Hope you’ve had a good week and enjoyed delicious food. The private beta for NICKEL is almost upon us and I’ve still got a lot to do. However, whether I get through with my task list or not, the beta’s happening (which means I’m going to focus on the onboarding process). Anyhoo, here’s what I’ve been up to since the last dispatch.
screen recording of user-created themes, click through to see it in action, or download the attachment on this email
Remember MySpace? I’m a millennial so I have a penchant for wishing and hoping for the way social media used to be. In those days, you were only as cool as how custom you could make your profile page. People would gatekeep their favorite theme creators, which would encourage others to figure out how to view source and even learn to code. What a time.
20 years later and customization isn’t even a thought. I’ve been in rooms where everyone agreed that users would be "confused" by…having options…and if they wouldn’t, well, we could get hacked (which is a weak-ass argument to me, just code better).
The themeing system I’ve implemented in NICKEL is based on a dope setup by this duo that calls themselves 100 Rabbits (they’re dope, check ’em out). Their themes are eight circles inside of a rectangle and each shape has a color. Your settings dashboard on NICKEL will parse those color values (HEX or OKLCH, and if you supply HEX codes they’ll be converted to OKLCH) when you drag and drop a valid SVG-style theme onto it.
Future enhancements could include a full-on theme studio with accessibility contrast ratios in mind so your theme will look good for everyone using it. I stopped myself from going down a rabbit hole (pun unintended) with this feature and delaying launch so please clap for me.
A competitor approaches!!
Remember Vine? You should, I brought it up in the last dispatch and again, millennial here. Turns out, it’s coming back as diVine! The guy behind it got a grant from one of Jack Dorsey’s foundations and is hard at work trying to recover archived videos. I’m curious to see how it’ll work out…nostalgia’s a helluva thing but we’ll see if it’s enough to bring people back. Building atop the Nostr protocol may sway people who are uneasy about their videos disappearing again. If there’s a monetization strategy, I think it could be successful.
Something diVine gets right is having a stance against AI slop; NICKEL is the same. The site will be updated with such soon but seeing as NICKEL is a paid platform, it’d be really dumb to try peddling slopware here and get your account banned. Keep that crap on Sora, Twitter, and wherever else.
That’s all for now, see you in a few weeks.
— Paul
If you’re a Creator or aspiring to be one, let me know what you need in a platform (here’s my profile, if you want to see how the UI is shaping up). If you know a Creator, let them know about NICKEL! By signing up for the mailing list, you’re also on the waitlist (which makes you eligible for future perks).
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