An ode to Lebanon’s resilience & to its people’s rebellion.
My home country is mostly perceived by Westerners as a land of war and desolation. That‘s not totally out of place: for 15 years, Lebanon was plunged in one of the most disastrous civil war in recent history.
100 000 people lost their lives, close to a million — or two-thirds of the population at the time — experienced displacement, and the country’s infrastructures were shattered.
My parents’ generation began their adult life ducking under snipers’ sight, hiding in shelters, avoiding deadly checkpoints and rationing food. …
… and extensions won’t ease the pain.
The browser has evolved to become the central way we do pretty much anything: shopping, scheduling, invoicing, monitoring, calling, texting, reading, watching, listening, writing, sharing: you name it. Along the way, as billions of people were shifting to the browser as their main work tool, it started to show some weaknesses.
At Station, our sole & only focus is to ease our users’ workday. As part of that, we’re trying to identify the small defects in the browser that could help us refine our product.
We quickly realized that one of the best ways to identify potential improvements in modern…
Our sensitivity to ads is a major public issue.
We’re surrounded by advertising. Every single day, no matter where we are, thousands of auditive & visual stimuli are force-fed to our brains.
- On the internet
Banners, pop-ups, sponsored articles, video pre-rolls, audio interruptions, spam emails, website background takeovers, push-notifications, entry overlays, chat-bubbles, product placements, … - In real life
Subway billboards, bus panels, stadium names, street flyers, sprayed sidewalk ads, human signs, branded goodies and storefronts, toilet ads, car stickers, blinking signs, audio announcements…
The list goes on and on as the space dedicated to advertising seems to have continuously increased whilst means of avoidance were getting weaker.
Surprised by…
The top 0.1% owns as many assets as the bottom 90%. And it’s getting worse.
One of America’s founding myth is that of the “self-made man”: the idea that, with enough work & dedication, anybody can climb the social ladder and become wealthy. Or at least better off than his or her parents.
Well, that’s complete bullshit.
Data shows that the most important drivers of one’s living standard are determined at birth: most of the people who are poor are so because they made the mistake of being born to the wrong parents.
“No matter what your educational background is, where you start has become increasingly important for where you end”
- Michael D. Carr…
When you look at the performance indicators of the most used apps & websites you’ll systematically see:
- Daily Active Users
How many users interact with your platform every day? - Average Time on Site
How long do users stay on your platform? - Stickiness or retention ratio
How many users return after their first experience? - Viral coefficient
How many new customers are brought by existing ones?
These are the metrics internet companies follow very closely to measure the success of their products. And there’s only one thing they have in common: they’re just a proxy for attention-stealing.
Selling attention spans
… one nudge at a…
… and why you should really have a look at it.
Since 2010, Facebook allows you to download an archive file of all your interactions with the network. It’s a 5-click easy process that your grandmother can do (more details below).
Inside the .zip, lies an ‘index.html’ page that acts as a portal to your personal data. Visually, it looks like an ad-free stripped down version of Facebook that’s actually quite relaxing.
As I’m trying to reduce my exposure to social networks, I decided to take a look at this info. By extrapolating the data of a single individual (me), I might be able to better apprehend the capabilities of the…
…because traction is everything.
This article is not about preparing your Product Hunt launch. Product Hunt themselves wrote extensively about that, as well as Gabor Papp from Hacker Noon & other great guys (cheers Hicham Amine).
Instead, I’ll focus on what you should expect from your launch & how to maximise the benefits for your company.
“ All you need is users”
- The Beatles, 1967
🌧 It’s raining users!
We were really surprised by the success of our Product Hunt campaign.
