Setting the controls for the heart of the Sun
Launches are magical.
They exist in this place where hopes, dreams and the real world meet, and then it can go exactly as good as or bad as you’d expect.
Every time a bunch of people launch something, they make a thesis. An argument for improvement. A better way to work. Had it not been a cliche, an attempt to ‘make the world a better place’.
Even with the consideration of the cynicism around tech, and perhaps especially so because of that, it is valuable to celebrate the launches: some folks, somewhere, are trying to improve things.
So there it goes — our launch of Aether Hosted Universes. It’s available for free at aether.app, and it’s a place for a group of people to work and play together.
It’s like Discord and Reddit merged into one. You have Reddit-like nested threads, but also Discord-like chat. For communities like r/wallstreetbets or r/apexlegends (notice the Discord links on both!), not only it’s a one-stop-shop, it’s also an easier way to grow.
This is because we provide tools to build your community from the start. A non-committed user could come in and leave his or her email. Then you could send weekly updates as newsletters, eventually converting them to a participant that checks your community message board every few days. And some portion of those people will become daily members in your group chat, and become the core of your audience.
For the regular user, this is a win, because it allows them to determine how involved they want to be with your community without having to commit or leave. For the community creator, this is also a win, because it offers a much wider platform to engage with a broader spectrum of users, and allow the community creator a wider reach.
Not everybody has the time to be active in your group chat about mechanical keyboards, but many more people would be interested in getting the occasional newsletter with updates.
If you’re creating a community today, for your interest (like football, or Valorant, or Ducati motorcycles), for your Kickstarter project (like Decent Espresso, Niche coffee grinder), your startup (like the users/support group for your software) or your hardware product (like FPV drones from Shenzhen), there is no better place to do this than on Aether, because we focus on serving not only the users who are dipping their toes into the water about your interest but also the dedicated people responding to questions on Reddit every day, all under the same roof. Other platforms are either for only simpler use cases, and they never go beyond beginner users, or too complex, so new folks have a hard time coming in. Aether is the only platform that can convert a low-commitment newsletter sign-up into a member of your community active on chat every day while serving the entire spectrum of users between them.
It’s free too. In the interest of transparency, our model is freemium. It means we’ll add paid extra features you can enable later on — but the core platform is available for everyone.
We’ve released our first version after two years of development, so give it a shot and let us know what you think! If you want to talk to us and give feedback, please reach out at founders@getaether.net. We’re working hard to make it the best tool that exists for creating and growing communities of any sort, at home or work.
Aether launch celebration, June 2021.
Onwards 🚀
Burak & Benedict
