What do you do to stand out? Assuming you want to, of course.
I think being unique and standing out is a key [or even a prerequisite] to attracting attention (and not just romantically! Yes, happy valentine’s day!)
Two of the most reliable approaches to attracting attention, mainly to build a community, I think, are to be either consistent or extreme — or probably a bit of both.
Being consistent means accumulating attention little by little over time — and compounding it — kind of like what I do with this newsletter — no extreme advertising, but nurturing it to grow organically. And like any other compounding interest, this can be a fantastic way to grow over time. #PatienceIsTheKey
The other way of capturing attention is to be extreme — the loudest, the funniest, the most dangerous, the fastest… It often results in receiving a different kind of attention, but it’s a method nevertheless. The issue [for me] with attracting attention this way is that it might be easier to capture attention with extreme actions, but that type of attention is much harder to maintain. I mean you’re probably setting the bar too high this way. #CreativityIsTheKey
So if you’re looking to achieve a long term goal, for me slow and steady wins [probably with a few bangs along the way], but if you need short term [top of the funnel awareness sort of attention] extremes work pretty well. Just remember to have a plan for maintaining that initial attention if it’s not just a short term thing.
Think about this and let’s talk about your way of standing out and capturing attention in the comments — especially if you’re trying to build a community.
Now, let’s dive into everything else; and here’s something you can listen to in the background while reading today’s issue!
please make sure you scroll to the very bottom of the email. got a couple of things i think you can help me with. thank you!
News
Google updates major iOS apps after months-long wait post-Apple’s privacy nutrition labels [link]
Clubhouse — privacy and security threats for mainland China 🇨🇳 users [link], and apparently, they’re already on it [link]
Elon Musk trolling Putin 🇷🇺
Nvidia’s Arm acquisition, Facebook’s smartwatch, and Elon Musk’s carbon tax pitch [link]
love too directly give advertisers access to my heart rateNEW: Facebook is building a smartwatch that it hopes to ship next year. The device is focused on messaging and health/fitness related features. It will open up yet another avenue of competition with Apple. Story with @waynema: https://t.co/ihs4ilOvedAlex Heath @alexeheathClubhouse getting aggressive, Microsoft backing Australian’s approach, and Apple’s push for more privacy [link]
Facebook’s less political feed, Clubhouse’s rapid growth, and Facebook’s Clubhouse clone — obviously! [link]
The first look Android 12, Instagram’s TikTok problem, and police playing music — but not for fun [link]
Bitcoin’s surge, Twitter’s subscription, and Clubhouse’s run in China [link]
Elon’s taking Dogecoin to the moon, Reddit’s Super Bowl ad, and Internet shut down in Myanmar amid protests [link]
☠️ a gift for you.
Worth Your Attention
Just like how “trying to keep everyone happy is a recipe for sadness,” “trying to be everything” is a recipe for failure — and not the silicon valley type of failure encouraging builders to move fast and break things; more like the slow death of a dream sort of failure.
In another fantastic blog post, Seth Godin explains different flavours of indies. It’s an excellent short piece explaining how being an entrepreneur is different from being a bootstrapper or a small business owner or a freelancer or an impresario — and why you can’t [and should not try to] be all at once.
and i should read this at least twice a day!
Chart of the Week
Disney+ Passes 90M Subscribers 3 Years Ahead of Schedule
In less than 14 months, Disney+ has reached what it was set out to achieve in [almost] five years, which was having 90 million paid subscribers.
To put that in perspective, it took Netflix six to nine years (depending on when you start counting) to reach as many subscribers for its streaming service, which is currently the number 1 in the world with 204 million subscribers.
Read more on Statista.
can’t ignore the effects of the pandemic and the lockdowns around the world (look at the jump in March 2020), but that doesn’t mean it “just happened automatically.”
& more stats
Pinterest gained more than 120 million active users in 2020. [link]
Consumer spending in top 100 subscription apps climbed 34% to $13 billion in 2020. [link]
Crypto is most common in 🇳🇬🇻🇳🇵🇭. [link]
Top 200 most common passwords of the year 2020. [link]
Asana’s “Anatomy of Work 2021”: 71% of workers experienced burnout in 2020. The number of employees working late rose to 87%. [link]
Facebook took down 6.3 million pieces of content tagged as “bullying and harassment” in Q4 2020, up from 3.5 million in Q3. [link]
Tools & Apps
Koji: Develop and deploy web apps at a ludicrous speed
this is awesome!
Audiblogs: Listen to any web article in your podcast player [Brave/Chrome Extension]
go try this. right now. get it to read you today’s newsletter. it’s one of the best discoveries of my week.
Jam: Your own open-source Clubhouse for mini-conferences and friends.
drop by; let’s jam!
Founder Content: World’s biggest (!?) curated list of resources for founders
whether it’s world’s biggest list, i don’t know; but it is pretty useful to go through…
Spotted
LinkedIn is working on adding the button to create virtual meetings in the mobile app [link]
Instagram is working on "Affiliate" [link]
Instagram is working on the COVID19 Information Center [link]
Slack is working on an option to flag messages [link]
Slack is working on the possibility of adding pronouns in the profile [link]
Twitter is working to bring the shortcut to delete, block and report a user on the web version as well [link]
TikTok is working on the Topics tab [link]
Facebook is working on an Explore section for Dating [link]
Meanwhile on Twitter
and then this 👇
🧵 two very different types of thread 👆👇
Ideas from around the WWW
a quick reality check! 👇
and this 👇🤦♂️🤣
that’s all for today
What did you think of this issue?
Also, if you’d let me know what’s your favourite section of the newsletter and what you’d like me to write about in the first section, that’d be great. You can either reply to this email or just comment.