Newsletters that regularly hit my inbox these days
I got tagged in this by my buddy Jan Maarten, who got tagged by my other buddy Eric Bailey. I’m not gonna lie, both of these lists have very strong overlap with my own lists. I’ll try my best not to be too repetitive, but it will be hard as they are both stellar lists that I wholeheartedly co-sign. Jan also has some really, good practical advice on how to receive newsletters in a way that don’t add to my 2000+ unread inbox emails, it’s very much worth taking a look.
When I was thinking of who I should include in this post, I got into an argument with my own brain while trying to create a meaningful distinction between newsletters and blogs. After several weeks of mulling over this question, I think these are the main points of differentiation:
- Newsletters typically stick to a single theme or format, personal blogs are free of these restrictions
- Newsletters often publish on a set schedule
- Newsletters might have more than one person behind it
There’s a lot of wiggle room in the definitions, but was important for me to answer this question because I follow a LOT of personal blogs that I absolutely adore and could not fit into this list due to time constraints. Fencing in the scope of this post let me feel a little bit better about this whole process and that I wasn’t leaving anyone out, but I’m pretty sure I will still forget a few people, eek!
I won’t be linking to any Substack newsletters. If you want to reap the network benefits of your Nazi bar platform, you should also bear the stigma.
Onto the newsletters!
Web Development
a11yweekly
I try to limit the number of ‘weekly digest’ type things I subscribe to to keep the reading load manageable, but I think David A. Kennedy does a really good job of curating the links. I like that there is a ‘New to a11y’ link of the week, which makes it a great read for people who are newer to the field as well.
The Index
Short, snappy, to-the-point, what’s not to love? The Index helps to mitigate my compulsive need to backread on social platforms because I know the team at Piccalilli has got it covered. Still can’t spell ‘Piccalilli’ without copy and pasting it though, sorry Andy!
web.dev
Specifically, the Web Platform Monthly Updates, tagged ‘New to the web platform’. I think it’s a shame they don’t give a way to separate this content out from the rest , because it is genuinely useful to know what has or hasn’t landed on the web. Monthly is a frequency that works for me for this kind of level of technical detail, weekly pulls me away from my routine too much as I’m very prone to being nerd-sniped.
Tech Industry
Open Web Advocacy Blog
OWA is a much needed voice for the battle of the open web. It’s great to get a sense of what the broader trends in legislation are like, along with updates on where the OWA is focusing their advocacy.
Citation Needed by Molly White
I fully believe if every reporter was even just 5% more like Molly White, the world would be a better place. Molly doesn’t take what company spokespeople say for granted, and is willing to put in the legwork to do the research required to report things truthfully. Crypto may be past it’s heyday, but it’s still fucking up democracy everywhere, so her work is still needed.
404 Media
I throw cash at 404 Media for their independent reporting and I hope more folks join me in doing so! Their newsletter summarizes all their weekly reporting as well as providing updates. If you’re a freak like me and you read all the articles in full, perhaps you won’t find this as useful, but it’s a great way to stay on top of some under-reported subjects in the tech industry.
Miscellaneous
Gurney Journey
As far as art educators go, James Gurney is just the best. I’ve been reading his posts since I was a teenager, so he wins the unique title of being ‘the person I’ve followed on the internet for the longest.’ You WILL become a better artist by following him, no doubt about that. Unfortunately he’s been cutting a lot of his posts short and putting them on Substack — he’s given so much to the art community that I don’t want to begrudge him the opportunity to monetize, but I wish he had chosen any other platform!
SC2.4.4
I’ve already said I’m not a huge fan of the link roundup format, but I will absolutely make an exception for Eric’s newsletter SC2.4.4. This is pretty much the only newsletter where I will consistently click through to every link, and that’s really saying something given that the links span a variety of topics and fields!
People & Blogs
Manu is a fantastic blogger and you should check his blog out, but I especially love his newsletter where he interviews a different person each week. A good 50% of my RSS feed is made up of these folks, check them out! I was lucky enough to be recently featured, and I swear I’m not including it for this reason, I just took two whole months to publish this post.
What newsletters are you reading?
Tell me what you’re reading! I always feel bad about tagging people but if you make a post, I’ll link to it here!