The Slow Web | Hacker News Reader

The Slow Web

blog.jackcheng.com

205 pointsrguzman40 comments

There is an easy way to win over "the fast web" without shutting everything down. It's easy and boils down to understanding how reinforcements work. The most addictive and enjoyable reinforcements are random reinforcements, both for humans and animals (see B. F. Skinner's work for reference). If you don't want to get addicted then make your rewards less random by for example checking your email, HN etc. two/three times a day in predictable patterns.

Personally, I use SelfControl. When I want to do serious work I fire it up and block everything for 1-3 hours. This works wonders for my productivity and it also regulates addictiveness. I don't know if this makes me part of the "slow web" movement, I just don't like distractions.

I think this is a beautifully expressed thought:

"… as soon as I saw 'the slow web movement,' I assigned my own meaning to it. Because it’s a great name, and great names are like knots—they’re woven from the same stringy material as other words, but in their particular arrangement, they catch, become junctions to which new threads arrive, from which other threads depart."

This really is a great phrase. Obviously the same phenomenon occurred with the term Web 2.0.

I'm having a hard time without sarcasm tags. The Web 2.0 was so vague a phrase that it had too many meanings and the end was meaningless. I doubt any new threads were woven due to the invention of that phrase.

I built Strangers for Dinner[1] and edgeyo[2] around the slow web idea.

The idea is that people should have lives. If you are running a startup, you want to be out there writing your app, you want to be out there courting your customers. You don't want to be writing reports to investors or spending your time writing a pitch deck, presenting and in all probability, fumbling and failing. You shouldn't be frantically worrying about notification on twitter and facebook and angel.co.

The main philosophy is that you shouldn't have to do that. You should be doing what you're best at doing, and everything else should just be background noise that can be easily ignored.

I think this is the reason why people have so much trouble with email. When everything goes to your inbox, nothing gets done. The idea is to limit what goes into your inbox, not to invent a new smarter inbox.

Jack sums it up as "Timeliness. Rhythm. Moderation". On the note of Rhythm, my personal experience with rhythm on edgeyo wasn't too good. Rhythm has caused the equivalent of ad blindness for edgeyo emails, so when I created Strangers for Dinner (since we had to pause work on edgeyo for a bit), the idea slowly swapped out to sending sporadic notification emails sent out in fibonacci sequences over time (think a ciccada's lifecycles). Yes, I realize it's a dark pattern and probably shouldn't do it too often.

The fast web has caused us to be feedback junkies. It's a problem both my sites are facing, and I was wondering if anyone knows how to solve it. It's quite difficult explaining to people that you don't have to stick around the website; instead, the service comes to you - at moderated intervals.

p/s: I also own aslowweb.org which I originally intended to lay out a doctrine of the slow web philosophy. Thanks for motivating me to put love into that.

[1] - http://strangersfordinner.com

[2] - http://edgeyo.com

EDIT: I actually own the aslowweb.org, not .com

I would say you have already found your manifesto.

I think there are several principles and ideas behind this 'Slow Web' and the other things you've mentioned.

For example, take information, specifically, knowing things about other people. When I meet someone I can find out so much about them through Facebook, Twitter, etc. that there seems to be several drawbacks; one is lack of mystery and this goes against the modern 'Know everything' idea. Another is there is the reduced [or modified] learning/getting to know other people—the experience of it. There'so much more like inherent impatience in the design and behaviours of apps, people, expectations, etc. now. Someone will quote Thoreau soon, I imagine. ;)

I had a look at Strangers for Dinner, neat idea! During uni holidays I might give it a look. It's nice to see an Australian-based startup too! I'm personally interested in your idea with slowweb.org so to be sure to update us, perhaps even involve Cheng and whomever is interested.

I've already sent Jack and Walter an email wrt A Slow Web. We'll see what will manifest I guess.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a superior piece of literature, a classic blog entry for the museum, and a very important idea as far as the progression of personal information technology.

Having said that, I have to say that it also exemplifies an attitude and culture that is disconnected from reality.

There are still many hard fundamental problems and wheels being reinvented on the web and in technology in general. Many of our popular tools are obviously severely lacking. We should solve those problems rather than wallowing in decadent perfectionism.

Beyond the web and apps, the planet is faced with brutal inequality as well as economic, ecological and philosophical crisis.

While I've accepted and enjoy my daily use of hundreds of times more resources than a significant portion of the population of the planet, and I am happy to stay in my privileged first world bubble, I have not let myself fall into dream-like state and forget what's outside of it.

I don't really get what you're saying. We should continue to check email 50 times a day because there are children starving in Africa?

Let's try that again:

The article advocates for web apps that don't try to get their users addicted to them.

ilaksh is saying that the author of the article is disconnected from reality. I would honestly like to know why he thinks that, as I don't see the connection.

You can't argue against that type of improvement (not trying to addict people), but he is saying more than that.

I was commenting on the way the article was written, and like I said, the subculture, which I find to be something like a gen-y technological adaptation of traditional elitism, as much as the content.

Sure, we might as well continue refining our app consuming experience, but at a certain point you might look outside of your fine app dining establishment and notice how many malnourished kids are standing around.

In other words, once you get to a certain level of refinement and convenience, you should realize that there are more substantive problems.

This reminded me of an idea I had a few years ago: randomly delayed messaging. There should be some utility (Facebook app, whatever) that sends messages that take anywhere from 3 to 7 days.

The idea is that you won't know for sure when the recipient will get the message, so you don't actively expect their response.

Likewise if you get a message, you can reply directly and it will still feel casual, or reply later and nobody will feel ignored.

I have experimented with this, and to my joy, it works. In first attempt at rhythm, I emailed users on a consistent basis. Soon I discovered that they were getting ad-blindness (well, sorta). So now, my new version emails them once every 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, or 21 days, with the probability of a user being emailed weighted over the slower end

> with the probability of a user being emailed weighted over the slower end

This doesn't parse for me. What does it mean?

l = [1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34] <--- this is the list of fibonacci numbers. The probability of a user being on the track of once every l[7] is higher than the probability of the user being on track for once every l[0].

Users change tracks on a monthly basis. So if you're on a once every 21 day email cycle for June, you might be on a once every 8 day email cycle for July, although the probability is high that you will stay on the once every 21 day cycle

Interesting. Thank you.

I thought you were joking, because you're basically describing the postal service, ie. snail mail.

with postal tracking nowadays, even snail mail is making me a feedback junkie. I mean, who hasn't been repeatedly pressing F5 on a mail tracking page?

No you got it, exactly like that.

Wow, I didn't know there was a name for this. On my list of things to make someday is a "Slow Web" social network.

A good friend of mine sends out a brief monthly email, summarizing what he's been up to, the movies he's seen and the music he's listened to. It is something I look forward to receiving.

There's definitely some merit in the idea.

This was often done in the past via "Christmas Letters," or other annual (or semi-annual) letters. A family would write a one- or two-page letter detailing their major life events and experiences since their last letter, and send it to friends and family they haven't seen or talked to much.

Sending them is a good way to keep in touch with people you wouldn't normally, and receiving them is nice because you can feel like you've never fallen out of communication with your family, even if the Christmas Letters are the only kind you get.

It's not quite the same, but a circle of college friends have a long-running email thread which we use for this purpose. Everyone usually sends a "What I did on the weekend" email update on monday morning, then random tidbits/links/experiences over the week.

It's a great, casual way to stay in touch with a lot of friends. A few I keep in touch daily through GChat, but the others I depend on the email chain. I look forward to Monday morning to read what everyone did over the weekend.

Livejournal tends to foster that kind of social network.

I have an account on Dreamwidth, an open source fork of Livejournal, and it's very good being able to savor the more long-form writing I find there.

I believe I have several invite codes, and would be happy to give them out to interested parties (email me, it's in my profile).

I actually wanted to reply to the "Wordpress is a Facebook rival" thread with, "Uh... Livejournal?"

The slow web strikes me as one of the latest links in a very long chain that originates to a time when cities emerged with completely different rhythm and pulse than the agrarian/hunting life before it. It seems that ever since since the transition from nature to city, we've been trying to maintain a balance in our lives by controlling the fast pace and chaos that surrounds us.

Only I'm not sure the slow web is enough. In the same way that it's impossible to radically change the pulse of life while still living in the city, boxed in by your social interactions and work, is it possible to slow down the pace of the web in a meaningful way? Shouldn't we put our efforts on a lower level of the pyramid instead of superficial work at the top of it? Not so much slow web as less web altogether?

The promise of the web (and I suppose, most web services) is/was to make our lives easier, smoother, and better, but it seems like each new app or service I use takes a little more of my time rather than a little less.

I personally feel like the slow web movement is at it's heart about using the web for its purported purpose: streamlining communication pathways instead of creating new ones.

I always think about how technology is supposed to be helping me do the things I want to do when I see people arguing about which many-thousands-of-apps ecosystem is better. Of course a huge ecosystem means that it is likely to have the apps I crave, but I don't find arguments about 1 million vs 2 million particularly compelling.

It's also sort of interesting how the dialogue around internet sites focuses on how frequently a user visits a site and how long they stick around, rather than how much value they get out of each visit. I suppose that's what happens when attention is being sold, but the incentives don't necessarily line up in a friendly way.

I stopped using iDoneThis because I was doing it in a vacuum. It would be great to get other people involved, but no one in my office was interested. There's also the issue of the founder's history, which seems to be marred a bit.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3886171

but the idea is incredibly provocative.

I'm sorry to hear you stopped using iDT. We've heard this same feedback a few times now and we're still trying to figure out how to make it easier for people in your position to get the team interested. Do you have any insight as to why people weren't interested?

I'm one of two co-founders of iDoneThis, the other guy is smalter, not Zach. We tried out doing a promotion with awesomeness reminders for a while. The story of that promotion is the parent to that comment you linked to.

Can you clarify how Zach's name got dragged into this then?

I think the other thought would be that I would like to run my own idonethis server, or have some means of capturing the data in a usable format for myself, the way gmail allows you to get your mail for keeps and delete your account. I felt like I didn't have control, and, with the Zach bit, I felt that whomever did have control, may not be reliable.

Please contact me: my.username@gmail.com and I would be happy to reconsider.

I don't have anything to do with anybody or anything really, but I think he's saying Zach is NOT a cofounder of iDoneThis. He's the founder of AwesomeReminders, who iDoneThis teamed up with for a promotion a few months ago. Otherwise, nothing to do with iDT and should probably not be a factor in using their service.

Do I have that right?

Yes

It would be nice if I could get Google Reader to do this. Push everything as a single update, once a day. That way I could get my RSS fix and have zero temptations of looking at it.

Then again, I could just have more self control. But every little bit helps.

You can use something like this: http://www.feedmyinbox.com/

It's not free if you want to really use their scheduler, but I've found if you add the RSS feeds, they tend to be delivered overnight.

From the article, I understand "Slow Web" to be six paragraphs without getting to the point. Sort of an antithesis to TL;DR. But, now I know about an interesting new noodle shop, and a task list app.

The idea of the slow web is quite simple. When an idea has more time in which to incubate, it becomes higher quality. Most of what we encounter via the "fast web" is information bits that are released as close as possible to real-time and without much time for reflection and meaning. Naturally, the alternative is to take things slower.

This sounds similar to spaced repetition, which is a practice of revisiting memorization of facts with increasing intervals instead of over-drilling with repetition. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition for the theory, and http://memrise.com for the practice.)

I respect the idea of trying to offset our common diet of interactive and distracting social media and news trolling. But in the context of a "To Do" list, I prefer the immediacy of something like Trello -- an endorphine fueled feedback loop encouraging people to get things done seems more practical for me.

personally the idea of a slow web resonates with my view that anything important needs to be given time to simmer. Even in the work I do and decisions I need to make, if time allows I like to literally sleep on it rather than shoot back a reply as soon as I see a message.

Having something in the back of your mind can result in surprisingly efficient solutions, while you carry on implementing the last good thought you had.

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