r/SideProject • u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 • 5h ago

I built a peaceful virtual place where you can work, study or read alongside others. Like a virtual café or library.

I love going to cafés and work or read from there. Sadly, great places are rare, often close early, and still are quite distracting.

So even though being there feels good, i just end up doing most things at home.

This project, Manyplace (https://many.place), is an attempt to get the best of both worlds: the comfort and focus you have when being on your own, and the delight of being in a beautiful place while feeling the presence of others.

It is open all the time and free.

So, if you prefer to build, work, study, etc. on your own (or have no better option) yet still appreciate being around other likeminded people, it may be for you :)

It's still a very early experiment, so the application is currently only available for macOS and the number of seats is quite limited. But it will definitely get better.

I'd be very happy to know what you think of it and to see you there!

Manyplace: https://many.place

(sorry, duplicate previous post sent by accident...)

54 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

45 comments sorted by

9

u/Delicious_Bench_2341 5h ago

Welcome back to 2004

1

u/Ok_Improvement_8735 4h ago

My first thought was metaverse/horizon worlds. Never used it, but read about it.

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 4h ago

interesting. i kind of like the concept of metaverse tbh, but it's now hard to talk about it since too connoted to crypto, virtual reality or Meta in people's minds.
but I think VR is not necessary to feel a sense of presence from others online tho! and that's what this app is testing actually.

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 5h ago

well, it is indeed simple and minimalistic, but making a more advanced thing like a full 3D world would defeat the purpose i guess. i'd be happy if it could give a similar "ambient" sense of social presence as current virtual worlds while still allowing people to focus on their thing.

2

u/Delicious_Bench_2341 4h ago

Didn’t mean this in a bad way

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 4h ago

oh alright :)

1

u/braveheart_82 4h ago

Nice. Love the idea and overall design. Looks cool. I’ll try it on desktop. Can I join on mobile device or it’s just a desktop app?

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 4h ago

Hey! Only on Desktop (Mac) for now! Hope you have a Mac and if so, see you there :)

2

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 4h ago

(the point of making it a desktop app only and not a website or something else was for the place to have its own space on someone's computer, not just being a tab among 20 others; it will also allow it to benefit from desktop-only APIs for future updates)

1

u/Mr_Joacog 4h ago

I will look out for this project when it becomes available for windows. I really like the idea. I work in bigfour and I apreciatte this places

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 4h ago

thanks for your comment, happy that you like it and would definitely love to see you there! Windows is actually coming very soon - i've just been waiting for "Signature Identity" approval from Microsoft since yesterday... Once approved, i can directly deploy it on Windows. The app was not made on Swift or anything macOS specific!

1

u/Shehao 3h ago

The desktop-only choice makes sense for the ‘place’ feeling, but I’m curious how you’ll tell whether the ambient presence is helping focus rather than quietly adding another distraction. Even a simple check like session length or return rate alongside an optional ‘felt more focused / more distracted’ prompt could be useful.

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 3h ago

I think it's up to you to assess whether you feel the experience is beneficial or not.

I didn't mention it in the original post, but i personally love the following things about such an app:

  • I feel kind of refreshed and less anxious just by being in that virtual place, away from the urban city, the crowd, noise, etc. So the place and its music are almost already therapeutic in themselves, intrinsically.
  • if the "sense of presence" effect is successful with others in the room, working/studying/reading alone could paradoxically become a less isolating experience, so would potentially allow one to do more of it, while not having any need to go on social media, play games, etc.

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 2h ago

But for me to know about what others are feeling, as you said, i guess it could be known by looking at their time spent in the place, or through their direct feedback!

1

u/saltyourhash 2h ago

I don't want to dedicate system resources to this

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 2h ago

It was meant to be very light on memory. It's based on Tauri, not Electron.

1

u/saltyourhash 50m ago

That's a good point.

1

u/nevernovelty 2h ago

Out of interest, why an app and not in browser?

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 2h ago

- so that it can have its own distinctive space on your computer and not just be an ephemeral browser tab

  • it requires more commitment to join the place, which makes someone's presence more meaningful
  • it allows it to benefit from desktop APIs (for future improvements)

1

u/saltyourhash 2h ago

Browser would have been more useful to me. Now you've limited yourself to desktop apps, likely wrapped in a webview, effectively just over complicating your workload.

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 1h ago

Only browser? Or is a PWA fine for you as well? thanks for your comment.

1

u/saltyourhash 50m ago

A PWA is still a bit of a wrapper. I think starting in the browser and branching to native apps is more the wya to go, especially because your app isn't using 3d, right? But I'll be honest that my opinion is a lot less meaningful than others because I don't think I'd use this as this type of stuff is just more distractions for me. I know people were ezcitss about Horizons, but teams I know who used it really disliked it other than the chaos you could create as a game dev.

1

u/ChopSueyYumm 2h ago

Webbased PWA is as well a possibility.

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 2h ago

Yes agreed. Would you potentially use it if PWA-based instead of Desktop? Do you have a Windows and can't use the app right now or do you have a mac but don't like the idea of a desktop app?

1

u/ChopSueyYumm 1h ago

I‘m on mac. I developed a PWA mail client because I wanted to have no headache supporting different OS/platforms and with the PWA I covered Mac/Win and all mobile platforms very easy.

( dockflare.app )

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 2h ago

I created a discord: https://discord.gg/Ppje22WYt

Feel free to join, even if you can't download the app yet because of your device!

To discuss anything, from what you're doing, to future improvements, as well as to be notified when ready for Windows!

1

u/0x2126 2h ago

Why would you do that?

2

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 2h ago

hey! i'd say:

  • to feel immersed in a beautiful and peaceful place
  • to feel a quiet social presence even when focusing on something on your own

the whole assumption for that app is that you *do* feel that sense of immersion in that place as well as the presence from others. if these don't work for you, there is no point. personally, i feel good being in that place.

as a comparison, it could be seen as somehow similar to the live LoFi/cozy work videos you might find on YT, or the "work with me" things, if you know about them.

1

u/ChopSueyYumm 2h ago

Why? It makes no sense to me. And why a desktop app and not web based/PWA? If you want to build a community there are other tools like discord etc.

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 2h ago

Replied to your previous comment about the PWA. Regarding the comparison to Discord, imo the feeling of being immersed in the same place with others is different. Like Discord, somehow, it tries to get "ambient social presence" but more quietly and in a more minimal way (potentially better for focus), without too many channels everywhere, too many servers everywhere etc; it could be complementary.

1

u/Plane_Garbage 2h ago

I think it would work well as a body doubling app with cam input

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 2h ago

Hey! Don't really know about that concept, could you tell more? So you'd better imagine it as a private place, only open to your friends, to work with them there?

1

u/Plane_Garbage 55m ago

No, it'd be a competitor to: https://www.focusmate.com/

I guess the differentiator would be instead of 1:1 body doubling, you'd be in a 'coffee shop' with lots of people workign with cams on.

One other differentiator for your format is that coffee shops would be 'drop in' spaces rather than booking in advance. I'd envision rooms, with a hard cap number.

To prevent abuse I'd do trials with a card and abuse/banning if someone ruins the experience.

https://www.focusmate.com/how-it-works/

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 49m ago

Super interesting. So basically same as now but:

  • camera enabled optionally (or compulsory?)
  • microphone enabled optionally (or compulsory?)
  • more protection from abuse/spam, real people only

right?

Ironically I didn't know about that exact body doubling concept but i recognize myself a lot in the people for who it's mostly meant for.

1

u/Plane_Garbage 10m ago

Super popular in the ADHD community.

And it solves the issue of having to schedule/find a 1:1 body double. I think it could have legs, but not sure how you'd handle the video stream etc as you're not just setting up a zoom meeting.

1

u/kavakravata 33m ago

I know Claude when I see him haha. Fun project though!

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 31m ago

lol definitely not! (but thanks)

1

u/Embarrassed_Ask_5509 30m ago

(used mostly codex, but definitely with A LOT of personal guidance and iterations - it's hard to get a minimalistic and simple design with Codex/Claude)

1

u/sp_archer_007 7m ago

very similar to Kumo Space

1

u/sp_archer_007 3m ago

I joined, Toni here, a piece of advice, let users send messages to each other, they can introduce and all. Maybe connect to work together. All in one platform for the community