If The Internet Was A Place

I’ve come to think of software applications as a form of digital architecture: some are places of concentration, others of collaboration, others clearly just for fun. Software’s emotional dimension is crucial: how it feels dictates how it’s used. (Architects hire environmental psychologists; tech companies hire user-experience researchers.)... See more

If you watch television for 8 hours in a row, you might feel that you watched too much television. You would have a feeling that you wanted to get up and go do something else. Smart-phones specifically, unlike any other previous screen, are located on the body and taken everywhere. Without a conscious disconnnection practice, there is no getting up

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All those tech-driven foods are still around, but they don’t tempt consumers the way they once did. Instead, the fastest growing categories in the food business are built on an entirely different vocabulary: gourmet, artisan, healthy, organic, nutritious, sustainable, local, homemade.

In Paul Graham’s famous essay Cities and Ambition, there’s this idea that some cities are centers for some type of ambition, and when you come to one of those cities, you can feel the message the city is sending to you. For example, the message that you can feel in New York is “You should be richer,” while Berkeley’s is “You should live better,”... See more

“We want to think of the internet as a physical place. It is not about making the virtual physical, but rather to argue that the virtual also exists physically.”

- Woon Tien Wei

However, Moments has a weakness. It’s caused users to want to leave Moments. Because it is like a town square, when you like or comment on something it’s akin to shouting in the town square. Everyone can hear you. This creates more stress for users. Moreover, as your friend list increases, the stress becomes greater.