Anton Röhm had huge plans for the summer season of 2020. Then a highschool senior in Germany, Röhm was about to complete up his research, and needed to journey the world. The concept, he says, was to “get new experiences earlier than beginning college.”
Then COVID hit Germany, and the world shut down. Touring grew to become not possible, and Röhm—who discovered to code when he was 13—was all of the sudden caught at dwelling. “I made a decision to go all in on my coding tasks, and take a look at new stuff,” he says, “only for enjoyable.”
A kind of tasks was an try and recreate MySpace. Keep in mind: Röhm was 18 in 2020. MySpace launched when he was nonetheless in diapers, and it had fizzled out into virtually nothing earlier than Röhm even entered highschool. However the social community had taken on a mysterious place in Röhm’s thoughts, as a vestige of a previous digital period.
So, he determined to try to recreate it utilizing static HTML and CSS. He managed to nail the look of the nascent social community, and initially posted about his work on Twitter and Reddit, the place it gained traction.
There was one downside: It wasn’t usable. However folks had been clamoring for it. Röhm received the primary inkling that his COVID facet challenge would possibly grow to be one thing larger shortly after launching. “Within the first few weeks, there have been over 2,000 or 3,000 customers already, which was loopy,” he says. “I didn’t count on something like what occurred with SpaceHey. It type of hit a nerve with the folks on-line. I didn’t count on it to develop that shortly.”
Seeing the challenge’s potential, Röhm I began engaged on the backend and infrastructure, including small options practically each day. The primary model, launched in 2020, allowed customers to log in and edit their profile identify and outline. Throughout college holidays—he started his research in 2022—he works on the challenge virtually full-time; when courses are in session, he squeezes in a number of hours between examine and socializing. (Merch gross sales assist fund its maintenance.)
Röhm admits that as the positioning has grown, moderation has grow to be extra of a urgent want—however in his case, tackling spam slightly than hate speech. (He’s helped in that regard by a team of five volunteer moderators.) A report function was applied early on, permitting customers to flag inappropriate content material to the moderation workforce.
Nevertheless, the way in which that SpaceHey—and MySpace earlier than it—is designed helps tamp down on the sorts of inappropriate conduct which have blighted the present crop of mainstream social media platforms like X, and pushed some customers from them. “There’s no algorithm on SpaceHey, no likes, no feed,” says Röhm. “Folks can use it each time they like.” And the customization of profiles, much like MySpace, permits customers to be happy to precise what they need, and works as a means of heading off any battle.
In August, the community crossed the million-user mark. Now 22, Röhm has turned the fervour challenge into one thing extra significant and long-lasting. He launched SpaceHey’s cellular app for iOS and Android in late 2023, and continues engaged on function parity between the app and web site, in addition to enhancing usability.
He additionally has new options in thoughts, some impressed by MySpace and others that deliver the old-school platform into the current day. “I’m engaged on bringing all of the options from the web site into the app and enhancing every little thing,” he says. “I’m additionally engaged on some new options I haven’t seen wherever else.”
However he’s eager to maintain a degree of distinction between SpaceHey, which echoes an easier, extra civil time on social media, and the present crop of platforms that some argue search to polarize folks. “My objective for SpaceHey is to have a secure, pleasant surroundings for everybody,,” he says. “I’m additionally attempting to be completely different than Fb or X or no matter. There’s no content material sucking you in on a regular basis and demanding your consideration.”