Seems cool, but overloading the term agentic development is a risky play. I almost clicked away when I saw that because, my opinions about LLMs for development aside, I do not want them anywhere near my blog, because that's where I want my own voice to come through strongest.
That aside, this looks really cool and I wish you all the best!
(addressing erlend_sh because I saw them in the thread)
> Weird is a brand new thing, but: Think of it as if WordPress and Notion had a Linktree-shaped baby. That is to say, a WordPress-type website engine with the editing experience of Notion and the simplicity of Linktree.
I really dislike the Wordpress ecosystem and I find Notions popularity baffling as it has been a really terrible experience for me when other people use it and send their Notion documents to me as requirements documents. So, not me?
I think I like the idea, but I have to ask a favor: Please stop the animated banner text!
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.
Yeah. Every time I come across a banner like that I have to immediately scroll it off screen, otherwise my attention is spent tracking the banner and I can't focus on the text. Makes me wish `prefers-reduced-motion` supported `none`.
I gave up on the visual accessibility demands. Someone wants to make a website that I can't easily use? I avoid it. If it bothers me enough because it contains information I want, I will write them directly and kindly ask for an accessibility option.
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.
Hey, one of the two cofounders here. Very cool to see Weird on HN, although we had purposefully refrained from posting it ourselves yet since it’s still baking.
This looks really interesting, I always thought Linktree (and all the copycats) were just too simplistic.
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.
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.
Not disagreeing with the thrust of your post though I would take issue with it being both "strangely eloquent" and "utterly incomprehensible". It's just awkward writing... which, for a platform called WEIRD, is perhaps the point.
There are a lot of weird comments in this thread but to me this looks like a cool, genuine project which has an obvious need; I don't think the vibes are off at all.
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.
Yeah, I'm one of those commenters. I do believe its a genuine project made by someone who cares with the intention to make something lovely for the world. I believe the people who are making this are good people.
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 :)
Cool idea! Especially curious about the 'federated webring'-thing. With Hey Homepage (link in bio) I do something similar, but I call it 'Shared Links' and it's connected to the built-in RSS reader.
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.
In a sense it's beautifully simple technology, ready to use by everybody, and with even more applications than podcasts. Imagine all social media functionality, without the platform, just the open internet as platform.
Still feels too much like Web 2.0 soulless template based sites- https://mmm.page/ is much better for unique human made sites- especially if you use the drawing tools.
Wow, first impressions of mmm.page are really good. I'm happy with my personal website but still signed up because I don't want to lose track of this cool little thing.
Pretty formalized for being weird. But I think the most important thing for human beings continuing to have websites (and so weird websites) is to keep HTTP/1.1 and HTTP+HTTPS alive. Without those thing websites are just too fragile for humans to keep going more than a few years. Whereas with those things websites have indefinite lifespans even unmantained. I know the pieces fit, because I watched them fall away: http://superkuh.com/the-pieces-fit.html (a wierd web page). HTTP+HTTPS does work for human person use cases. Even if the profit-seeking corps and institutions want it gone because it doesn't fit theirs.
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.
The fact that they're trying to cop "smallweb" vibes while being incredibly soulless and flat at the same time is making me. so frustrated. This isn't "weird" in the alt sense, this is "weird" like how you would describe JD Vance.
Hillary Clinton is actively diving her head into her elbow-pit, and we cannot stop her. We can only watch in horror as she destroys the fabric of our universe and merges all that was once "cool" and "hip" into the conglomerate apathetic mainstream.
Its someong taking something that exists in culture and is "cool" (dabbing) and doing it in a weird / lame / cringey way.
Similarly this site has a lot of the astehtic trappings and language of indieweb et al. but (IMO) doesn't stick the landing. And it comes off a little as the cool culture being exploited by someone who doesn't get it.
Idk if they're doing it in a greedy or sinister way, like when corporations co-opt social movements or big brands use the "quirky local indie" astehtic. It's probably someone well meaning with different taste than me. But the site does rub me the wrong way regardless
i am grateful that at least one person other than me got the memo on my bit lmao
you're right, it might not be intentionally malicious, but it still comes off as wrong due to the visual and mechanical design of the service. if you want to support smallweb, it's better to host a VPS service than a shittier linktree.
Their main page didn't say a single bit about their code being open source. I had to dig through the creator's GitHub to find it: https://github.com/erlend-sh/weird
That doesn't really inspire confidence in them wanting people to self-host.
Definitely going for that "used to be a Homestuck fan, probably has a Blåhaj stuffie on their bed" dollar. And that copy rings about as authentically as does the narrator on the Mighty No. 9 trailer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YngbHOz--oc
"Hey! You! Do you like awesome things that are awesome? Then you gotta check out our website, where your profile... is also your website! It's like Wordpress and Notion had a Linktree-shaped baby! Make big tech as mad as an incel gamer on a school-shooting rampage!"
That and the Star vs. the Forces of Evil-inspired art style... think I'll pass.
yeah I can't quite place if this is sinister souless or unfortunate souless - there's no AI or blockchain or obvious monetization - but the vibes are definitely off.
The "barefoot developers" link that they cite as an inspiration is heavily steeped in AI bullshit ("First, that language models will create a golden age of local, home-cooked software and barefoot developers.").
yeahhhh. my current read is that the people making it are good people making it for genuine reasons as a service to the world. So I really don't want to be harsh or discouraging, and I hope it succeeds. but they also read as being surrounded by silicon valley style culture a lot more than most indieweb projects and that is reflected in the tone of the marketing copy and other places.
& fwiw I'm a huge AI hater, but if we _must_ have it, using it to let people make tiny apps for them and their friends easier is about as good a use as there gets. Its a shame to lose the culture of craftsmanship around code itself but if you want to make something your friend will like that's cool even if I'd have done it differently.
Seems cool, but overloading the term agentic development is a risky play. I almost clicked away when I saw that because, my opinions about LLMs for development aside, I do not want them anywhere near my blog, because that's where I want my own voice to come through strongest.
That aside, this looks really cool and I wish you all the best!
(addressing erlend_sh because I saw them in the thread)
> Weird is a brand new thing, but: Think of it as if WordPress and Notion had a Linktree-shaped baby. That is to say, a WordPress-type website engine with the editing experience of Notion and the simplicity of Linktree.
How many people that understand that, need this?
Me, for one. As a person with negative free time this sounds like exactly what I need.
I really dislike the Wordpress ecosystem and I find Notions popularity baffling as it has been a really terrible experience for me when other people use it and send their Notion documents to me as requirements documents. So, not me?
The next sentence after this blurb explains it much better
I think I like the idea, but I have to ask a favor: Please stop the animated banner text!
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.
Yeah. Every time I come across a banner like that I have to immediately scroll it off screen, otherwise my attention is spent tracking the banner and I can't focus on the text. Makes me wish `prefers-reduced-motion` supported `none`.
I gave up on the visual accessibility demands. Someone wants to make a website that I can't easily use? I avoid it. If it bothers me enough because it contains information I want, I will write them directly and kindly ask for an accessibility option.
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.
Hey, one of the two cofounders here. Very cool to see Weird on HN, although we had purposefully refrained from posting it ourselves yet since it’s still baking.
Weird is essentially gonna be ported over to being the static, persona-first extension of Roomy: https://blog.muni.town/chatty-community-gardens/
This looks really interesting, I always thought Linktree (and all the copycats) were just too simplistic.
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.
How are you planning on making enough money to cover server costs etc? eg to avoid another Cohost style catastrophe.
Weird is very cheap to host so we’ve already covered hosting costs with our first batch of early adopters: https://blog.muni.town/selling-dreams/
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 want Weird to be my digital ‘soul pod’. It’s the digitized me; the source from which all of my other digital being springs forth.
I recommend working on your elevator pitch, because while strangely eloquent, that is utterly incomprehensible.
Not disagreeing with the thrust of your post though I would take issue with it being both "strangely eloquent" and "utterly incomprehensible". It's just awkward writing... which, for a platform called WEIRD, is perhaps the point.
There are a lot of weird comments in this thread but to me this looks like a cool, genuine project which has an obvious need; I don't think the vibes are off at all.
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.
Yeah, I'm one of those commenters. I do believe its a genuine project made by someone who cares with the intention to make something lovely for the world. I believe the people who are making this are good people.
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 :)
Cool idea! Especially curious about the 'federated webring'-thing. With Hey Homepage (link in bio) I do something similar, but I call it 'Shared Links' and it's connected to the built-in RSS reader.
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.
The only product I know in the RSS / opml space is freedom controller; but those technologies are also part of podcasting 2.0, as well, I think.
In a sense it's beautifully simple technology, ready to use by everybody, and with even more applications than podcasts. Imagine all social media functionality, without the platform, just the open internet as platform.
Still feels too much like Web 2.0 soulless template based sites- https://mmm.page/ is much better for unique human made sites- especially if you use the drawing tools.
Creator of mmm.page here. Let me know if you have any questions.
Re: laggy. I know... 1.0 introduced new features but also inefficiencies. The cost of working on something solo. Releasing a patch soon.
Wow, first impressions of mmm.page are really good. I'm happy with my personal website but still signed up because I don't want to lose track of this cool little thing.
It lags like hell on my m3 pro macbook pro in firefox tho.
No, not trying it in Chrome.
mmm.page reminds me a lot of https://kinopio.club/ which is one of my favorite "fun" productivity tools
Oh nice- haven't heard of this- checking it out thanks
So is this like Carrd? Not quite getting it after reading through the website...
Its giving me "hatch" vibes which my son and I used until it shut down a month or two ago =-/
This is fine, basically geocities. But you may have a hard time introducing the term "agentic" at a time when AI "agents" are on the rise.
everything is agentic now
wanted to create a profile but am getting a 500 error on this page https://weird.one/login
That's weird.
Same, seems that it is in some way broken at least for now.
[dead]
Pretty formalized for being weird. But I think the most important thing for human beings continuing to have websites (and so weird websites) is to keep HTTP/1.1 and HTTP+HTTPS alive. Without those thing websites are just too fragile for humans to keep going more than a few years. Whereas with those things websites have indefinite lifespans even unmantained. I know the pieces fit, because I watched them fall away: http://superkuh.com/the-pieces-fit.html (a wierd web page). HTTP+HTTPS does work for human person use cases. Even if the profit-seeking corps and institutions want it gone because it doesn't fit theirs.
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.
i immediately stop reading any article when I see the word "interwebs".
very little weird about it
Offline editing?
This gives me a geocities vibe.
Neocities is more like Geocities than this is https://neocities.org/
nice to see "Open Social" on the roadmap (found on GitHub), presumably activityPub support?
Cool project, but I can't understand why they created their own protocol rather than just building this on ActivityPub
the github roadmap alludes to fedi support coming.
https://github.com/muni-town/weird?tab=readme-ov-file#roadma...
The fact that they're trying to cop "smallweb" vibes while being incredibly soulless and flat at the same time is making me. so frustrated. This isn't "weird" in the alt sense, this is "weird" like how you would describe JD Vance.
Hillary Clinton is actively diving her head into her elbow-pit, and we cannot stop her. We can only watch in horror as she destroys the fabric of our universe and merges all that was once "cool" and "hip" into the conglomerate apathetic mainstream.
What does Hilary Clinton have to do with this?
Its someong taking something that exists in culture and is "cool" (dabbing) and doing it in a weird / lame / cringey way.
Similarly this site has a lot of the astehtic trappings and language of indieweb et al. but (IMO) doesn't stick the landing. And it comes off a little as the cool culture being exploited by someone who doesn't get it.
Idk if they're doing it in a greedy or sinister way, like when corporations co-opt social movements or big brands use the "quirky local indie" astehtic. It's probably someone well meaning with different taste than me. But the site does rub me the wrong way regardless
Wow, thank you for the explanation. I was taking it literally and had no idea what the parent was talking about.
i am grateful that at least one person other than me got the memo on my bit lmao
you're right, it might not be intentionally malicious, but it still comes off as wrong due to the visual and mechanical design of the service. if you want to support smallweb, it's better to host a VPS service than a shittier linktree.
idk if I agree, it feels genuine enough to me, plus you can self-host so it's not like they're just trying to own your content.
Their main page didn't say a single bit about their code being open source. I had to dig through the creator's GitHub to find it: https://github.com/erlend-sh/weird
That doesn't really inspire confidence in them wanting people to self-host.
Definitely going for that "used to be a Homestuck fan, probably has a Blåhaj stuffie on their bed" dollar. And that copy rings about as authentically as does the narrator on the Mighty No. 9 trailer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YngbHOz--oc
"Hey! You! Do you like awesome things that are awesome? Then you gotta check out our website, where your profile... is also your website! It's like Wordpress and Notion had a Linktree-shaped baby! Make big tech as mad as an incel gamer on a school-shooting rampage!"
That and the Star vs. the Forces of Evil-inspired art style... think I'll pass.
yeah I can't quite place if this is sinister souless or unfortunate souless - there's no AI or blockchain or obvious monetization - but the vibes are definitely off.
The "barefoot developers" link that they cite as an inspiration is heavily steeped in AI bullshit ("First, that language models will create a golden age of local, home-cooked software and barefoot developers.").
yeahhhh. my current read is that the people making it are good people making it for genuine reasons as a service to the world. So I really don't want to be harsh or discouraging, and I hope it succeeds. but they also read as being surrounded by silicon valley style culture a lot more than most indieweb projects and that is reflected in the tone of the marketing copy and other places.
& fwiw I'm a huge AI hater, but if we _must_ have it, using it to let people make tiny apps for them and their friends easier is about as good a use as there gets. Its a shame to lose the culture of craftsmanship around code itself but if you want to make something your friend will like that's cool even if I'd have done it differently.
yeah, the "Angetic Developers" section of their site feels. very out of place. and it's the main reason why i hate this product lol