I think groups should behave like channels on IRC. It will be a static IRC, very much static, but very much similar.
Think about it, IRC is the king of chat, if you want a chat application for friends, IRC is a perfect canvas (until proven otherwise).
There are still a few things I need to work out but essentially, the html (already) looks like this:
Off to a good start!
Here is how Sharup currently looks like. Obviously at this current stage, things are likely to change a fair bit. Eventually the most recent links and such will appear on the front page.
Well, hello and welcome to Sharup.com.
I need to start by explaining where this whole project started.
I never quite got into Twitter. It seems to me that Twitter is this sort of ego-centric Me-Me-Me expression of the self. It’s not really sharing things with friends, it’s a constant reminder to them how important one’s life is right now.
Then a bit further, we have Tumblr and we get into the world of micro-blogging. Tumblr is awesome. I love it. Only thing, which I find really surreal, is their choice of not having a search engine. So let’s say you use it for a year, suddenly you’re after something you posted 6 months ago. Good luck finding it! I’m sorry, but it makes it a fun-media, not a serious one due to that handicap.
After that, we have screem.us. When I first saw it, I saw it as something in between Tumblr and Twitter. It had the essential. Only two big problems: it’s god-damn ugly as, and it’s really hard to get into (complex, nerdish). It has the right ingredients, a slightly skewed concept but the execution is, well, rubbish.
After that you move towards blog engines. Mini-blogs, Macro-blogs. From all ends it just seems simpler to install Wordpress. It’s a macro-blog do-it-all with extensive feature sets and plenty of plugins, but you might as well use it rather than a small blog engine which: 1- could disapear tomorrow, 2- documentation sucks, 3- just has a learning curve.
In other words, I wasn’t my happy self. Things get lost in emails, over time, and as good as gmail rocks, it has its limits.
I wanted something that was close to Tumblr, but that had a search engine, and also comments. I think it’s important that people can bounce ideas around and not just a self expression of the ego-centric self. Micro-blogging without comments is a very lonely media. Even Twitter has turned into a mess of @nickname to respond to each other… making it feel like you never quite know what people talk about, sigh.
As usual, the demand directs the product.
Comes in, Sharup. I was looking for a name that was between sharing, web, blogo something and upload. I don’t know how I came up with that name but the .com was free so I jumped on it. It’s short, it’s snappy, and it sounds like shutup. It suits me perfectly :P
I want Sharup close to Micro-Blogging, but I’d like to think that it pushes towards mini-extranets. It allows friends or colleagues, to share stuff and acts as a repository of ideas, discussions, links and such. So, between blogging, sharing and extranet. Far from twitter, far from blogs, closer to tumblr and extranets/repository of information.
And it’s here. Sharup.com. I’d love to see you use it and share stuff with me.