mssv

  • How to Read The New Yorker, my new TV, and the Playdate

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    6–8 minutes

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    Issue 3 of my newsletter – subscribe here The New Yorker is the most consistently well-written longform magazine I’ve read, and it’s been the source of so many of my ideas over the years. It’s also the one of the most unread magazines out there, gracing coffee tables across the world in artistic tsundokus. For the…

  • The Mapping Problem

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    6–8 minutes

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    2 comments on The Mapping Problem

    Issue 2 of my newsletter – subscribe here There’s the book I’d like to write. And there’s the book I ought to write. Last year, someone from Samsung’s strategy team asked to talk to me about whether “gamification” could be a possible use (if not a killer app) for a hypothetical augmented reality heads-up display. I…

  • Are Subscriptions Fair?

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    4–6 minutes

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    Subscription pricing, once the domain of newspapers, magazines, and cable bundles, is lately becoming much more common in everything from online video and movie tickets to razors and meal kits. One newish area that has been causing a lot of anguish has been subscription pricing for apps, as summarised on Metafilter. I was inspired to…

  • Five Years of Zombies, Run!

    Five Years of Zombies, Run!

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    1–2 minutes

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    Five years ago today, we launched Zombies, Run! on the iTunes App Store, only six months after our Kickstarter. When Naomi Alderman and I came up with the idea behind Zombies, Run! back in the summer of 2011, neither of us had any notion that it’d be this popular and last this long. I thought…

  • How we made an App Store subscription success

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    1–2 minutes

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    Apple just announced they’re giving developers a 85/15 revenue split (instead of 70/30) for subscriptions lasting over a year — and Google will be offering even better terms. As the co-creator of Zombies, Run!, a fitness app that transitioned to a subscription model just over one year ago, I couldn’t be more delighted. 🍾 + 🎉 all…

  • Two Million Runners Five

    Two Million Runners Five

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    2–3 minutes

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    Zombies, Run! just passed the two million sales-and-downloads mark. It’s the fifth-most popular running app in the US, and the most successful smartphone fitness game of all time — a phenomenon on par with Soulcycle, Crossfit, or Tough Mudder. Four years ago, we began as an fun, amusing app idea on Kickstarter. Today, we’ve become a massive…