I'm excited to share this and think at least a few of you might have good fun with it.
The Flexible Internet Treasure Map (FITM) is a bit like oldschool del.icio.us and StumbleUpon. It's all about sharing and organizing the best of the Internet using a folksonomy link tagging system while allowing hierarchical sorting based on user ratings and some other filtration methods to quickly find what you want and avoid what you don't. It's not a web crawler--links are added manually by humans. There's an /about page with more details if you're interested.
I think it could be both useful for targeted searches and fun for non-specific rabbit-holing.
This idea comes from a craving for more nuanced online sources and more reliably valuable recommendations than what search engines have been able to offer recently. I see a lot of users on HN and other sites commenting with similar distaste for the blandness of the modern Internet, reminiscing about what it was like in the 90s and 2000s. I didn't see the 90s Internet, but growing up immersed in the 2000s Internet was magical. (Though also occasionally horrifying as a kid without much sense for what to steer clear of.) It was alive with creative surprises. I want to help bring back that Internet, especially for young people today who don't know what they're missing.
I've added a handful of links that I think are pretty cool which hopefully will be new and enjoyable for some of you. Some are admittedly sourced from browsing HN, and HN itself is on there, so maybe those won't be so new. But I'm most eager to see what YOU all think are the best hidden gems out there on the Internet.
Happy treasure hunting!
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...and as a quick disclaimer, I am NOT the best dev here or even close. This is actually my first project that I think might not completely suck. But it certainly may have some bugs. When you find one, please shoot an email to fitm-contact@proton.me and I'll work on getting it fixed ASAP.