They convene a group of people, then have them do mostly-time-independent things together over some period of time.
Likewise, MOOC materials often “unlock” over time, but the material doesn’t meaningfully interact with that timeline.
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It’s like an author wrote a complete book, but the publisher decided to serialize it, mailing subscribers a chapter at a time for their convenience. Sure, there’s an experience over time—yet there’s no authorial intent. This arrangement leaves much on the table.
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By contrast, consider the Aro meditation course: aromeditation.org (👋). It’s a sequence of 18+ emails, one automatically sent each week after you sign up. But the emails aren’t written like MOOC materials: the passing weeks are carefully woven into each letter.
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They leave time for concepts to sink in before elaborating later. They spiral back, refreshing earlier ideas every few weeks. They lean on the reader’s growing trust. This series of emails feels like a much more profound evolution relative to books than MOOCs relative to courses.
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's fascinating experiment over his last 6-week walk struck a similar chord. Each day of the walk, Craig sent one photo from that day's segment to subscribers. The vibe yawns over weeks, a totally different feel from a coffee table book compiling a journey in retrospect!
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Games have really figured this out.
e.g. MOOGs like WoW choreograph players’ incentives and environments to invoke an ever-expanding horizon over many months. The design elements aren’t about raw hours: they’re more about how the feel of play sessions change, week to week.
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and I have been excited about how the mnemonic medium creates a context where readers continue interacting with an author's work after the initial reading session. It's a mass medium with a weakly authored time component.
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In an upcoming mnemonic essay, we exert more authorial control over time, adding questions which evolve over weeks of review sessions. But there's much, much more to explore there!
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Can you all think of any other good examples of a mass medium with a lengthy, strongly authored time dimension?
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I was into bodyweight training. Tutorials, courses, training programs are build around the constraint of the body growing and adapting slowly over time.
The authored time component often spans many weeks or months or even years.
I think you can find many examples in fitness.
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Great point! Can you say any more about how they integrate time? Do they e.g. label some set of videos "after 2 weeks"? Something more sophisticated?
Usually it's either in the form of a written program:
"Week 1 do 5x5, week 2 do 6x3, week 3 work up to 1rm, etc."
Or with an actual coach they just say "this week you're doing X"
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Exactly.
I don't know if it's relevant, but, on a shorter time scale, there are follow-along workout videos. You can pause/rewind/play, but they are usually designed so that you don't have to.
They are usually a couple of minutes to more than an hour long.
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