Are.na allows users to compile uploaded and web-clipped "blocks" into different "channels," and has been described as a "vehicle for conscious Internet browsing," "playlists, but for ideas," and a "toolkit for assembling new worlds.
"[2] Are.na is popular amongst designers, artists, and architects including Cory Arcangel, Michael Bell-Smith, Margaret Lee, Laurel Schwulst, Emily Segal, Martine Syms, Allan Yu, and others who publicly cite Are.na as a tool in their creative process.
[10] Co-founder Charles Broskoski began working for Rhizome's John Michael Boling and Sapient Corporation's Stuart Moore in the early 2010s, coding prototypes of a platform which would containerize knowledge into "informational building blocks."
Broskoski set out to build an open-ended community tool, with Ted Nelson's Computer Lib/Dream Machines and hypertext project Xanadu as major influences on Are.na's founding and design.
[13][14] Are.na has also partnered with the Manhattan Museum of Arts and Design, New Inc. incubator, the Vilém Flusser archives, and artists Carson Salter and David Hilmer Rex.