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Show HN: Seven39, a social media app that is only open for 3 hours every evening

(www.seven39.com)
735 points mklyons | 4 comments | 11 Mar 25 01:05 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source

I built this site as a quick test if a time boxed social media experience feels better than an endless one. So far I've just been using it with friends and it feels nice, but it seems like it is time to bring it to a larger audience.

Let me know what you think! It is just based on EST for now, sorry.

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simonkagedal ◴[11 Mar 25 06:05 UTC] No.43329622[source]▶
I think it's a really cool idea. I signed up because I had a brain fart and thought that "EST" was "European Standard Time" (I was of course thinking of CET).

So yeah, the current window wouldn't work for me, but that's fine. Everything doesn't have to be for everyone. We all live in our bubbles anyway; creating artificial rules could actually be ways of creating new, unexpected interactions.

This being said – if you were to adjust the rules to accommodate more people, I don't think it should be "open from 7:39 to 10:39 in whatever your local time zone is", because that feels like it would just destroy the whole idea – that everyone is there at the _same_ time. Also, it would still exclude people who work evenings.

An alternative solution would be to have multiple windows. For example, if you have one starting at 7:39 PM EST and another one at 7:39 AM EST, there would be more chances that there is some time during the day for people around the globe to check in. Depending, of course, on many things: time zones, sleep habits, work schedule, ability to briefly slack off during work, etc. It would remain true to the idea while opening up for some more people. Just a thought.

I also think each window could be smaller, maybe like just one hour?

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josephg ◴[11 Mar 25 06:47 UTC] No.43329813[source]▶
> So yeah, the current window wouldn't work for me, but that's fine. Everything doesn't have to be for everyone. We all live in our bubbles anyway; creating artificial rules could actually be ways of creating new, unexpected interactions.

I like the idea that something like this could be open for 3 hours in the evening local time. Like, you'd get totally different communities coming on at different times, and having completely separate experiences together. But some other people would bridge the gap.

While you're online, every hour some people would be forced to leave and some other people could join.

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1. StefanBatory ◴[11 Mar 25 08:42 UTC] No.43330420[source]▶
It was always a small source of joy on Discord to see Americans getting on the server while East Asians would go to sleep, with us Europeans being in the middle. It always feels so cute for some reason I can't explain, but I do love that every time.
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2. josteink ◴[11 Mar 25 11:43 UTC] No.43331483[source]▶
You had this on IRC and the good old phpBB forums back in the days too.

Definitely remembering the appearance of the "morning crew" looking for whatever recent stuff they had missed out on ;)

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3. johncoltrane ◴[11 Mar 25 16:02 UTC] No.43333814[source]▶
s/had/have
4. varjag ◴[11 Mar 25 20:32 UTC] No.43336716[source]▶
Back in late 1990s I had xplanet-rendered sun-synchronous rotating Earth as my desktop background. It had the nicknames of our IRC channel regulars placed at their lat/long… it felt cyberpunk af.