The Throttle Project
An intervention for the pace of written content, inspired by The Slow Web. #
Imagine if we knew when to expect written media to be delivered and consumed. What if we shared a common period of time each week, where we spread the word and exchanged feedback?
Frankly, I can’t keep track of the sheer amount of written media broadcasted in my network. It floods my social feeds on a constant basis.
- Product releases
- Product reviews
- Life-changing advice
- Strong opinions on techniques
- Long-form articles
We feel obliged to consume this kind of content as often as possible, and to spread it through our porous networks. But we need to take our passion for it, and look into a more sustainable delivery mechanism.
A couple of services try to tackle a similar issue — there’s Buffer, Read It Later, RSS — but these only solve the issue on a personal level. Social services (mainly Twitter) are still saturated. So, even if you are going to “read it later”, it still appears in your social feed, and takes up valuable mind-space at that initial point.
I enjoy the pace of other forms of mass media and entertainment. Knowing that music and films normally get released on a Friday or Monday is a warm feeling. You can easily integrate this into your schedule. You might not necessarily be able to consume the content straight away, but at least you know when to not look for it.
Where to begin? #
Right now, I believe that setting aside a time period each week to exchange this content within our communities could be a solution to this issue.
I could be specific right now, by proposing a weekday for everyone. But that wouldn’t be based on any real user insight for the concept. I’m more interested in the following:
- Do you agree that it’s a problem?
- What kind of industries are you involved with?
- Is choosing a day a good approach?
I’ll leave you with two things:
- A hashtag: #TheThrottleProject
- And a conversation on Branch: http://branch.com/b/the-throttle-project
Let’s see if anything happens.