The Dirt: Vol X

The business of bookworm, hot worm trends, & app updates

amelia goodman
August 09, 2023

🤔 Behind the scenes: The Business of Bookworm
📚 Hot Worm Trends
📱 What’s new in the app
🤓 Around the web

Behind the Scenes: The Business of Bookworm

I’m so thrilled to share a piece of news I’ve been working on for many months: Bookworm is undergoing a transformative shift to become a worker-owned cooperative. In particular, we’re embracing the concept of platform cooperatives, where users are recognized as the valuable contributors and stakeholders they are, and therefore have the opportunity become co-owners in the company. That means as a cooperative, Bookworm will allow wormies to hold meaningful roles as co-owners, actively participate in decision-making, and share in the platform's success (literally, we’ll distribute our profits amongst our co-owners !!).

Bookworm is one of the first start-ups to pioneer the way for platform cooperatives—and I hope we will be a leader in a new kind of economy that is generative and rewarding for everyone. We’re saying goodbye to the traditional tech business model that is premised on exploiting its users—and we’re imagining our way out of today’s capitalist hellscape into tomorrow’s cooperative future. This groundbreaking approach not only redefines the relationship between creators and users, but also fosters a stronger sense of community and collaboration—the heart of Bookworm's vision.

There will be much more to come on this in the near future. I’m so excited about these new developments and will keep you posted as I continue to figure out exactly what it means to create & run a platform cooperative. In the meantime, if you have experience or thoughts building/running a worker-owned coop, hit my line ([email protected]) 🙂

Hot Worm Trends

what the wormies are reading right now

summer sale is back!!! shade that noggin bb

What’s new in the app

🔍 search wormies’ bios: add your favorite genres (or authors, or series, rising signs, or whatever) to your bio so you can find like-minded worms! Shoutout to @jaywigley for this fantastic idea

🎨 new wormy colors: decorate your worm in new colors! And don’t forget: you can change your outfits (and color) however often you like.

🏃🏾‍♀️💨 general speediness update: you’ll notice general performance enhancements around the app! I’ve been working hard to make things load faster and smarter for a better experience on Bookworm.

Around the Web

🎧🐛 ear worm: I am (regrettably) not a podcast girlie, as much as I desperately want to be. My brain needs something more to do than just listen to a podcast on 2x speed, and if I have free time like that, I’d rather be reading. HOWEVER, I recently found NPR’s Book of the Day podcast, which has bite-sized (~15 mins or less) reviews & discussions with authors of such a wide range of books. Here’s one of my favorite authors discussing music and grief, in relation to his newest book.

Poet Hanif Abdurraqib reflects on the ways grief has shaped his spirituality : NPR's Book of the Day

In his new book, A Little Devil in America, poet Hanif Abdurraqib writes about music in such a way that NPR's Rachel Martin wanted to focus a conversation about spiritual transcendence related to it. What came out, however, was a deep discussion about how losing his mother and close friends early in life created its own kind of spiritual practice for Abdurraqib. In today's episode, he explains how "grief makes a home within us" and why that might actually be a good thing.

www.npr.org/2023/07/26/1190361437/poet-hanif-abdurraqib-reflects-on-the-ways-grief-has-shaped-his-spirituality

📝🐛 word worm: Our friends at Communia recently published a report that provides in-depth data on just how dire our experiences are on today’s social media. This is stuff we’ve all known (and most-likely experienced 😔) but collecting comprehensive data like this is an extremely important step to creating effective solutions and strategies to improve our own spaces (like Bookworm! And Communia!). I so appreciate Communia’s dedication to creating safe havens on the internet and I’m grateful to the hard work they continue to do. Here’s an article about the report:

LGBTQ+ users are leaving social media due to safety concerns, survey finds

A new survey indicates that almost two in three LGBTQ+ people are turning their backs on social media over toxicity and safety concerns.

www.thepinknews.com/2023/07/10/more-than-half-of-lgbtq-users-are-leaving-social-media-due-to-safety-concerns

That’s all for now! Stay tuned for more updates about the coop.

xoxoxo,

Amelia Goodman (@meelworm)