✍🏻 Blog

I read a lot of articles for my newsletter and today I want to share with you these 5 mind blowing pieces. At the end of the post you will find 3 more great articles which are older than ’23. Let’s go.

• Books as toys by Austin Kleon

The article “Books as Toys” by Austin Kleon discusses the idea of treating books not just as sources of information or entertainment, but as physical objects that can be interacted with and enjoyed in a playful manner. 

• Stop Being Who You Aren’t by Michael Ashcroft

This one discusses the concept of authenticity and the importance of being true to oneself.

• Rich and Anonymous by Morgan Housel

The piece suggests that true financial freedom comes not just from having money, but from having the ability to live life on one’s own terms without the burden of others’ expectations or judgments about one’s wealth.

• An invitation to a secret society by Adam Mastroianni

This article invites readers to join a “secret society”, which is dedicated to conducting small, informal experiments to better understand human nature and society. The author encourages participants to engage in simple, everyday experiments that challenge assumptions and explore social dynamics, emphasizing the importance of curiosity and observation in everyday life.

• The Future of Ghosts by Jeanette Winterson

“There’s a theory I like that suggests why the nineteenth century is so rich in ghost stories and hauntings. Carbon monoxide poisoning from gas lamps.“

BONUS (some of these are long before 2023, but they are still gold):

• 5 Tricks to Never Run Out of Ideas Again by Scott H Young

• Too Many Thoughts Living Rent-Free In Your Head? Try Mind Gardening by Sadhbh O’Sullivan

• ‘When I’m Gone’ by Rafael Zoehler (WARNING: I cried A LOT reading this one)

Offliberty

Offliberty lets you access any online content without a permanent Internet connection. Today most websites are difficult to browse offline. If you have limited access to the Internet you can use Offliberty to browse any content later – being offline.

If the Internet bus visits your village only once a week or your grandma doesn’t let you use Internet more than 1 hour a day – Offliberty is for you.

PrintFriendly

PrintFriendly cleans and formats web pages for perfect print experience. PrintFriendly removes ads, navigation and web page junk, so you save paper and ink when you print. It’s free and easy to use. Perfect to use at home, the office, or whenever you need to print a web page.

10 Minute Mail

Maybe you want to sign up for a site which requires that you provide an e-mail address to send validation e-mail to. And maybe you don’t want to give up your real e-mail address and end up on a bunch of spam lists. 10 minute mail is nice and disposable. And it’s free.

Information is Beautiful

Founded by David McCandless, author of three bestselling infographics books, Information is Beautiful is dedicated to making sense of the world with graphics & data-visuals. They set out to explain, distill and clarify. All their visualizations are based on facts and data: constantly updated, revised and revisioned.

Motorpulse

Whether you are a petrol-head, a four-by-adventurer, an uber-urbanite or just want a car to get you from A-to-B, Motorpulse would love to know more about some of your views relating to cars.

Followupthen

The secret to leadership? Following up. Meet the world’s simplest email reminder and personal follow up assistant.

PDF Escape

A new way to open and edit PDF files online, PDFescape frees users from the typical software requirements for using the de facto document file format. Completely online, PDFescape requires no more than a modern internet browser and an active internet connection.

Marker.to

Have you ever used a marker pen for highlighting your paper documents? Marker.to will do the same for webpages! After you install a browser extension or bookmarklet and run Marker simply by clicking on the icon, you can highlight text on a website with your mouse.

Privnote

Have you ever wanted to send confidential information within your work environment, to family or friends, but were afraid to do so over the internet, because some malicious hacker could be spying on you? Privnote is a free web based service that allows you to send top secret notes over the internet. It’s fast, easy, and requires no password or user registration at all.

Random ORG

RANDOM.ORG offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet. The randomness comes from atmospheric noise, which for many purposes is better than the pseudo-random number algorithms typically used in computer programs. People use RANDOM.ORG for holding drawings, lotteries and sweepstakes, to drive online games, for scientific applications and for art and music. The service has existed since 1998 and was built by Dr Mads Haahr of the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland. Today, RANDOM.ORG is operated by Randomness and Integrity Services Ltd.

For more useful apps, websites and articles you can subscribe to my newsletter Rabbit Ideas.

Three years ago, one chilly February morning I hit the post button and leaned back in my chair. On the screen in front of me was a simple title: Rabbit Ideas #001 It wasn’t the first time I try to start a newsletter, but I knew this time was different.

Actually, if you are a subscriber of my newsletter and like it, you have to thank my wife. She was the reason to start posting regularly every Sunday. Why? Because at first she didn’t believe I can be that persistent. When I think about it, she was right. Before Rabbit Ideas I never finished a project. But my motivation now was to prove her wrong. Three years later there are 160 issues published, more than 650 links shared and more than 700 subscribers reading my suggestions on the best websites, articles, tools and apps.

Let’s go to the serious part. The 3 points below are the most important things I learned so far running the newsletter.

The best ways to grow a subscriber list

I spent incredible amounts of time and money to add my newsletter in directories and advertise on google and twitter. Too broad. The best results actually came from cross promotions and advertising with other newsletters. It’s simple: when people read a newsletter and find another newsletter inside, they want to try it.

Who’s afraid of experiments?

For 3 years I made some really big changes in the way my newsletter looks and works. At first I was a little afraid of changes, because I didn’t know how my subscribers will react. But people actually like new things. And if you explain to them about the change and why you are doing it, they will understand.

People don’t owe you

People will always unsubscribe. They have the right to do it. I’ve been working to make sure that when someone unsubscribe, at least two people will replace him. I know that when you have a small audience every subscriber counts, but you should focus on bringing more people in, not just keep the current ones.

Now how can we end an article about newsletters in the best possible way? That’s right, by asking the readers to subscribe.