Introducing Surfaces
A continuation of work I’ve been doing for a long time.
Good morning.
Today I’m here to introduce Surfaces.
If you’ve followed my writing at all, you know that I’m interested in a lot of things, and over time this Substack started to reflect that.
So, instead of spamming you with playlist posts or posts about picking one movie from every year I’ve been alive or posts about my appendix bursting or my grandfather passing away or Allmusic.com, I’m creating a new Substack where you can read my writing and thinking about what’s happening in the information space.
For most of my career, I’ve worked in and around the media industry—leading content and audience development teams, paying close attention to how brands engage with people, and trying to understand why certain things work with audiences and others don’t.
A few years ago, when I was working at Artsy, our product and design teams often referred to different areas of the site and app as “surfaces.” Over time, I found myself using that word more and more, because it’s actually what anyone working in media and audience development ends up talking about every day.
YouTube is a surface.
Instagram is a surface.
Google is a surface.
TikTok is a surface.
Your inbox is a surface.
Spotify is a surface.
Netflix and other streaming services are surfaces.
Emerging AI products are surfaces.
Good old websites are surfaces.
Print media is a surface.
Information travels across, is shaped by, and means something different to people across each of those surfaces. And, more and more, those surfaces are increasingly merging with and relying on each other to create more surface area for their incentives and ambitions.
I’ve spent most of my professional life working inside media organizations, thinking about how information moves through systems, how platforms reward certain behaviors, and how audiences actually encounter what we make. Over time (and for better or for worse) I’ve become less interested in individual pieces of content or journalism and entertainment and more interested in the environments and strategies that shape them.
I’m interested in how all of the surfaces we get information from work, how they’re changing, and what those changes mean over time—not only for regular people (or “consumers”), but for people working in the media industry and for people creating… (sigh) content.
As I’ve said before, nobody knows anything. But I’ve seen a lot and done a lot in my career so far, so I’m hoping that I can serve as a source of honest and sober opinions about what’s happening across these surfaces each week.
So, if you ONLY want to read my thoughts about media and how the ways we get information across surfaces have changed and will continue to change you can follow along by subscribing to Surfaces. To start, I’m aiming to post something new at least two times a week at Surfaces.
And if you want to keep reading my random thoughts about the pop culture that I love or how my life is changing or even the random piece(s) of fiction I choose to share, you can continue to follow what I post here.
I hope that makes sense. But most of all, I hope this makes it easier for you to get exactly what you want from me in your inbox.