31) was actually costing Wardle money, the roughly $100 a month required to keep it online. Far from producing income, the game (at least until Jan. You can play only once a day, and that play benefits only you, or whoever you want to talk about it with. It went out into the larger world almost as a whim, without any of the things that could generate money-like ads, or “push” notifications to encourage you to hurry back or linger. It was fashioned for an audience of one: his partner, Palak Shah, because she likes word games. While at Reddit, he created a couple of projects that, by inviting people to take part in something entirely new, doubled as case studies in a question that lately pre-occupies much of the world: How does the design of a site steer the behavior of the people coming to it? He grew up on an organic livestock farm in southern Wales, and came to the States for an MFA in digital art at the University of Oregon, then found work in Silicon Valley. “My inbox is destroyed,” Wardle said slowly, staring through the windshield.

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