Hacker News: jdex

New comment by jdex in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (July 2025)"

jdex — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 12:55:23 +0000

Yeah, even calling it anything close to "social media" turns some people off. And most people are totally fine using group chats or DMs — which are free, for now.

It felt weird paying for email after using Gmail for so long. Even now, most people do not care enough in order to justify paying for it. This feels similar.

We can't afford to offer free-forever accounts to everyone - not without compromising on principles. But we are thinking of ways to make it more accessible at least for some people. Open to ideas!

The "social media" baggage, and the pricing bit you pointed, those are definitely the two biggest challenges imo. If this was not something we needed and used ourselves, we probably wouldn't have built it.

New comment by jdex in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (July 2025)"

jdex — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 13:49:13 +0000

Still building https://ongoingthings.com - a way to document and privately share life updates with close people.

I used to post personal updates in group chats - scattered, repetitive, and easy to miss. Now each topic (like raising a child, a trip, a project) gets its own private space - an Ongoing Thing - where updates stay organized.

People get email notifications for new posts. There's no feed, no comments, no ads - just a calm way to stay connected.

We just added Partner Things so multiple people (like two parents) can post to the same thing. Our small user base loves it.

Still figuring out marketing. Until now, it's mostly been word-of-mouth. Feedback welcome!

New comment by jdex in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (June 2025)"

jdex — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 13:20:48 +0000

Building Ongoing Things

https://ongoingthings.com

Most of my personal life updates were shared in group chats. Those chat updates were scattered, repetitive, and for some people easy to miss.

When my son was born, I wanted to start telling his story to the people in my life. I started developing Ongoing Things with a baby in a carrier on my chest.

The app is now where we share the real stuff - raising a child, a trip, a project - each in its own place that we call a "thing", with just the people it's meant for. No feed. No comments. No signup required - people need only an email to follow along.

We have a small user base, and tons of features are still missing. We are working on making it better. Our roadmap includes:

- "Partner Things" to allow few people to share updates to one thing

- E2E encryption for posts

- Customizable layout of posts

- RSS feeds

Would love feedback if anyone is interested in trying it.

Edit: formatting.

New comment by jdex in "Renewing Medium’s focus"

jdex — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 08:51:24 +0000

Haven't listened to it yet, but it seems like this is the mentioned episode http://www.se-radio.net/2016/06/se-radio-episode-261-david-h...