Django people

Wednesday 23 January 2008 — This is almost 17 years old. Be careful.

Simon Willison and Natalie Downe have launched Django People, a socialish site for discovering users of the Django web framework. It’s heavily geography-based, which makes a nice counterpoint to the existing virtual community, where who knows where people live?

It’s a very nicely done site, with a strong, clean look and smooth interactions. One odd point for US users: the per-state pages (Massachusetts, for example) feature state flags. I’ve lived in Boston for 22 years, and I could not have told you what the Massachusetts state flag looked like!

Small dedicated sites like this are great for their focus on one particular clumping factor, in this case, people who use Django. But I wonder about their future. How many of these niche networks can I be a part of? What will happen as the people in it morph due to changing skill sets, interests, and so on? In these days of Facebook and their exploding catalog of third party applications, what’s the role for bespoke niche networks like Django People?

Comments

[gravatar]
andrew 8:59 AM on 23 Jan 2008
I knew about the state flag because of the YEARLY brouhaha about the fact that there is a GUN on the STATE FLAG. The usual suspects with too much time on their hands file a bill every year to neuter the flag. Buncha pansies.
[gravatar]
Simon Willison 9:06 AM on 23 Jan 2008
I was inspired to include the state flags by Tom Coates' hilarious design review of them from a while ago: http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2006/08/on_the_design_of_american_state_flags/

My big regret about the site is not waiting until I'd finished integrating OpenID before launching - it makes signing up for a niche site potentially much less annoying. I had no idea I'd get this many signups so quickly; I stupidly thought I'd have a bit of breathing room to add OpenID before too many people heard about the site.

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