Note: This project has been shut down. See this blog post.
In the ancestral environment, you were only able to socialize with the handful of people in your tribe. Then throughout history, your options grew. Tribes turned into towns, which turned into cities. And then when phones were invented, you became able to talk to almost anyone in the world.
That is really cool. Previously Alice felt isolated in her small town. Now she can connect with people across the world who share her interest in Russian literature.
Unfortunately, doing so isn't as easy as I made it sound. How does Alice actually find the people scattered around the globe who share her interests? Having a phone doesn't help if you don't have anyone to call.
In theory, the internet should help a lot with this problem. You can have people submit their interests, run some code to figure out who has similar interests, and then get them in touch with each other. But in practice, it doesn't really feel like that's happened. I can't think of many people I know who have had meaningful relationships develop due to the internet. Instead, of having a human connection over a video call, The Internet prefers that you keep scrolling through your news feed.
I want to call bullshit here. That is not how things should work.
I doubt that this app will solve the problem outright, but it is a starting point, and hopefully it will help.
Good question. It's pretty simple really. Just answer as many questions as you'd like on the home page, fill in the stuff at the bottom, and click submit.
Then you will receive an email connecting you to other developers who had answers most similar to yours. From there, you guys can set up an introductory video call and take it from there. Zoom, Signal, Google Meet, it's up to you.
True. I do have a vision for something bigger, but I think it makes sense to start small, and programmers seem like a good audience to start with.
Check out the book Digital Minimalism and the Center for Humane Technology.
There is a lot of research on how socializing is really great for both your health and your happiness.
I want to be honest, it's not like I'm aware of randomized controlled trials showing that video chatting "counts" for this. It's just a hunch. It's also a lot easier to find like-minded people when geographic proximity isn't a requirement.
Yes, I have. But I was inspired by Justin Jackson's essay, Words, and that aesthetic felt appropriate here. His point is that the content of a web page is what really matters, and people have gotten side-tracked by fancy designs.
Similarly, I feel that connecting people should be the heart of social networks, but we have gotten side-tracked by things like news feeds. This app isn't going to get side-tracked by that stuff. It's goal is to help you connect with people, and then get out of your way.