Q+A: Are.na Co-Founder Charles Broskoski

How a new organizational tool and social network may aid research.

Interview by Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs.

One of the most difficult parts of getting a writing project off the ground is organizing your thoughts. There’s an infinity of information to absorb on the internet, so putting it together into a whole is tough. That’s the purpose of the organizational tool / social network Are.na, according to co-founder and CEO Charles Broskoski. 

Are.na allows users to compile images and information into collections called “channels” that make tying it all together simpler — think minimalist-hipster Pinterest. It’s good for collating websites, images, PDFs, and original writing, regardless of format. Broskoski answered a few questions for us about the service, including what makes it different from other social networks. (One channel he shares with a handful of collaborators, aptly titled “How do you use the internet mindfully?”, is sampled below). Instead of advertising, its model is subscriptions: You get a few free, but then pay to keep a large number of your channels private instead of public.

SH: Are.na seems to have been created with artists in mind. How specifically do you think it could benefit journalists and how would you recommend a journalist use it?

CB: Are.na is most popular among artists and designers, but it’s great for anyone who’s synthesizing information from lots of sources in a creative way. If you’re a journalist, try emptying your open tabs into an Are.na channel. Make a channel for your next story and add all the different sources you’re trying to keep straight.

If you have a bunch of related PDFs, or images, or Google Docs, you can upload those or add links. Now you have a lightweight, visual archive of everything you’ve learned so far. Over time, you can make channels for different ideas. You can save articles or whole channels made by other Are.na members inside your own.

SH: I’m interested in the idea of this being a “no distractions” alternative to social media. The internet, something I literally need to do my job, is also easily the number one contributor to my procrastinating, and it’s tough to find a way around that. How does Are.na help address distraction?

CB: Lots of people are familiar with the phenomenon of going down a rabbit hole on Wikipedia. It’s something we tend to trivialize as a waste of time, but in some ways it’s one of the most honest and healthy activities you can do on the Internet. It’s the perfect example of self-directed curiosity and learning. Our approach with Are.na takes that same impulse quite a bit further. We think that by saving the little pieces of things you find interesting (images, quotes, whole articles, etc), you can you look back, place that interest in a wider context, and come to some new insights.

SH: Even as it cuts down on distracting elements, there’s still a social element to Are.na. How does Are.na build community without providing the real-time distractions of Slack or Twitter etc.?

CB: We don’t believe you need to be antisocial or anything to have a healthier experience of the web. Are.na aims to be a tool with a community, so you get that same quality of emergent expression, it’s just focused more on the structure of other people’s thoughts. Ideally it’s a pull, not a push: you’re following people and exploring their channels because it helps you expand your own thinking (as opposed to getting caught in a loop of algorithmic content). We’ve had people tell us that looking at an Are.na profile feels like looking into someone else’s brain.

SH: Are.na is also notable in that it doesn’t do ads. Can you talk a little about why it was important to remove advertising from the equation?

CB: The way we see it, Are.na is a forum for externalizing your thoughts and making new associations between ideas. If you inject ads into that space, it’s not like you’re making a small compromise on the experience. It goes against the whole purpose of the space.

Ads force you to grow your audience like crazy, boost “engagement” through all kinds of mind tricks, and then commodify people’s attention or personal data to make money. It’s a dehumanizing cycle that runs totally counter to what we’re trying to do, which is bring some joy and dignity back to browsing the web with other people.

Are.na doesn’t have follower counts, or likes, or “recommended content,” because we think they get in the way of healthy reflection and collaboration.

SH: Your website notes that Are.na provides structure, but not too much structure — how do you strike that balance? Why is it important to leave some room for diversion?

CB: There are a lot of productivity apps out there that can help you organize files or assign tasks. What we’re trying to do is a little more open-ended. We’re a space for building knowledge over time, which sometimes means straying from one train of thought to follow something that catches your interest. Other times it means returning to notes you tucked away months ago. Every day there are thousands of people on Are.na making and connecting these “associative trails.”

It’s similar to studying among your friends in the library: everyone is working on their own thing, but every so often you can look over and see what the person next to you is doing.

SH: I’m sure you’ve gotten the Pinterest comparisons, because on the surface they seem very similar. How is Are.na most notably different from Pinterest?

CB: We think the differences are in each platform’s guiding motive. Pinterest’s business model is geared toward consumption and advertising, so its recommendation algorithms and product decisions revolve around getting a person towards that goal. Our guiding motive is to help people think more creatively and be more curious, and that motivation is reflected throughout the experience.

Besides the lack of “likes”, follower counts, and recommended content, we allow people to export the contents of channels, we make it easy to trace the original source of a piece of text or an image, and we always try to foreground a person’s content over our own branding and identity.

CHANNELS:

• Here’s a channel filled with vivid colors
• And one with inspiring interiors and displays
• One I particularly love, filled with windows
• And one with a combination I didn’t know I needed: plants and grids

---