While checking back and seeing what Derek Sivers is up to, I noticed him referencing Bear. Assuming he was talking about the Bear app, I quickly discovered he was referring to the Bear blogging platform instead which is a creation of Herman Martinus.
Shun the bloat of the current web, embrace the bear necessities.
Bear Blog
While highly impressed with the platform as an extremely minimalistic way to blog, what I really loved was Bear’s Discover page which lists the trending and most recent blogs on the platform, as well as a way to search for blogs by keywords.
While browsing through some of these blogs, it totally gave me that old school feeling of blogging from years back which is really nice to see in our overloaded and overwhelming world today.
At the same time, it amazed me how you could create something so simple and yet still foster authentic connections between people without resorting to something much more massive like what the Substack platform has done.
Don’t get me wrong. I think what Substack is achieving is amazing in itself as well, especially with regards to giving people a writing platform to make a viable economic living on. Yet at the same time, I find the Substack platform can be overwhelming and distracting at times, so the simplicity and distraction free nature of the Bear blogging platform is great to see.
I guess that’s the paradox that most of us are looking for in wanting both individuality and collectiveness at the same time. We want to create a safe space where we can daringly be our authentic selves (beyond what other people might initially think we are), yet at the same time find a community of others who resonate with the language we speak and metaphors we’re using in expressing ourselves.