Show HN: TownSquare, a tiny presence layer for websites

(townsquare.cauenapier.com)

79 points | by cauenapier 14 hours ago

18 comments

  • winddude 3 minutes ago
    interesting. i'm appearing as a grey guy not the orange guy like your blog says
  • afpx 14 minutes ago
    There was a thing from the 90s kind of like this called Third Voice. It was a cool idea, but I remember there being a lot of backlash from brands.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Voice

  • lambdaone 2 hours ago
    I just took a look at the page's own 'town square'. At the moment, it's largely full of people saying offensive things for the sake of it.
    • trollbridge 1 hour ago
      Within about 300ms I thought “moderation is going to be a problem”.
    • dools 1 hour ago
      So it’s a twitter plugin?
  • hallman76 20 minutes ago
    I've always wondered if we could find a way to add content website's content without it turning into a shitshow. MLS listings / Zillow is an interesting use-case. A realtor might describe something as "sun-filled" but omit that the home is next to a 24/7 dump truck repair warehouse.
  • ArcaneMoose 10 minutes ago
    Really cool but should limit # of people shown when there are too many. Currently it gets really laggy
  • patcon 1 hour ago
    I've been playing with presence too...! I def am thinking about using it more for real-time motion communication (which is largely missing from web) rather than text (which is very overrepresented, and where most moderation comes in).

    I was toying with the idea of making a little crowd representation sticky at the bottom, like watching a screen together :)

    Regardless, I love concepts like this. Thanks!

  • monkeymeister 2 hours ago
    Neat idea! It's simple but very effective - and I really enjoy the detail of the benches and the tree. Very nice.

    I wouldn't add it to any of my sites due to the unmoderated nature of it - seeing some fairly unsavory things in your demo - but that's just a little tweak, I'm sure!

    • wahnfrieden 1 hour ago
      openai has a free moderation endpoint. no reason to not use it.

      edit: downvoters either know something I don't about its unsuitability, or have outdated info on it and think it's against terms to use it for reasons unrelated to GPT. it's not against terms.

    • sourcegrift 2 hours ago
      If your website attracts such elements perhaps there's a reason?
      • DougN7 1 hour ago
        The demo is attracting the HN crowd and it’s getting… well, let’s just say this crowd is about as good as it gets online.
  • oraziorillo 1 hour ago
    I love the idea! The next step is to add role play games in town squares.
  • mirkofr 53 minutes ago
    Maybe adding rooms will be a good move
  • zhxiaoliang 41 minutes ago
    I enjoyed the design.
  • loloquwowndueo 2 hours ago
    > NOTE: This project has been mostly vibe-coded

    I deeply appreciate the honesty here. I’ll pass based on the vibecodedness of it but perhaps it won’t be a dealbreaker for others.

    • lolptdr 2 hours ago
      Is it the philosophical reason you refuse to engage or is it because you don’t trust the security of this project?
      • brody_hamer 1 hour ago
        Easy come, easy go. I find most vibe coded projects are abandonware.

        Also, in this context, security.

  • amatecha 1 hour ago
    Oh what the heck? That's super cool! Awesome idea. Possible future enhancement: some basic day/night (or even weather?) design elements that match the timezone of the person whose site it is? Still, doesn't even need it, it's really cool as-is!

    I could see it being used as some avenue for saying toxic stuff, so I'm suddenly feeling like the only allowed actions should be ones that can never be harmful (like text interactions are just choosing from a pre-set list)..

  • vitorbaptistaa 2 hours ago
    This is amazing! Congratulations on the launch. Repository link somewhere?
  • lellow 2 hours ago
    haha nice project! I stayed there for a couple of minutes and had such a good time!
  • mkl 2 hours ago
    Not really a square if it's 1D - everyone ends up on top of each other.
  • cyanydeez 2 hours ago
    would make more sense with webrtc.
  • sourcegrift 2 hours ago
    First saw this on lobste.rs . Great idea, perhaps allow for a little customisation? I'd like minimal animation, just a counter of present people and a green dot that vibrates when someone is typing. Clicking either opens a chat box with last 20 minutes.
  • melvinczyk 2 hours ago
    I like the idea of this like a town square for websites. Nice job