-taking is one of the most crowded places in the world of apps.

Bear →

Although I am not in the market for an Apple Vision Pro, I got excited when I read the news that Bear, one of the most simple and beautiful note-taking apps, landed on VisionOS Store. This means, Vision Pro owners and Bear users can now experience and enjoy Bear hands-free, wherever they are. Bear's VisionOS app allows you to write notes during FaceTime meetings, or lets you check and read recipes while preparing your lunch.

Supernotes →

The most-recent Supernotes update introduced SN Pro, which is Supernotes' new custom typeface, that has been specifically built for note-taking and markdown. The lovely thing about it is that the typeface is open-source, which means you can not only experience it right within Supernotes, but alos download it to your computer directly.

Besides that, Supernotes announced a collaboration with Layers, a new design platform and community, to host an App Icon Design Contest. If you enter, you get the chance to win cash prizes and free subscriptions to both Layers and Supernotes.

But that is not it, as Supernotes shipped new simplified cards, mobile quick actions, drag and drop support for junking cards, and much more.

Figma acquires Dynaboard →

Figma has acquired Dynaboard, an app that focused on providing real-time collaboration tools, optimizied UI/UX, database and app integrations, and built-in performance and security best practices, to offer application development to everyone on a team. With Dynaboard, users got the possibility to turn spreadsheets, databases, and APIs into web apps with an AI supercharged low-code IDE. By offering that, it aimed to brigde the gab between idea and production.

As Figma is the place where designers and developers globally work together to design and build digital products, Dynaboard is exciting to join in on that mission. Dynaboard will integrate into Figma, which means they will phase out Dynaboard services on April 30, 2024.

Craft →

With the newest update, Craft introduced simple whiteboards within your docs. This new feature is now in open beta. It gives you the possibility to add simple whiteboards into docs, which you can then use to collaborate in real-time with friends or colleagues, draw shapes, add sticky notes, and change backgrounds or fonts, the essentials you need to do basic whiteboarding right within Craft.

Mental Wealth

❯ Manage Your Stressors, Not Your Stress – “Imagine showing up in the emergency room having just broken your arm. After looking at the x-rays, your doctor says, “Yes, it’s definitely broken.” She then says: “Here’s a prescription for Vicodin. Take a few tablets anytime your arm starts hurting.” Then you’re sent on your way.”

❯ How Mindfulness Can Help You Become More Humble – “There’s an old story about a sage who lived in a lofty mountain hermitage. It was attached to a cave where he often meditated, but his followers and benefactors had also built him a lovely little building that housed all his books and provided him with a very comfortable place to sleep and a dining area with a sweeping view of many valleys below and peaks in the distance. Also attached to the building was a closet-like dwelling for his faithful attendant.”

❯ Timeshielding: How to Do the Things you Actually Want to Do– “A topic that comes back often in conversations is time management. How do I write this newsletter every week, while managing a business, writing a book, and completing a PhD? Do I still have time to hang out with my friends and family? Can I share any tips around time management?”

❯ Your brain needs a really good lawyer – “If you take it for granted that nobody can listen in on your innermost thoughts, I regret to inform you that your brain may not be private much longer. You may have heard that Elon Musk’s company Neuralink surgically implanted a brain chip in its first human. Dubbed “Telepathy,” the chip uses neurotechnology in a medical context: It aims to read signals from a paralyzed patient’s brain and transmit them to a computer, enabling the patient to control it with just their thoughts. In a medical context, neurotech is subject to federal regulations."

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Appendix

❯ ICYMI

ProductivePrivacy not only received a major site update recently, but I also added a couple of new privacy-focused and open source apps to it. Especially, if you are on the hunt for privacy-focused an open source CRM, project management, or note-taking apps, make sure to head over to ProductivePrivacy and check out the newest featured apps.

❯ Quick Bits

Till next time! 👋‌‌‌‌

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