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Important Note

This is alpha quality software at the moment. We're not sure what it might do. As with all new web applications, safety first. Know your evacuation routes. Prepare a go bag. Make sure you have fresh batteries and your towel. Secure your oxygen mask first, then help others. If it turns into a giant wheel or an amorphous alien blob and starts rampaging down a major city street, don't run in a straight line in front of it.

In short, if Jumpline breaks, you get to keep the pieces. At least until we fix it.

The Other Important Note

Jumpline will always be free for users. Jumpline will always have a fee for publishers. We will not put ads in the feed list. The reasons for this are covered below.

Publishers who join before beta will have the option to attach a "Founder's Badge" to their feeds in exchange for their first year's fee.

This badge will be permanent and limited only to accounts that joined prior to a specified date. It will never be available again afterwards.

We want an eager audience for publishers to reach. We want our publishers to be invested in their participation. At the same time we want those publishers to be able to monetize their participation by creating value on their own. Jumpline won't compete with you.

What the--?

Long ago, publishers of web sites invented something called a "blog." It was a simple concept. A blog (short for "web log") contained articles organized in reverse chronological order, meaning the latest item was at the top of the list. To read a blog, a guest would navigate to the author's web site. An industry rapidly grew around this idea. It was the fusion of technology and the news.

About the same time blogs became popular, a technology called RSS or "Real Simple Syndication" was invented. Syndication means publishing or broadcasting the same content in many places. Most people will recall this term being used to describe television shows. A "syndicated" TV show could appear on many different stations at times set by the station itself. One of the most famous examples of syndicated television was Star Trek. It wasn't all that popular when it was on the NBC network, but once it was syndicated, it became so popular it launched multiple film series and numerous other TV shows.

Syndicated blog articles use a similar concept: articles from one blog are published on many sites at the same time.

RSS standardized this practice and automated the process of compiling something called a "feed" so a blog author could package their headlines, images, excerpts and article copy in a standard way so other sites could publish it using a common protocol. This was all accomplished without the involvement of a central platform. It was peer-to-peer sharing, very much like email. Nobody controlled it.

When a syndicated blog publishes a new article, all of the sites that are "subscribed" to that blog's feed get the new article automatically. There's no extra effort required on the part of the blog author or the sites where the feed is syndicated and re-published. It is an extraordinarily powerful technology.

Jumpline is a site that gives publishers the ability to include their feed in a common directory. Users can browse the directory and sample feeds, then they can select which feeds they want to follow. All of a user's feeds are combined into a single list with articles and works presented as in reverse chronological order from one or more publishers.

In the directory of all publisher feeds, the list is randomly shuffled on each page load, so every publisher gets an equal chance to appear at the top. The "Panic Button" chooses feeds completely randomly.

Why Bother?

The Internet was never meant to be contained inside six sites. The whole point of the web was for many sites to link to many sites in a resilient structure that makes it possible for users to discover information and creativity at their own pace. By now we've all experienced the alternative. If you're a publisher, you get to decorate someone else's web site. Then that site monetizes your hard work while grudgingly allowing you marginal visibility measured with an eyedropper. In other words, as a publisher you give away your hard work and get nothing.

Or they charge you a dollar a click for traffic with a 98% bounce rate (and force your creative to look like everyone else's) and call it "advertising."

Jumpline offers you an alternative. As a publisher you pay a nominal annual fee. You publish your creative works like you normally would. You syndicate your updates into a blog-style feed using reliable, easy-to-manage technology. Your feed is added to the directory along with others from around the world. Users discover your feed and follow it. You get visibility at exactly the same rate as all the other publishers. Everyone gets an equal chance to be seen.

Users will come to your site, because that's what your feed will link to. It's the Internet the way it was meant to be. You and the people who like your work, with no interference of any kind by other platforms. We are completely immune to slop, shadowbans, manipulation, fake traffic and bots.

Isn't This Just Another Social Media Site?

Jumpline is not controlled by an algorithm. If a user selects a publisher's feed, they see everything that publisher shares in real time. Every feed has exactly the same chance of being discovered by users. Why, it's almost like all the sites are connected in a "web" or something. Imagine that!

This Has to be a Scam. Are You Collecting Emails to Sell to a Timeshare?

Jumpline belongs to a ragtag team of veteran web developers and artists that has been on the Internet longer than Amazon, Craigslist or the Wayback Machine. If we wanted to collect email addresses to sell we would have started 30 years ago and retired in 2006.

Jumpline needs your email address so we can send you secure login links. Even if you decide to be a paid publisher, we never see your financial details. We do not share your data with anyone.

We built Jumpline to make being creative easier and to make the web more fun.

How Much is This Going to Cost Me?

We're planning to charge a few bucks a month max. Publishers will probably be billed annually. Users can join for free. We need to charge publishers because without a fee, this thing will be overrun by stupid in about four days.

Let's put it this way: It's going to be a lot less expensive than the buck-a-click casino.

There's No Payment Links Yet?

For the time being, Jumpline is free for publishers too. Publishers who join between now and the launch of the beta (and stick around) will have unique Founder's Badges next to their feeds. Those badges will only be available to early publishers and will never be available again after beta. They will make your feeds just a bit more noticeable as a reward for being an early supporter.

What Happens After Alpha?

Data will be subject to modification or deletion until further notice. Keep track of your own information and back up your links and the publishers you want to follow for now. Don't rely on the site for anything important yet. This is basically the equivalent of an online video game where your character can go bye-bye any second, so plan accordingly.

What's the Purpose of Jumpline?

For users, it is a way to discover new and exciting creative works and to follow the people who make them. For publishers, it is a way to get creative works to users without interference.

Does Jumpline Cost Anything?

There is a nominal fee for publishers. Jumpline is free for users.

Can't I Get the Same Thing on Social Media?

If you "subscribe" to someone on social media, you might see their updates, but you probably won't. Jumpline doesn't pick and choose. Whatever is in a publisher's feed is on your screen.

Under the hood, social media is already using a proprietary version of RSS (and always has been). The difference is on social media, the platform decides what you see for reasons which benefit the platform. On Jumpline, the publishers decide what you see. We don't have an agenda.

Are There Any Content Restrictions?

Jumpline accepts links to G or PG rated creative works that don't infringe on anyone else's rights. Anything that might cause complaints is prohibited. No politics. No general news. No memes. No slop. No screaming. No arguments. Your feed must come from your site. That means the feed and the links must originate from or point to the same domain. No third-party publishers. (Third party means your feed points to sites other than your own) At least one item in each publisher feed must link to Jumpline at all times.

Repeated violations of our Content Policy including any attempt to manipulate Jumpline via automated means will result in an instant permanent ban along with that publisher's payment method.

Who Wrote Call of the Wild?

Call of the Wild was written by Jack London and published in 1903.

I'm a Publisher. Where Would I Get an RSS Feed?

If you use Wordpress, you already have one. If not, there are numerous ways to syndicate your content via RSS 2.0. We will have more complete information on your options shortly.

What's a Panic Button?

You Click or Tap the Panic Button to get a random publisher's feed. Then you can decide if you want to follow it or not.

Do Publishers Know How Many Users are Following Them?

Jumpline will not publish vanity metrics. There will be no pie charts or woosh sounds when they enter or leave the screen. No pointers. No white boards. No spreadsheets. No charts and graphs full of meaningless numbers. There will be no scoreboards or comparisons here.

If you want to measure the effectiveness of this service, you will find the metrics in your site's web logs where they belong.