The act of writing has been a guiding behavior for us as a team since the inception of River. We’ve recognized writing as an effective medium to unpack ideas, deliberate on product decisions, and develop our worldview. The team coordinates with an internal blog containing 572 entries and counting.

Early on in the process of product ideation, we knew long-form writing was a direction we wanted to explore. People using the app were constantly asking us to expand the character limit of text posts, often letting their thoughts spill out into the replies. River has always been and continues to be a space where people share freely and earnestly about their lives. We’re continuing to foster that energy by introducing blog to the app.

We ended up here in a roundabout way. In the spring we launched our newsletter, an attempt to bring floating ideas and conversations closer to the people who cared about River. From there we explored ways to expand our audience and allow for long-form writing content to be the first touchpoint for those curious about what we were up to.

Blog was originally only accessible internally. We experimented with running an editorial, publishing thoughts and conversations from around the company and our collaborators. The community wanted to read these pieces inside the app, and the ideas we were sharing sparked discussion. Naturally, we extended the ability for folks to write by integrating this ability into the web app. We created a blog channel and began highlighting our favorite pieces.

As the River community has evolved, there has emerged a unique visual language. River is home to storytellers, concertgoers, poets, publishers, you name it. Blog is our way of marrying that visual language with the expressiveness felt through people’s prose. Whether it be an iced tea recipe, a note to self to “get out of my own head”, blog is a way for you to share your story.

Write what you want.