Someplace above the Nice Plains, a digital woodpecker is on its strategy to Alaska to ship a message to my nameless pen pal. On the similar time, a zebra finch named Tucker soars into Manhattan to ship a good friend my shabby doodle of the Cool S.
These messages take hours and even days to ship, relying on how far the hen has to fly, as that’s the purpose of Roost, the viral “slow-cial” app that’s making service pigeons cool once more. Roost arrives at a time when folks crave the chance to slow down and disconnect from the apps that always demand their consideration and are embracing technology that adds friction.
“All the things on a cellphone is instantaneous lately — each single factor you do, it’s such as you’re all the time getting some notification or one thing,” Roost creator Logan Mendelsohn informed TechCrunch. “[Roost] is type of a break from the moment. It’s resonating with folks in a manner the place they don’t really feel strain on a regular basis to need to do one thing.”
While you join Roost, you select 4 birds so as to add to your rookery, which lets you ship messages to your mates on the app.
Every hen strikes on the pace that it travels in actual life, so a falcon will ship a message a lot sooner than a hummingbird. (Sure, not each hen is a service pigeon, however together with different species makes accumulating birds and seeing your mates’ birds extra attention-grabbing.) In the event you actually need to sluggish issues down, you may ship snails or turtles as a substitute.
A senior product supervisor in belief and security at Ticketmaster, Mendelsohn began constructing Roost as a enjoyable aspect challenge to make use of together with his associates, however they liked the app a lot that they inspired him to publish it to the App Retailer.
Mendelsohn’s associates had been onto one thing. The app developed a really small area of interest following, however it began to develop exponentially when a mother posted on Threads about how her daughter was speaking together with her associates in Elizabethan English on an app that sends messages on the pace of precise birds.
Inside three days after that publish, the app grew from 10,000 to 100,000 customers. Now, about 5 weeks later, Roost is about to hit 300,000 customers.
“The individuals are what actually make this platform, and what folks stored speaking about is how healthful it’s, and the way whimsical it’s, and the way a lot this actually helps them put extra intention into what they’re saying to folks,” Mendelsohn stated. “There’s loads much less strain when you recognize that the message isn’t going to somebody instantly that I believe has actually resonated with the person base.”
As a belief and security skilled by day, Mendelsohn is aware of that any social platform — even his harmless hen app — has the potential to be abused. So, by default, solely a person’s metropolis is shared with their associates. You may select to manually allow a “shut associates” function to share your exact location with particular folks, nevertheless.
“I personally suppose that for any new platform that connects folks, belief and security must be the very first thing they give thought to,” Mendelsohn stated. “While you’re in a position to begin at zero with that lens, then you may construct it into the platform as a substitute of doing it later.”
Privateness issues had been additionally entrance of thoughts when Mendelsohn created the “Pen Buddies” function, which lets you trade messages with nameless customers in your age group. When onboarding onto the function, you’re explicitly warned to not give out your precise contact info or private particulars. The app intentionally doesn’t help picture sharing but, as Mendelsohn needs to construct out extra subtle content material moderation instruments first.
Given the sheer measurement and scope of Roost — did we point out there are mini video games? — it doesn’t come as a shock that Mendelsohn has used Claude Code all through its improvement. However the type of folks flocking to Roost are typically people who find themselves fatigued by the state of the tech business, which drove them to hunt out a “slow-cial media” app within the first place.
Quickly, Mendelsohn began receiving an onslaught of complaints from individuals who had been dissatisfied to be taught that he used AI-generated artwork for the photographs of birds.
“On the AI artwork aspect, I utterly understood the suggestions. I received’t lie, it was formidable to see the response on-line, [but] I don’t suppose it’s productive to dig your heels in when your neighborhood is vocal about one thing they take care of,” he stated. “On the similar time, I additionally knew I couldn’t flip a change in a single day. Changing the artwork in an app this measurement takes time, planning, and cash.”
Mendelsohn’s sources are restricted as he continues to work on Roost in his spare time. He has no exterior funding, and the app solely generates income from in-app purchases like additional birds. To deal with customers’ issues about the usage of AI, he’s now working a contest which is able to permit artists to contribute artwork as a substitute. Whereas that has glad complaints for now, the scenario displays a rising pressure within the client app area. Many customers now boycott AI art out of respect for artists, however the scenario with Roost’s vibe-coded app reveals the scenario isn’t all the time cut-and-dried.
“As a solo founder, I don’t suppose I might construct and preserve one thing at this scale with out AI-assisted improvement, however each product choice and path for Roost nonetheless comes from me and the neighborhood,” he stated.
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