333focus
This is an image-based social media platform alternative to replace instagram. It's decentralized, self-hosted, and organizes information in a way that encourages users to think about what matters most to them, instead of just posting about what is "happening now".
Rather than a newsfeed, with a rapid onslaught of posts competing for your attention, 333focus keeps things focused by narrowing down how many pictures each user displays. Think of it more as a few shelves in your living room displaying a curated collection of photos, except instead of photos you might have your favorite memes, posters of your favorite concerts, or infographics about the causes that matter most to you. Whatever categories you decide. There are 9 "galleries", so you can choose 9 topics. And each gallery contains 9 pictures.
Staying Focused
As companies battle for our attention, the 333focus layout helps users stay focused both as users hosting their own gallery, and viewers browsing other people's galleries.
The geometry of 333focus puts emphasis on certain pictures, and certain galleries. So, by choosing which galleries and which pictures you're putting first, you're not just showing the world random crap you just posted, but the things that are most important to you. This means, by setting up a 333focus, you're being forced to ask yourself: What is most important to you? What do you really want people to see, or hear about, not just right now, but in general?
By choosing to show each other the things that matter most to us, and curating our online presence with care, we're helping each other take back our attention. If we refuse to get caught up in the battle of posting whatever gets the most attention, and instead post about the big picture stuff that we actually care about, we can win our attention back from the popularity contest that mainstream social media has brainwashed us with, and start focusing our own attention and each other's attention back towards things that actually matter in the grand scheme of things.
The Layout
There are 3 types of "focus" that users can choose from.
Deep-Dive view
This is the default view, and can be accessed by clicking the single-square icon. This shows you one image at a time, and you will be shown all 9 images of their first gallery - but you will not be shown even a glimpse of any other gallery hosted by that user.
The "deep dive" view gives users a chance to go in-depth about one topic in their first gallery. This means, if there is a single topic which you wish you could explain to someone if you had the chance, that's what would go in your first gallery.
Skim view
The "skim view" is activated when the user clicks on the four-squares icon. This gives you a shallow snapshot of the user's first 4 galleries. You won't have to go to the bottom of any rabbit holes, because you won't see all 9 images of any of their galleries. You'll only see the cover pictures of the first 4 galleries, and when clicked on they will only show you the first 4 pictures of that gallery.
Big Picture view
Finally, there's the "big picture" view. Often users only switch to this view once their curiosity has been piqued, and they want to see more from that user. This shows all 9 cover pictures of all 9 galleries, and within them all 9 pictures of that gallery.
The Numbers
By the limitations imposed by the platform, every user has a total of 9 galleries, with up to 9 pictures each, making up a maximum of 81 pictures. By limiting the number of galleries, and number of pictures, the users are forced to decide what matters most to them. So the position they choose for certain pictures and galleries can't help but tell a tale of what's important to them, and share that importance with other users.
The "skim" view gives browsing users a chance to reduce the amount of distractions they'll see, and allows them to quickly surf many topics, viewing at most 16 pictures per other user. It also emphasizes that these first 4 galleries will be the 4 most important topics that user wants to draw your attention to, and each topic gets just the first 4 pictures to try and entice you to read on. It also means the top four pictures of the first gallery are the only pictures which show up in every view, so these first four pictures must be the absolutely most important thing that user wants to share with the world. For this reason, "skim" can also be used to view only 4 images from each user, so this can be the most efficient way to browse the 333focus network.
The "deep-dive" is only 9 images, so it's a good way to browse the 333focus network and actually give each user a chance to complete their thoughts on a single topic - and since there's no preview images of any other galleries you won't be distracted and enticed to keep browsing their other galleries (unless the first gallery is so freaking interesting you decide to see what else is important to them). Although the "skim view" shows the fewest images at a time, and you can get away with seeing only 4 of a user's images, the "deep-dive" can still be the most efficient way to browse for meaning since you can't be enticed to click on any other galleries, so you only have access to 9 images instead of 16, or all 81.
Philosophy
Using this layout, posts and images are only listed by order of importance. Not a vague concept of what is more liked by more people, or whether it's relevance more closely matches your search, but by order of importance according to the person who posted them. Because there's something very subjective, and very human, about drawing each other's attention to what's most meaningful to us. To what actually matters. No AI algorithm should be deciding where our attention is going, or we'll continue to be unable to address things that actually matter - such as the collective problems like climate change that actually require a bit of everyone's attention, and will continue to go unsolved if everyone remains perpetually distracted and "entertained".
The philosophy of this model is to rethink how social media redirects our attention, re-examine all those tricks and techniques social media algorithms use to hold our attention, and then turn every one of those techniques on it's head to get the opposite effect. The result is a social media platform that let's users decide for themselves how deep they want to get sucked in by choosing which "focus" they'll use to browse. It also takes any decisions formerly made by profit-motivated A.I. and puts it in the hands of the users. For instance, instead of recommending random users based on algorithms that are trying to keep you stuck on the platform, the platform leaves it up to the users who they decide to recommend next.
Humane Technology
Say goodbye to the endless scroll. You'll never have more than 9 pictures to scroll through before you get to the bottom of a user's page. There you can decide whether to click on another gallery, or check out another user that was recommended by this one. On the other hand, you could theoretically scroll through one gallery after another, one user after another, but you'll always have the chance to stop and consider where you're headed when you get to the bottom of a page. And instead of slowly being funneled by algorithms to pages with less and less value, each recommendation is hand-picked by the owner of that page so theoretically each click to another user's page could be funneling you towards greater and greater works of art instead. At least the recommendations are being made by humans.
You'll also notice there are no dates or times to distract users. Dates and times emphasize how recent something is, which is often irrelevant to the message, but by posting dates and times everywhere people start to feel like they need to be "first". Whatever is measured signals to users that it is somehow "important", and trains users to want to post "first", post "more", and post "often" to remain relevant. On 333focus, on the other hand, you could just curate a nice gallery to represent what matters to you, and just come change it a bit from time to time when it suits you. It will always be "relevant".
Getting Started
Simply download the files and use the template to organize your own galleries. Each image file is named appropriately after it's position in your galleries, such as C-3.png for image 3 in the 3rd gallery. To put an image into place, simply replace the appropriate image withanother image of the same name. To change the blurb associated with an image, just change the HTML written in the file. If you're changing the blurb for the C-3.png image, the blurb will be named C-3.html so it's all very self-explanatory.
For your surface web instance, just use neocities.org or a similar free hosting website. For your darkweb anchor web instance try to find a similar free web hosting service on the darkweb.
Example website: https://tilde.camp/333focus
* THIS IS NOT UPLOADED TO GITHUB, YET. CHECK BACK SOON.
* (I'm just updating the blank images and little things,
it should be done by June 15th, 2024)
Github: github:openboo/333focus
Please Enjoy
If you appreciate 333focus, you can donate any amount using paypal, but only if you really want to!