Finding my rhythm - ISSUE N.01
A week of writing. Catching up on sleep [deprivation] and listening to a lot of conversations on Clubhouse. And my friend Rasmus launched his new app Podz.
First of all, welcome. Thank you for allowing me to show up in your inbox. I’m really grateful but honestly I’m a bit scared to be addressing you all on a weekly basis.
On that note, I’ve decided to send these emails on Saturday mornings CEST. That way you have something to read while drinking your morning coffee or beverage of choice. If you don’t like that, drop me a note and tell me what day you prefer to receive it instead.
As mentioned, writing this newsletter is outside of my comfort zone. For instance, as a draft for this issue, I started to write about our pregnancy. This however turned into a smaller novel [3000 words and counting]. I don’t want to scare you off before we even get to know each other. I promise to tell you that story, but not today.
Am I sleep deprived?
In short, yes, but it’s getting better. We are entering a phase of teething. So our little girl boss is having a rough time. We are just trying to give her the support she needs. Thus it means keeping us awake from time to time.
Overall, she is progressing well with her sleep. She sleeps is in her crib in her own room. Mostly wakes up and wants food or a bit of comfort.
I’ll continue to update more on her mad skills as she continues to progress from a baby to a toddler. Ohh tomorrow she turns 9mo.
She says hi, and that you can follow her on Instagram - kids these days.
Clubhouse, so what is it?
Sometime mid last year a new social network, voice only, started to surface. Fast forward to Jan 2021 and they started to really roll out invites high and low and scale up.
In a nutshell Clubhouse mashes together conference/group calls, talks, and podcasts and turns it into something new. A breath of fresh air. But it is still in its infancy, with some growing up to do before it hits the Mainstreet.
One could even argue that it’s like Discord but for us old folks that use LinkedIn.
Initially I thought it was a complete pile of horse shit. Really just a bunch of people trying to sell you stuff in different conference calls. But then I started to really listen and try to understand how the dynamics of Clubhouse works. How following and your hallways work. How clubs and shows work.
I think that helped me understand more. To remove a bunch of people and clubs I started to follow when I first joined. Instead now I choose carefully the people and clubs I want to follow. Keyword here. Curation.
It’s still early days and Clubhouse is not going anywhere. I’ll take a future email to dive deeper into it and by then I’ve hopefully learnt a bit more about Clubhouse too.
You’ll find my on Clubhouse @LinusEkenstam
PS. I have a few invites, if you want access, send me your name and mobile number (iOS only for now).
Meta Humans. Avatars. Wow.
I wrote a longer article about this on Medium, in short. MetaHumans Creator is a tool from Epic Games that is cloud-rendered and will allow you to create your own digital twin [Avatar]. It looks rather insane [see video below]. In essence you’ll be able to make a MetaHuman, and use it for whatever your creativity desires. Keep an eye out in this space. We already have digital influencers like Lil Miquela - with tools like this, we will soon have loads more.
Going viral on Twitter.
I decided to see if I could go viral on Twitter. I tried to find a recipe…
One cup of Nostalgia.
A table spoon of brands people care about.
And finally a pinch of novelty.
To get the Twitter algorithm worked up, I posted a bunch of tweets with lesser know brands.
This got some traction, and resonated with people. There are some really fantastic products out there from the 1990’s that I had almost completely forgotten about.
Then when Twitter was all worked up, I went for my pièce de résistance.
Nostalgia [Old tech product that looks dope]
Know Brand [In this case Apple]
Novelty [This was a prototype of an iPad from 1983 not so known]
The results, +2.000 likes and +220 re-tweets. Most likely my best performing tweet since I joined Twitter in April 2007. I never ever tried to cook up a viral tweet before. I guess I’ll continue to try coming up with combos now.
More sound products, Podz.
My friend Rasmus is from the same Swedish costal town as me. Has a very impressive track record of working at cool companies, from London to San Francisco. Also a dad, with 3 kiddos, kudos to him. Im a dad noob in comparison. Previously he was at AirBnb and now he is a Co-founder of Podz.
You can read about Podz here, here and here.
I’ve used it all week. I’m really amazed by the simplicity. It does a great work of giving me new and exciting podcasts to listen to. The UI/UX is fun and quirky. You need to give it a whirl.
Awesome work.
This weeks Tidbits
In this section, I want to give you a bit more access to some random stuff I’ve came across this week.
My Weekly Spotify playlist - brought to you by the Spotify AI
The Toys That Made Us - Fun Documentary series on Netflix can highly recommend Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
True Surf - My friend Jesper [Pro Surfer] recommended this iOS game, and I’m hooked. I’m not a great surfer, but in this game I can surf 20 feet waves without dying.
Keep an eye out for my friends’ app Any Distance Club - It makes beautiful social media share cards of your walks, runs, and bike rides. Will cover more about that once they have launched.
A freakishly fast AI-mood-board-image-search-engine from an ex OpenAI employee Jacob. I urge you to check this out. Same.Energy
This got a bit lengthy, I’ll try to improve on the format. All feedback and ideas on how I can make this better is most welcome. Thank you for reading.
Written by Linus Ekenstam, trouble maker at sensive.xyz – You can find me on Twitter & Instagram