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4 min read

Futureland Winter 2022

It's been a bit since I have written to you, and there's been many breakthroughs since then. I share new functionality and changes at the bottom of this email, but first I'll explore where we stand with Futureland.

The underlying insight that motivates everything we do, is that, learning a new skill or realizing a creative project has more to do with our daily behaviours than we think it does, and most or all creative tools don't factor this into their design.

One of the most frustrating parts about this project has been the conversations where people don't "get it". It used to drive me nuts when people didn't understand the core premise of Futureland, dismissing it as some kind of little experimental project. I would tell people that they could use Futureland to learn how to code, and they'd be following along, and then I would tell them that, "one day, you'll be using Futureland for tracking your water intake, for taking vitamins and for doing things like learning how to code, all in the same place", and that's where I'd lose them. "What does drinking water have to do with learning how to code?".

To me, as someone creating the tool, using the tool, and testing it on myself, it's an obvious path forward. If learning how to code is a function of writing code almost every day, which it is, and if we have created a tool that you are already using every day to practice writing code, then why can't that tool also be used for other things you want to do every day, like drinking water? And then, if you're using Futureland for all of things you do on a daily basis, why can't it also support the things you want to do occasionally, only showing you those things on the days they matter. Isn't all of this an obvious extrapolation of creating a tool that's focused on your daily behaviours? It is not.

These days, it's much easier to communicate what Futureland is, because today, it exists in the way I described. Our community uses Futureland for all parts of their day, like drinking water, their skincare routines, taking vitamins, meditation, learning new skills, working on design projects, exercising and on. They use Futureland for all of this because it is the only tool that considers their creative work and lives in context of their daily behaviours. A tool like this does not exist anywhere else. Today, an active user publishes to Futureland 20-30 times a day, and for them,  Futureland is an irreplaceable tool that they love.

What I have learned through working on this project, and it's a pattern I see among my peers, is when you are creating something new, people not understanding it is natural, unavoidable, and something you need to factor in to your design process. Being able to form visions and uncover insights is integral, but what seems to matter much more is having enough faith, patience, and a level head to stick with the process over the long term as it yields new artifacts that are easier for people to interact with and understand.

Futureland seems to be the only software that considers learning, habits, and creativity entirely in context of your daily life. With $40k, and 3 years of continual effort, we've been able to turn our hypotheses into a tool that our users love. It seems the next chapter for Futureland is to further refine our tool set, and learn how to expand our community in a way that feels natural to us.

New Features:

  • New homepage, there's a lot to build on and refine, but it represents a step towards a clearer articulation of Futureland. Thanks for helping out @udara.
  • New text editor across all of Futureland, it uses a block based approach and supports embedding, audio, photos and videos, within entries.
  • New journal search, easily search through all of the entries in a journal.
  • New journal filtering, sort entries by oldest, newest, by bookmarks or by author.
  • New enhanced timeline for every journal, that is fun and easier to use.
  • New global bookmarks, you can now bookmark any entry on Futureland, instead of just your own. All bookmarks are viewable on your stats page.
  • New Help button, which lets you easily make requests, report bugs, explore examples, view markdown and shortcuts refrences, and easily download our iOS and MacOS app.
  • New notification center to see all new comments in any discussion you are part of.
  • New "catch up" button on all journals, so you can easily discover entries with new comments.
  • New "streak history" for each journal, which shows you all streaks on a journal, which is useful for not becoming attached to any particular one.
  • New "follow entries", if you follow an entry, you'll receive a notification of each comment.
  • New enhanced quiet mode, turn off all notifications, and community functionality, focus only on your own work.
  • and more.

Changes:

  • Added an all filter to Futureland profiles. The profiles in general will be significantly enhanced soon.
  • Added a little highlight on the community feed for new users that reads, "First entry, Say Hi".
  • Journals that are published to with single emojis, like habit journals, now receive unique visual treatment.
  • Updates to Futureland's audio player for performance.
  • The journal timeline is now viewable on mobile screens.
  • Updated default avatar colours.
  • New icons for "Today" and "Not Today" sections of the interface.
  • Updated new comment indicators on entries.
  • Removed the tool bar at the bottom of the interface, replaced with a help button.
  • When creating a public journal on a schedule, the schedule information is now displayed in the community feed.
  • Improved the interface for bookmarking entries to match rest of UI.
  • A journal's streak and streak history is now displayed as parts of its meta information.
  • Better privacy labels on entries.
  • Optimized Futureland's chat interface to be better suited for movile screens.
  • New journal dialogs have been updated to be easier to use.
  • Adjusted comments on entries to load instantly.
  • And many, many more fixes and tweaks.

Upcoming:

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If you want to connect, or if you have any feedback, please let us know by replying to this email. Your input is extremely useful on projects like this.

If you're curious about how you might use Futureland, you can watch this video on using it to design your morning routine. 🌞

Ty for everything <3

Vin