Ben Werdmuller
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Ben Werdmuller

Ben Werdmuller

Unoffice Hours

I’m enamored with Matt Webb’s unoffice hours: a way to chat with him about anything, without needing to email him first, for 30 minutes. As Matt says: I loved those open conversations over coffee in the Before Times. There’s an ostensible reason to connect, so you talk

24 May 2024
Dispatches from the media apocalypse

Dispatches from the media apocalypse

In saving news, culture is key.

23 May 2024

NotableLinks

ProPublica’s new “50 states” commitment builds on a decade-plus of local news partnerships

"It’s a good time to be ProPublica. And it’s a good thing that we have ProPublica." Hey, that's where I work! The article continues: "Spreading its journalistic wealth has long been core to its mission. The latest iteration of that is the 50

21 May 2024

NotableLinks

Decentralized Systems Will Be Necessary To Stop Google From Putting The Web Into Managed Decline

"The various decentralized social media systems that have been growing over the past few years offer a very different potential approach: one in which you get to build the experience you want, rather than the one a giant company wants." There's a chicken and egg problem

21 May 2024

NotableLinks

As clicks dry up for news sites, could Apple News be a lifeline?

"The free version of Apple News is one of the biggest news platforms in the world. It’s the most widely used news application in the United States, the U.K., Canada, and Australia, and boasted over 125 million monthly users in 2020." And publications are becoming dependent

20 May 2024

NotableLinks

The IndieWeb’s next stage?

"I want the IndieWeb to be a viable alternative to social media, gradually widening the audience beyond tech-savvy folks by making the tools easier to use and more reliable." This is what we were trying for with Known: something that felt social but was fully under the user&

20 May 2024

ShareOpenly is now on Tedium

I adore the way ShareOpenly has been added to Tedium: You can see it for yourself on all its posts, including this great one about the decline of the ball mouse. Its founder, Ernie Smith, told me: “figured I had to have fun with it”.

19 May 2024

NotableLinks

Share Openly: A simple icon for a new social sharing service

A lovely blog post by Jon Hicks on his process for creating the ShareOpenly icon. Characteristically, lots of care and attention went into this. I'm really glad you get to see the open hand icons, which we eventually decided against, but feel really warm and human. Jon'

17 May 2024

A new Ani DiFranco album is something to celebrate

I’ve been following Ani DiFranco for decades. I’ve seen her play live around twenty times: she always brings a kind of joyful, progressive energy that leaves me motivated and buzzing. She has a new album out, and it feels like a return to visceral, honest form. It’s

17 May 2024

NotableLinks

Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away

"Taken together, our findings imply that return to office mandates can imply significant human capital costs in terms of output, productivity, innovation, and competitiveness for the companies that implement them." There's no doubt that there's a lot of value in being in the same

17 May 2024

NotableLinks

Google’s broken link to the web

"A quarter-century into its existence, a company that once proudly served as an entry point to a web that it nourished with traffic and advertising revenue has begun to abstract that all away into an input for its large language models." This has the potential to be a

16 May 2024

NotableLinks

Mozilla Foundation Welcomes Nabiha Syed as Executive Director

This is great news for Mozilla, for everyone who uses the internet, and for everyone who cares about ethics, privacy, and human rights. We need a well-functioning Mozilla more than ever - and that much-needed presence has been absent for years. The spirit in the following quote gives me a

16 May 2024
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Ben Werdmuller

Ben Werdmuller

Writing at the intersection of technology, journalism, and community.

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Ben Werdmuller explores the intersection of technology, democracy, and society. Always independently published, reader-supported, and free to read.