How many people that understand that, need this?
WEIRD is okay, and a fine start, but using someone else's service does not usually lead to creativity or weird. Just look how weird the early web was when everyone just did their own thing.
Given that lately I can't even be bothered to write Markdown for my static site I'm looking forward to giving this a try this weekend.
Its just that the marketing copy has some of the breathless silicon valley tone and organizational structure to it like its selling a product which grates against the quirky, personal, community-first vibes of indieweb.
And hell yeah! Any excuse to put something fun on the web is a good one, excited to see what you make :)
Weird is essentially gonna be ported over to being the static, persona-first extension of Roomy: https://blog.muni.town/chatty-community-gardens/
However, I don't see anywhere on the homepage where you have an example. I think it would be really helpful if the example images you posted actually went to those pages. Or even better, can your homepage just be a demonstration of your product?
ATM, it seems quite distracting, rather than just being clear about the benefit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9WPp-g0LBs
SXSW 2025 | Weirding the Digital: An Invocation with Douglas Rushkoff
The extended version of Weird that we’re building now however will include community hosting ranging between $10/$100 per month as part of a B2B play as opposed to the B2C model of Weird as-is, so that.
I recommend working on your elevator pitch, because while strangely eloquent, that is utterly incomprehensible.
That aside, this looks really cool and I wish you all the best!
(addressing erlend_sh because I saw them in the thread)
RSS is great, but together with OPML it has even more potential. Easily share bookmarks and RSS sources, easily 'retweet' interesting articles on my own timeline, easily 'subscribe' to new feeds, etc.
I'm slowly eating my own dogfood and slowly moving towards only using the real social media; the open web. It's hard, with HN and Youtube around, but I have trust in my own algorithm. Getting my info diet from around 1400 RSS sources, filtered by random request to feeds, so no violations of other websites' resources and doomscrolling isn't even possible. Really interesting sources get automatically checked by the newspaper functionality.
I see more untapped potential for RSS in combination with OPML. First I need to get completely rid of the idea that my software product needs to be for the masses. It's just not going to happen that the majority of the people are going to do more than tap an app and swipe for instant gratification, and that's okay. I'm also not willing to look down on how the masses use computing and the internet, as I see a lot of people do on HN (talking about 'the regular user' as if it's not your neighbor or your friend), so I want to make the onboarding and usage as welcome as possible. To me, that's still the true spirit of the open web.
Re: laggy. I know... 1.0 introduced new features but also inefficiencies. The cost of working on something solo. Releasing a patch soon.
No, not trying it in Chrome.
I'm getting tired of how many web developers don't realize that endless, unstoppable animation is a huge accessibility issue. My brain apparently has some deep programming to follow anything that moves, so I can't actually read anything about the project without straining my brain. For reference, I'm autistic. Many neurodivergent people have similar issues. So, unintentionally, you're excluding people that might enjoy this.
Demanding everything be 100% accessible to everyone at all times is something that I feel is not necessary. It also feels like I am imposing my demands on someone, limiting their artistic creativity to suite my disability - I don't feel comfortable with that idea. If someone enjoys all the animation and blinding colors then let them. I'm actually happy for them that they can.
I was watching a conference talk yesterday on SVG, and the speaker had an endlessly repeating dumb meme gif on their slide. I couldn’t focus on what they’re saying at all. So, I’m excluded from the information they’re sharing. Fuck that. This is a very experienced web developer who probably cares enough to make things accessible, but they don’t realize the harm they’re doing. So, at least on places like HN, I’m going to be vocal.
meme gif in a conference slide is an awful idea and very unprofessional.
The number of people that are able to handle accessibility, while also being capable of creating a captivating presentation to drive sales, is extremely low. This isn't an attack on anyone, I wish things were more black and white, but until those with accessibility needs are driving revenue more you are at the mercy of the government and ADA (if you're in the US or anywhere else similar concerns are legal).
20% of the population has high sensory sensitivity. Many of these people have issues with needless animation. Some people with ADHD also have issues. When you add them all up, it becomes a significant customer base. And even for neurotypical people, excessive animation is distracting. They’re able to tolerate it, but it’s still adding cognitive load.
And it’s been shown through usability studies that carousels are terrible across the board. Marketing people like them for some reason, but there is almost never a good reason for a carousel on the web. Marketing people and some designers like animation because it grabs your attention, and it gets a “wow” in a presentation to executives, but I’m not convinced it actually increases conversions.
I think that it does get a "wow" in presentation, but better writing and description of your product delivers a more long-term "wow". I just think that most marketing people reach for something easy that is pre-built, than taking the time to really think about how to market their product effectively.
Unless you can go against the wishes of those higher up than you, and show high sales growth, it's often a much easier life to show off a little animation and go after the idea than the presentation when needing to discuss low sales. I work for a digital marketing agency, and often disagree with choices that are made. I just have the ability to influence the backend technology and choices made, so pick my battles. I worked in both front-end as well as backend for a while, but I got burnt out by front-end from management and customers that didn't know any better, more than the constant churn in technology and techniques.
I do agree with you, but 20% is a low number to the type of people that want something to "pop" so they can not know what they are selling, but can show off some fancy animation and let the presentation do all the talking for them. I don't agree with it, but it is negative that the world does work like that most of the time.