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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 304 👋Well, there was a slight delay on this new issue of Creativerly, but I found myself head-down working on a new project over the weekend, so I made the decision to postpone finishing up the new newsletter issue. Anyway, it is done now, packed with a new post, some news and updates, insightful articles, and interesting quick bits from the fields of design and tech. Enjoy!
The world of feeds – with feedle/bild No matter how many different social networks will launch from now on, how popular they will become, RSS will always be my favorite way to consume news, post, articles, and especially discover the fun, weird, and insightful internet corners of creative minds. Browsing through my ever-growing collection of RSS feeds within Readwise Reader, feels like goldmine of knowledge. I also embrace the information overload happening within my RSS reader since I managed to filter through the noise for myself by leveraging personal curation, to make sure whenever I read something it is tailored at my interests. I follow a similar approach for my podcast queue. Whenever I stumble across an episode that sounds interesting to me, I immediately add it to my queue. So, when I want to listen to a podcast, I always have a packed backlog of stuff that interests me. Maintaining such an RSS setup feels way more efficient that social media. The reasons for that are pretty simple and straightforward: with RSS, once you subscribe to a feed you get the content you are interested in delivered to you rather than scrolling through loads of potential junk you probably do not care about. In recent years, most social networks have constantly changed their algorithms, for the worse, so chances were high that you were missing out on relevant posts. In contrary to that, RSS is way more reliable, since you can be sure to always get the content you are subscribed to, although there is the chance that the creator of the blog suddenly decides to post something completely different compared to what you actually subscribed for. In that case though, you simply unsubscribe, and move on. Anyway, RSS is a great way to keep up with your favorite website and blogs, while you are avioiding all the noise and clutter from social media at the same time. Sometimes, I do like to explore, research, and discover even more hidden gems from independent creators. However, it is tedious to use traditional search engines for that, since that kind of content I am looking for is usually burdened underneath a huge piece of junk. I already discovered a couple of lovely personal blogs through folks I have been following on social media. Another way to find new blogs to add to your RSS setup is by reading and exploring the ones you are already subscribed to, since it is pretty common that independent creators link to and share the work of other creators. But what if you want to search for independently created content based on a specific category or search term? This is where feedle comes in handy. Read the whole post here:
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Fresh Updates & NewsTwos added a new AI-powered feature to its app, called PALs, with the goal of suggesting action that might be relevant to a task you added to your list within the app. The idea of PALs is to provide AI-driven insights for your tasks. For example, if you noted down a task to have dinner at Cheesecake, PALs will suggest you further insights and actions like making a reservation, providing you with the route to the restaurant, and more. In case you write about a birthday or anniversary, Twos will nudge you to add a reminder to your calendar, text the person, or buy a gift card for them. Parker Klein and Joe Steilberg, the co-founders of Twos, call their AI approach smart suggestions, to leverage AI to take the first step in getting something done. And those smart suggestions work across a large chunk of tasks, thanks to integrations for Amazon, Netflix, Google Maps, YouTube, Uber, and more. All those integrations cover a wide range of use cases. However, as of writing this, it suggest U.S.-centric services for categories like shopping, ticket purchases, and food delivery. It will be interesting to see how the service performs once Twos expand on and add further localization for people who are not living in the U.S. According to Twos, you can be sure that your information shared with PALs is private, secure, and never shared or sold. The AI-powered suggestions are only based on the information you share in a closed loop, and it does not send your data out. Head over to Twos website for more information, or check out the posts written by TechCrunch and The Verge about the new feature. Figma announced that it will update their pricing, seats, and billing experience on March 11, 2025. Among those updates and changes is an increased price for Figma Design, a re-architecture of their billing model, but also more functionality with every eat. The most important thing to mention is that Figma's free Starter Plan will continue to be available. However, a Full seat which includes Figma Design, Dev mode, FigJam, and Figma Slides will cost $16 per month (billed annually) on the Professional Plan, $55 per month (billed annually) on the Organization Plan, and $90 per month (billed annually) on the Enterprise Plan. Previously a Full seat was between $12-75 per month across the different plan. Bluesky has been all over the user recently, on one hand because they closed a $15 millions Series A in October, but more recently because they crossed 25 million users. With the growing user base and the raised capital, Bluesky has been thinking about ways to monetize the platform. In some mockups, Bluesky has been teasing a subscription which will potentially offer premium features like higher quality video uploads or profile customizations like colors and avatar frames. The mockup that got shared on Bluesky;s GitHub also teases the potential pricing of $8 per month or $72 per year.
Mental Wealth❯ Are You Doing Too Much Research? – “Are you spending too much time on research that doesn’t move the needle? In today’s fast-paced environment, knowing when to prioritize research — and when to skip it — is critical. This article presents a practical framework to assess research needs based on clarity, risk, and cost, ensuring your efforts deliver real impact. Discover strategies to engage stakeholders, track outcomes, and streamline your research process. Learn how to focus on what truly matters while saving time and resources.” ❯ How to Make Friends with Fear: The F.E.A.R. Framework – “Growing up, many of us are taught to fight off our fears—to be strong and confident, to cast away our doubts and insecurities. As adults, fear becomes something we feel we have to carry alone, afraid to share it because it might make us seem weak.” ❯ 25 Reasons to Write Online – “Today marks the 250th edition of the Ness Labs newsletter. Thousands of hours, hundreds of thousands of words… When I started this project as a tiny experiment, I didn’t expect to keep going for so long. And I didn’t expect that it would change my life.” ❯ A Love Letter About Change – “Things have been feeling differently for a while. That UX buzz, that peak we hit in the late 2010s, has faded. Historically, designers have always aimed to exert vast influence within their organizations, guiding the creative vision and making critical decisions that shape the product. That reality simply doesn’t feel palpable anymore when you look at the state of UX more broadly. UX is increasingly a byproduct of business objectives, not the driving force.”
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Appendix❯ ICYMI Are you looking for some lovely and handy apps to convert, resize, edit, or optimize images with ease? I gathered three of them in the fifth version of my content series Tiny macOS utility apps I love. ❯ Quick Bits
Till next time! 👋 Support: Do you have a friend who is looking for inspiration, news about design, and useful tools and apps? Forward this newsletter to a friend or simply share this issue and show some support. You can also show some love by simply clicking the button down below and keep this newsletter a sustainable side-project by buying me a coffee. ☕️ 🥰
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