"Fork the web" jam

[OmarShehata]

A jam where we explore this idea of "forking the web". as in, let's say you enjoy using substack, but you wish it had a mode where your readers can leave notes/questions, that you can then see/or that they can share etc.

Well, you COULD just copy the HTML and tweak it to build that feature on top of it! You don't have to build a whole new platform from scratch! you can just "fork substack" !!

live demo of this: https://defenders-corner.glitch.me/substack/substack.html. tweet

here's a sillier version where it just rains emojis in the article:

https://defenders-corner.glitch.me/substack/substack_party.html

[OmarShehata]

it's sort of an exercise in "what interfaces do you really want to see?"

like, there's a lot of things I give up on building because, it would work only if it had this many users join or if it had a whole platform with it etc. But it doesn't have to be fully fledged/built out. You can just prototype it.

Like, a lot of people want this idea of:

• being able to highlight text, and write a tweet about it
• if you are reading an article, and someone you follow talked about it, you want to see their tweets in context

this requires everyone to share the same browser extension or platform etc. but you can just make a version of this, for 1 article, with 3 of your friends, just to demonstrate how it would look/feel, how you want it to look like. As a way of helping us envision the future.

other people asking for this specific idea:

• https://x.com/tonyaajjackson/status/1810003058539323880

I feel like we could do this with RSS or something. Like, imagine if

• I can "quote tweet" articles and post on mastodon, and that publishes an RSS feed of [my post] + [the article]
• you follow me (on twitter/masto) and that post comes up when you visit that URL

https://x.com/Omar4ur/status/1810358788060278942

[OmarShehata]

the real motivating factor is realizing that, a lot of the web, and products, evolve this way. Not top down from the company, but bottom up, from how users are using it with each other

https://x.com/eshear/status/1800160332113133955

[OmarShehata]

asterisk mag has an interface that lets you add notes!!! https://x.com/DefenderOfBasic/status/1816113580179140760

https://asteriskmag.com/issues/06/better-living-through-group-chemistry#2