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So I built this - and its initial purpose was just to help me keep up on public TiddlyWikis (like philosopher.life) that I had discovered. But I couldn't get my
by kickscondor 7y ago
So I built this - and its initial purpose was just to help me keep up on public TiddlyWikis (like philosopher.life) that I had discovered. But I couldn't get myself to rip off other news readers - I've not been satisfied with RSS and I disliked Google Reader. I didn't like that it basically created a second read-only email inbox - where I'm supposed to look through every message. And I didn't like that I lost the formatting and styling of the original hypertext. I much preferred just surfing my favorite sites periodically.
As I began to add blogs, Twitter, YouTube support - it felt like I was connecting the whole Web, as if it was all one network, almost as if I viewed it like the government does. (Equipped with my own personal XKeyscore Lite.) I had felt isolated before - unable to see past whatever was being recommended to me on Twitter - but now I had a tool that forced me to rouse my dormant research skills. The task of reading, writing, publishing and hunting on the Web is a formidable one - and we're far from mastering it. It's no wonder that we abdicated to social networks that attempt to do it all for us.
So yeah - Fraidycat is a very small attempt to move toward tools that give us some power. It really only adds the ability to assign "importance" to someone you are following - allowing you to track them without needing to be aware of them every second. But hey - it's four months old - I think it's a good start and hopefully others here can be encouraged by it to work on tools for the World-Wide Web again.
- atroche 7y agoI think you're exploring an important space here. Good luck! Also, the video essay you made about this (https://youtu.be/zgA4GzRsldI https://youtu.be/zgA4GzRsldI for anyone interested) is incredibly well-produced. I was expecting it to be someone mumbling over a screencast, but it's the total opposite.
- gbasin 7y agoI felt the same. I almost never watch product videos, and I watched this one all the way through... very well done.
- TedDoesntTalk 7y agoover-produced. not raw and real.
- growt 7y agoSadly something like that will be no longer possible in Europe when the new copyright directive becomes law. But on the other hand it probably never was :(
- skoodge 7y agoI had read through the page and figured that it's probably not for me, but then decided to watch the video based on this comment and it is absolutely amazing! It is not just incredibly well-produced, but at the same time whimsical and a poignant commentary on the current social network landscape. Some people might be put off by the video's style and it's definitely not in the vein of the typical startup product launch, but exactly that makes it the most memorable product launch video in a long time for me, since it's not afraid to show some personality.
- vorpalhex 7y agoOne of the things you've done that I really like is the focus on people instead of posts - this shifts the system away from favoring noisy or loud individuals which is the correct sort of shift in my opinion.
- kickscondor 7y agoIt's difficult to know what's better - some people may prefer to see posts, since they may want to find viral memes/videos/takes rather than to have to follow someone's output over time. It seems like a tradeoff to me - similar to short-term vs long-term. So it would be interesting for someone who loves news feeds to rethink them at some point.
- sailfast 7y agoI love this. Your video is right on, and I've felt this way since Google Reader disappeared and algo feeds took over. Definitely digging into this tonight.
- hoopism 7y agoThis is a neat project. And based on your appreciation for things like Funny Mapguy (who I checked out after seeing your video) I think we have very similar taste in online culture. Good luck dude!
- kickscondor 7y agoHey thanks. Yeah I have followed Funny Mapguy for years and the amazing part is that he has not once mentioned maps or been funny in any of his videos. It's insane.
- hoopism 7y agoSo I was reminded on YT homepage to check him out again... I went through about 15-20 last drink reviews (descriptions). They are all 7-8s. I am super curious if he has ever not liked one now.
- haaaris 7y agoHey, this is amazing! I'm currently working on www.inverse.network, a new way for groups to talk all over the web :) Would love to chat. haris@inverse.network
- jotm 7y agoSo, I still don't really understand what it actually does, but for some reason I feel like it's a great idea :D. I'll put more time in playing with it.
- qqn 7y agoFantastic! I will be playing with this. I have to know though: where's the original knight interviewer video?! Happens at 3m55s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgA4GzRsldI&t=3m55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgA4GzRsldI&t=3m55s
- kickscondor 7y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-pAWbqdyuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-pAWbqdyuY
- qqn 7y agooh lord yes
- yantrams 7y agoVery Neat! Gonna explore this to my heart's content. Huge fan of your personal website - all those writeups, thoughts on hypertext, decentralization and that dadaesque/surrealist aesthetic dripping everywhere. Discovered you when you listed my blog in one of your listicles. Good luck!
- ccktlmazeltov 7y agoIf I understand correctly, is it a personal reddit/HN filled with content from websites you picked? If this is it then I think there is a big potential. Actually, there might be a bigger potential as a SaaS than a browser plugin. It'd be cool if you can share your newsfeed, or absorb other people's newsfeed.
- lemagedurage 7y agoI feel like that would take away half the charm for me. I want people to be able to add many site connectors, like YouTube dl.
- dvtrn 7y agoI love this already. It's been one of my biggest gripes of social media that I can't just follow people and catch what they're up to on my terms, sans "the platform" nudging me to interact this way, like this, star that, react to that over there because someone three degrees of separation did it, watch a video someone uploaded of their dinner. I want to passively observe and interact if I want to. This is what I've wanted. It's like a living notepad file full of links Great work, excited to put this to work
- ohduran 7y agoI'm the #1 fan of Fraidycat, keep up the good work!
- indigoviolet 7y agoThis is great. Would love to see an import from twitter/reddit subs feature in the extension.
- BrunoBernardino 7y agoThis is very cool, congrats on launching! I’ve built something not too dissimilar, but focused on slowing down too, so instead of a feed with changes you get a daily digest of the new things that happened. It also allows you to view the regular formatting, etc. If you’re curious, it’s https://focusd.co https://focusd.co and I’d love to hear about what you learned with “figuring out” if there’s an RSS Feed for a given URL.
- tomgp 7y agoThis really scratches and itch for me. I've felt similarly about RSS readers, they kind of work but as you point out most news feeds privilege the most voluminous posters at everyone else's expense. Love it.
- bakakid 7y agoim so glad this popped up again! I was trying to find it the other day but none of my searches or history rang a bell!
- solstice 7y agoThat's the main problem on the internet, I think: not finding stuff but finding it again!
- meremortals 7y agoI started using this earlier last week and I love it. Thanks for making it
- kickscondor 7y agoAh good to hear! Thanks for sticking with it.
- h0l0cube 7y agoAfter leaving social media, I've been wanting something like this for a long time, and considered 'scratching my own itch', as you have. I settled on Feedly being good enough. It still isn't great: e.g. the Android widget is hopeless; I miss out on content because links sometimes don't refresh for days. I'm using the free option, so maybe the paid option is better, but it's free offering hasn't convinced me this is a good idea. So I'm wondering whether to port all my follows over to fraidycat. Have you used Feedly or it's ilk before? How do you think it compares? Also, if I switch, how will you be keeping the lights on? Is there some monetization strategy in your mind?
- kickscondor 7y agoFraidycat doesn't have a central server - so even if I do get knocked off by Facebook Mafia, the software will still function just fine. Can't compare to Feedly, don't know anything about it.
- h0l0cube 7y agoOh right, I suppose I should have installed it first. I like that it's stand-alone. While there is much I don't like about Feedly, the things I do like are it's ability to make suggestions, and that also you can add things like YouTube links - like fraidycat. This means if Primitive Technology release a video, I know about it, and it comes up along with developer blogs I follow. The suggestions have been useful in discovering new blogs, but you can't have that with a stand-alone app... unless you provide a server for this. I'd happily provide my anonymized feed list to a server, if I get in return a bunch of adjacent content creators.
- 3r8riacz 7y agoMinimo (written in Go) is a nice, clean, minimal self-hostable RSS reader that I can recommend trying out, supports importing Feedly exports, too. Works as a progressive web app in fullscreen when added to your Android home screen, no need for a separate app.
- buovjaga 7y ago
- wpietri 7y agoVery interesting! And I'm fascinated by doing it as a browser plugin. Could you say more about why you chose this route?
- kickscondor 7y agoEase of installation and the ability to sync between browsers without folks needing to trust whether I can keep the service running or not.
- easygenes 7y agoVery cool. It reminds me of Netvibes and why I loved it so much when it first hit the scene circa 2006.
- dmvaldman 7y agohave you considered following hackernews profiles? (comments, posts, etc) also, best promo video of all time and amazing concept. we'd be great friends IRL. alas.
- dtakuma 7y agoIf I'm not misinterpreting you, you can already do this with rss : https://edavis.github.io/hnrss/ https://edavis.github.io/hnrss/
- dmvaldman 7y agothanks for sharing! did not know about this! this could be the foundation of what my request was implying. it's the data pipe, but would need the frontend the OP is building
- dmvaldman 7y agoscratch everything i said. the tool can import any RSS feed. so you're 100% right, it can already do HN posts/comments/etc from specific people
- TulliusCicero 7y agoThis is very cool. I wish there was something like this for the various web serials I read. Keeping track of them all can be...cumbersome.
- callahad 7y agoCouldn't this be that? If those serials are posted somewhere that has an RSS feed, you're good to go.
- TulliusCicero 7y agoHuh, for some reason I thought RoyalRoad didn't have RSS feeds for its stories, but apparently it does. Nice!
- cableclasper 7y agoReally nice work! I'm playing with the app currently. Is there a way to set the default browser used to open links?
- kickscondor 7y agoIt should use whatever browser your operating system has set as the default. But please let me know if that is not the case.
- cableclasper 7y agoMy OS is arch linux. It seems like the app does not use xdg-open (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xdg-open https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xdg-open ). Setting the BROWSER environment variable also doesn't seem to work. I don't know any other way to set the default browser.
- dtakuma 7y agoThis is the closer to what I imagined the Dip from "Fall; or, Dodge in Hell" would be that I have encountered so far - maybe I'm miss remembering and it was not a software at all but I have been looking for some kind of hub like this since I read that book. So glad I checked this link. Thanks for making it!