⚡️The Scribbled Line Toolchest - 2024

Got creativity?

David Nichols

Sep 09, 2024

Hey friends! I hope you’re enjoying the September weather . . .

Here the weather is FINALLY starting to cool down. Today (Saturday) was actually in the 70’s.

Ah - the 70’s. Now it’s time for the 60’s every day.

NOW it’s time to get out the pumpkins, fall decor, and start watching horror movies.

I will try and work through some more found footage stuff this year.

I still need to watch the Hell House spinoff for starters.

Have you noticed that retro cars are starting to make a comeback?

Like, check out this car by Renault. (It’s so epic).

Hopefully, this trend keeps going until most cars start looking “retro.” Maybe, just maybe we’re entering some kind of 10 year trend.

Well - let’s jump in shall we?

⚡️The Scribbled Line Toolchest - 2024 Update

Every year or so - I check in on many of the fun nonlinear/creative tools that I track to see how they’re doing.

New tools, old tools, tools that have ceased to exist . . .

We’re going to look at these by topic, much as we did last year.

📝Writing + Webbing

The newest addition to this little space is the very cool leaflet.pub - a fun and marvelous little document editor but not just any document editor. They’ve already added a way to use it with multiple pages (like a blog), a subscribe function, and more!

Of course - we cannot forget the Bear Blog tool for minimalist blogging. That one is always fun!

Exegesis is also pretty neat - the tagging functionality is quite complex! Napkin is already still around too.

In terms of website building - Mmm.page (my favorite) officially entered 1.0 status a few months ago - and the explore functionality is quite reminiscent of ye olde Geocities. People have made some REALLY cool pages.

Nekoweb is fairly new and very GeoCitiesesque - If mmm.page is the modern “creative website creator” this one really throws it back to the old days.

As for browsing the web, we’re still waiting on the elusive Braid Browser to enter the scene.

AND the ladybird browser - a browser truly built from scratch.

If you’d like a cool browser in the meantime - browser.horse is available for a one-time purchase of $99. I still plan to save up to get this one! The worst part about Chrome is getting lost in the tabs . . .

📱Socialing

Honestly - this space hasn’t changed a lot since last year - to the point where I’m literally going to copy-paste the section and edit it a bit. I’m not being lazy - i’ve got like nothing interesting new here other than Retro.

. . .

Retro is my FAVORITE Instagram alternative - I use it all the time! It’s literally just a daily photo journal, with some goodies like comments, messaging, and real physical postcards. This one I’ve adopted.

Myspace alternative Nospace rebranded to Noplace - and is cranking along.

Shelf tracks what you’re reading/watching/listening to and shares it as a nifty profile.

The Airbuds widget tracks your friends music in an interactive widget on your homescreen, so you can see what your friends are listening to (and vice-versa).

Meanwhile, Pager seeks to do cool stuff with all of our many, many screenshots.

AND - we can’t forget the elusive USB Club, which is quite literally the coolest exclusive social network THAT you literally have to buy a USB from them to access.

I’m deeply intrigued by Moonbounce still - but I think its “defining” win will be in livestreaming. There’s nothing like it on the internet! The same is true of sprout.place - I’m glad this one is still around.

OH - and RIP to Artifact News. They killed it so quickly. I used it quite a bit - but it never replaced my own personal research. The “algo” never quite gave me anything interesting.

And don’t forget Hyperlink Academy! It’s a cool little tool for collaborative learning.

. . .

🎨Infinite Canvas Fun

Kinopio.club remains my favorite in this space. It’s fun, creative, whimsical - and the creator is always adding new features. Kosmik is fun too - but doesn’t quite have the integration structure that Kinopio has.

For example - you can use Phone to Note with Kinopio to send it notes from your phone.

I do a lot of writing - but if I was more “drawing / collage” minded I think I might prefer Kosmik. The browser + pdf feature is really handy too!

Excalidraw continues to impress - it’s my favorite “let me whip up something quick” whiteboarding tool. They’ve added a lot of new features to the pro plan - so it’s the only Kinopio alternative I’d consider as a paid alternative.

Muse is still going too! Hopefully the special sales and its addition to Setapp have helped it stay afloat.

Both of these tools have avoided the “AI rush” that others in the space have embraced. Mymind feels like a smart bookmarking personal brain tool these days.

TLdraw is experimenting with AI additions, if their Twitter/X profile is any gauge.

As far as “death” is concerned - Landing.space is shutting down in a few days. I’m sad to see it go - but with Pinterest’s Shuffles app as competition, I can’t say I’m surprised. However, I’m excited to see what their new “Zeen” platform is all about!

Deta.space is also (this one had some neat ideas about workspaces) in its last month - but they’re now working on a new idea called deta.surf.

AS ALWAYS - as we do each year we must LAMENT the loss of muze.chat - the coolest nonlinear messaging app that ever existed.

🤖Actually Cool AI Stuff

This is a brand new category this year! There’s an overwhelming amount of image generators, text generators, video generators, and the ilk but there are only a few - very few “creative” AI apps.

The chief (and OG) of these is Websim. Simulate a web that doesn’t exist, or try to build a game, app - honestly whatever your heart desires. Hop in Websim, type in a random website domain, and see what AI spins up. It’s WILD.

(Want a starting place? This creator has made some WILD stuff - from chess to an actual DAW)

Along with Websim, we also have Windows 9x, a Windows-themed app generator where you can “hallucinate” whatever you’d like.

My current favorite is Webclips - where you can make your own apps. It’s a lot more intentional than the wild west of Websim or Windows 9x. (Is it just me or was that a lot of “W” names).

Information Hunting

Only a few things new here.

Gather.directory is pretty interesting - a “message yourself” type database for archiving.

Plinky is also pretty interesting - basically the bookmarking solution for “casuals” who don’t have the patience for Raindrop. Great marketing if you ask me - there really hasn’t been a good bookmarking tool aimed at the casual internet user.

Raindrop is still king of the bookmarking tools and Fabric is turning into some kind of Kosmik/MyMind all-in-one type tool.

AS for social bookmarking - sublime continues as the king of this space. I don’t have a flow for using the tool - but I think it’s well built, awesome, and will use it when I can figure out how to make it part of my flow.

🐙The Land of Random

It’s random link time, isn’t it?

Volv* - TikTok for Smart People

*partnership with The Land of Random

Volv is a Snapchat-backed social news app that consolidates the most important, viral, and interesting content from around the web into 9-second stories that you can just scroll through like social media. Users call it “TikTok for smart people”, since they use Volv instead of TikTok and Insta to discover quality content that they would’ve never read otherwise. So far, users have read 60 million stories on the Volv app!

Here’s a code you can use to get Volv Premium free for a month: VOLVLR

Get Volv