Some quick updates on the status of https://www.starterpacks.net and announcing the new project that I am working on!

Since the last update, the crawlers have been crawling—HEAVILY—accessing the site over 24M 👀 times. Needless to say, my Vercel bill is going to be a little higher this month, but 🤞 it will be worth it. Since the last update where the number of indexed pages jumped from 3k to 17k, since the last episode that number rose as high as 45k indexed pages, but recently dropped a bit to 34k.

I think the indexes is going to be a bit of a cat and mouse game, but my hope is that more indexed pages will generally be better for driving more organic traffic to the site. As the crawlers are crawling, I am working on some articles that will showcase some of the features, and also focus on some keywords that I am going to try to start ranking for. So, no new feature development for now, but going to see how traffic to the site goes over the next couple of weeks as I focus on SEO and content.

On the development front, new things are in full swing on a new project that is also focused on the Bluesky platform and community. The project called, Skylounge, and it can be found at https://www.skylounge.social. The goal is to build a X/Twitter Spaces alternative for Bluesky, that also embraces all the things I love about the open web.

Over the last week I have been streaming the development of the project, with the goal of sharing the process and approach that I am taking for the app, along with trying to multiply the return on my effort of building. So far it has been going pretty well, but I am really looking at these live streams as an opportunity to do some co-working with people, so if you have a project you are working on and want to share what you are doing during the live stream, I am down to share your work and even have you jump on the stream—if you want!

My goal is to launch the initial version of the site on Release Day, happening Friday, May 30. If you have something you have been working on—or putting off—maybe you want to use some social accountability to fuel getting it down. You can find out more about Release Day here: https://www.creativequests.world/releaseday

Ok, I have been rambling on. If Skylounge sounds interesting and you want to be one of the early people to sign-up and help me test it out, please go to the site and sign-up to be included on the mailing list I will be using to share updates: https://www.skylounge.social

To follow along, you can find me at https://www.ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com (https://bsky.app/profile/ryanhefner.com) and keep up with the show on https://www.allplay.fm and @allplay.fm (https://bsky.app/profile/allplay.fm).

Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM (https://transistor.fm/?via=allplay)
Fathom Analytics (https://usefathom.com/ref/EKONBS)

#buildinpublic #podcast #startups #webdevelopment #webdesign #bluesky #indiedev #bootstrapping #indiehackers