Dear reader,

It’s official: Readup has a vibe. A distinct one. An aura. Like all vibes, it’s always evolving, but also somewhat durable, a function of intention and identity. Vibe is more than just who you are and what you are; it is how you are, and how you want to be.

Readup’s vibe is deep (versus shallow.) It’s passionate AF, indie, alternative and real. We’re big picture people who develop our own opinions, from scratch, and we speak our minds because we don’t know any other way.

A few weeks ago, Readup was vibing hard on trees. It’s weird how that happens. kellyalysia's post lit a spark, which got fanned (no joke) by my mom's book club in New Jersey. (Thanks to yours truly, the book this month is The Overstory by Richard Powers, and I'm not not flying across the country for it.) Anyway, it was a fun few days when it felt like every article on the site was about trees!

This week, the vibe on Readup is undeniably literary. Right now, there’s a poem and a short story by Louise Erdrich - both in the Top 10. Yesterday, a sci-fi short, The Sleep Consultant won AOTD. Things haven’t felt so high art-y around here since we all went buck wild over Ben Weaver’s Considering Leaves.

That concludes the literature review. Now let's cut to the chase...

Product Updates

Vibe can’t exist if people can’t express themselves. So, this week, we finally enabled some basic markdown formatting in the comments! Get expressive, people! Become a markdown master by memorizing the shorthand:

That handy cheat-sheet is always just one click away:

Finally, linking in the comments actually works now, including redirects within Readup. (Don't ask if it was easy!) External web pages load in safari preview or you can nav out of the article and back to another Readup screen within the app.

The Numbers

I'm skipping the graphs this week, because (1) I'm getting tired, and (2) we all know what they're going to say anyway: Readup is still not dead, but we're also still not growing fast enough to stay alive.

The Big Picture

The vitals are lukewarm, but the vibes are red hot. We're moving, slowly, with increased confidence. We shedding and simplifying so that things can… cohere.

The fisherman's song flows deep under the river.

Until next time,

Bill

P.S. I recently got two out-of-the-blue feature requests for reading in Dark Mode - white text on black background. Is that something that more people want? Keep the ideas coming.