Hello, I'm Currently…
January 1, 2022 2:03 PM   Subscribe

Hello, I'm Currently…
This is a non-functioning but clickable demo (built using Carrd) of the sort of thing I wish I had now that I'm off social media: a profile-driven site, with no feed, where people can just update what they're up to or into these days. "Catch up, then log off; made for people, not users."

I can't actually make such a thing, as I'm not a programmer, but the itch for it is so strong that I at least needed a demo to exist; for me, clicking around it alternates between being weirdly soothing in a "playing pretend" sort of way or aggravating because it isn't real.

Keeping up with what friends and acquaintances are up to or interested in is the one thing I miss from social media, but I simply can't anymore subject myself to anything that uses a Feed as organizing principle. Not long after I first thought about this, I did run across Special Fish, which exists roughly in the same idea space but doesn't quite scratch the itch for me.

Note: all links are technically clickable, but only some of them lead to something other than the #error anchor.
Role: Creator
posted by bixfrankonis (3 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite

I love this, but functionally, isn't this just an RSS feed showing you a list of 1-page websites that have updated since the last time you checked? I'm a barely competent Drupal Sitebuilder, and I can envision how this might work in Drupal. The login system comes with the CMS, as does user profile pages. So you need a scaled down profile page, maybe an archive page where past updates live (or maybe not if you want it really focused on the now) and the "friends" page where the list of recently updated friends profiles live, and a Drupal theme that looks the way you want it to look.

You could probably spend a couple of months with free Drupal tutorials and get to a point where you can have something functional, or if you wanted to throw some money at it 40-80 hours from an offshore dev at $20/hr also probably gets a working system online.

Might even be cheaper and easier in Wordpress - but I don't know that CMS well enough to say for sure.

My point being, if you really want to scratch this itch, it is definitely in reach.
posted by COD at 8:05 AM on January 2, 2022 [2 favorites]


This is lovely! I'm always really glad to see people trying out better forms of social media — Special Fish is great, and I made thoughts.page for pretty similar reasons.

If you want to chat about how to make this real, feel free to MeMail me — I'd be happy to chat about some of the options, and give some advice/etc. I'm very invested in more small, thoughtful social media sites existing, so I'm generally happy to put a little bit of my time into helping out projects like this :)
posted by wesleyac at 11:53 PM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]


I only just found now.page, which also is in the same idea space but still not doing what I'm after.
posted by bixfrankonis at 6:34 PM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]


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