#77: Next big things

💎 Word gems

The Boneyard Principle: Why the Next Big Thing will Emerge from a Failed Idea (Every / David King and Mishti Sharma)

This is from April, but it’s fun to read back in the context of Twitter and its apparent successor, Mastodon. The article leans heavily on UX improvements as the answer, but I see them as a signal for what’s actually happening: people are sharpening what a product’s core idea actually is. That’s why Mastodon won’t reach Twitter levels of success. It’s too similar.

TikTok's consumption UX wasn’t the only simplification that helped it succeed. Just as importantly, the app helped new creators—even those without followers!—get attention for their videos, lessening their fear of rejection. When a creator posted a video, TikTok showed it to a sample audience and then expanded to bigger targeted audiences if it did well—a form of a recursive publishing feedback loop. Creators with no followers could still reap rewards for videos that were funny and understandable by anyone. This was uniquely powerful for the medium of short-form video, which suits jokes, dances, and aesthetics with wide appeal.

Pricing niche products: Why sell a mechanical keyboard kit for $1,668? (Kevin Lynagh)

This was a great and very specific example of a pricing strategy. The piece argues for the Vickrey auction (Bidders make sealed bids for 10 items, the highest 10 “win” and pay the price of the 11th person).

If you run a sale at $X, the most you can learn is that Y people were willing to buy there. Actually, not even that: If your entire inventory sells out, you learn only that at least that many people were willing to buy — you don’t learn how many would’ve bought your kit, had it been in stock.

💩 Cool shit

CSS Puzzle Box - This is a really cool ‘unlock the box’ puzzle made entirely in CSS.

Nutshell - A guide to make “expandable embedded explanations”. Imagine a small aside that you can expand and collapse in your browser page.

One Question A Day - Get a daily thought-provoking question.

Media History Digital Library - An archive of books and magazines from film, broadcasting and recorded audio.

Magical Pantry Book - I love when physical objects get recreated with a tangible feeling on the web. This one blurs a physical book with web elements.

Bubbles - A simple, yet fun, bubble popping experiment made with JS.

Physics interactives - A collection of educational and interactive, physics-based experiments.

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