Posts, brand refresh, dark mode, and more!
Booklet update - December 31, 2021
It’s been a little over a month since my last Booklet update. But, I’ve been working hard and making steady progress.
I’m a couple of weeks away from a minimum product that other people can try. Perhaps my next update will be posted to Booklet instead of on Substack!
What’s Booklet?
Booklet is an app for private communities. It enables discussions, announcements, and member directories for social groups, professional networks, and even companies. It’s built for calmness and privacy. Instead of a million unread messages, posts are threaded and asynchronous, and you get one email summary of everything that happens each day. Instead of selling your data and barraging you with ads, it’s a simple subscription product built for utility.
Today people use Slack, Google Groups, or Facebook Groups as ad-hoc community tools. Slack groups are hard to keep up with. Google Groups are powerful, but hard to use. And, Facebook groups are built to keep you on looking at ads.
What’s new since the last update?
Updated brand colors
I updated the colors of the brand to be more grayscale and neutral. I did this because some group logos didn’t look good alongside the old purple-ish palette. The idea with these new designs is that the colors and designs of the group logo can “pop” more. (Compare to the old designs here).
Dark mode 😮
With the brand update, I decided to implement dark-mode compatibility for the entire app:
Group posts ✍️
You can now post to a group, including full rich text functionality and images! (I’m still ironing out some of the bugs on image display)
Real-time updates 👀
No need to reload - new posts show up, along with edits, in real time.
Here’s two side-by-side windows, which simulate two different users on a group at the same time:
Other updates
I made some major technical updates, including upgrading to Ruby on Rails 7, Tailwind CSS V3, and replacing Webpack with Importmaps.
I set up terms of service for Booklet. I based them on the open-source terms of service from Basecamp. (The terms are on the Contraption Co. website, which I envision as a holding company for different projects in the future.)
What’s next?
Adding an email digest of new posts
Allowing people to reply / comment on posts
Notifying the right people of comments on posts
Styling the members directory
Launching!
How you can help ⬇️
I’m working on the homepage of Booklet. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts!
Here are a few slogans I’m considering for below the logo - which one do you like most?
Forum and directory for groups
Host your community
Bring people together
Belong to your groups
Also, I tried to use GIFs instead of Loom videos on this post - let me know what you think of them!
Other thoughts ☁️
I have been contemplating the future of online communities with Web3 technologies. If you have any ideas for how Booklet could integrate with these tools - let me know! For example, I could build tools require you to hold a certain NFT to join a group (such as one of the 1,000 PROOF NFTs).
Lenny’s Newsletter had a great post about community building
Thanks, and happy new year 🙏