Turn your site into a place people can bump into each other

AndrewKemendo

Fun! There’s a lot of features there to play with and it acts as a real time view counter. Interestingly I used it then left without even reading the article

ranger_danger

Now this is cool! I'd love to see something like it on most web pages as a way to interact with like-minded people... but then I start thinking about all the ways it's going to be abused and get sad.

0xkistu

Previously discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48608570 Really love the idea!

graypegg

> The goal wasn't to build another social network. > It was to bring back a small feeling that the web used to have: the sense that there are actual people on the other side of the screen. > Town Square is intentionally tiny and forgetful. There are no accounts, no profiles, no follower counts, no permanent chat history. Messages exist only while people are there to read them. Cute idea! But maybe this is just me having a different experience, but people having accounts/permanence was one of the defining “old web” feelings people keep talking about. A few people that were always in comment threads, or people with their own blogs linking back to you etc. People didn’t have the sign guestbooks with the same info every time, but they would anyway because they’re building up a persona. I get that you don’t want any social-media-y popularity contests, but… that is sort of what the web 30+ years ago was like.

thomastjeffery

Fun! People in a town square still have identities. They are just likely to not know each other. I think this is a significant part of a great idea. What it, and most/all other communication software is missing, is the ability to continue a conversation into a new context. It would be great to move a convo from the public square into a shop, then maybe share contact info to get together another day.

SoftTalker

Not sure how this is appealing at all. I see a bunch of stick figures moving rapidly and comments flashing too quickly to read. I gave up as it wasn't obvious at all what to do or how to particpate.

xuhu

I hope sites that just provide a way for people to assemble offline will be the new thing soon. A photography guide's site that rallies amateurs for walk tours. A planning board for a foreign language practice group. A site with a schedule and registration form for a sports event. When I read "online social" my head thinks "not-really social".

pflenker

Reminds me of m favorite late 90s messenger, Odigo[0]. It had some sort of radar which showed you people who were visiting the same site. It sure had this town hall feel, but admittedly most sites were simply empty. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odigo_Messenger

oceliker

Reminds me of the old ff0000, sadly no longer active, but this is what it looked like: https://www.reddit.com/r/lost_websites/comments/11lao71/ff00... I had found it on StumbleUpon. We'd log in with friends and just fly around, explore, punch each other, chat with random people across the world on a surprisingly fluid multiplayer setting that was built to promote a web advertising agency (if I remember correctly). It was really ahead of its time. The old internet was so fun.

truemoose

I love it, and I just want to say thanks for making this and releasing it. I jumped through the indieweb webring and already stumbled onto another site using it too. Despite what some others have said about the lack of permanence, this still feels like an old web treasure to me even if it didn't exist.

peab

This is awesome

sam_hosseini

This is so much fun! Thanks for making this!

danvoell

took a spin, pretty cool. Does it record convos? As a site owner, I would want to know what people were chatting up. As a web surfer, I like the anonymity of it.

freak42

There are 6 (!) posts about this in the last 15 days, can we not let it rest a bit?

ncr100

Question for the developer, have you played the Playstation video game Journey? The spoiler about it is, that while you adventure from one end of the land to another, and you encounter other sort of people looking players, it turns out that those are actually people and, at the end of the game you get a credits roll list with the PlayStation Network handles for each of the players that you encountered. There is no communication other than moving your character. It's delightful. Anyhow, that subtle engagement is in my opinion quite valuable.

canadiantim

But then you have to deal with social media regulators and arbiters and be subject to untold liability

linsomniac

Oh, my sweet summer child... Really cool idea that I'd be reluctant to enable for any of my sites because I assume that it would just be used for people to be awful. Maybe I'm just still traumatized by Playstation Home? A group of my friends all got Playstation 3s together, and we all decided to try Playstation Home, a town square for people to meet. The group met up and then spent the next few minutes being accosted by one a-hole after another. Or maybe it's the github issue I had to delete today because of someone being a big, giant jerk. TBF: I went to this town square and people were civilized, so maybe there is some hope for humanity. ;-)

acrophiliac

Personally, all the animations of stick figures moving and jumping is slightly annoying and offers little valuable information. I might enjoy something like showing a person's national flag (for where they are logged in from), or a timer for how long they've been on the site. Instead of the "street" metaphor for the graphic (benches, trees), maybe a Mercator Projection that locates an emoji at each person's location.

RobotToaster

Would be great as an overlay for a livestream.

sisve

Pure fun. Love it.