DEV Community: Puneet-Kumar2010

Day 8 of Building Crowdwide — 1 New User, 1 New Advertiser, and FINALLY THAT VIBE!!

Puneet-Kumar2010 — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 16:10:30 +0000

So today, Day 8 is completed, and I got one more new user and one more advertiser!

So stats go like:

10 members
36 posts shared
4 communities
3 advertisers

And now I'm getting that full-full vibe 😭🔥

Like, now all the features I wanted to add are there. All things are done! I just added the rules for earning Waves, with an explanation of how many Waves you get for each activity.

And now we have 20+ posts too!

In newsletters, it can embed up to 20 posts/articles/polls.

So yeaaaaaaaaaa... GREAT!!

Now I don't have the problem of insufficient content lol.

Also, once my feed was looking very dry and empty, just like ewwwwwwww 😭

Now it's FILLED with posts!

GOT REAL STATS!!

But I may make changes to keep the main motive of Crowdwide alive: new users and communities must get a chance!

So, to analyse that, I'm trying to get some stats and plot them on graphs. I'll analyse user behaviour and growth.

Basically, this requires 8 weeks of data for one full report. Once it's done, I'll share it with you, with no sugarcoating. It may give good or bad results, ngl.

I just made a system, and I'll improve it with proper experimentation.

Finally, all UIs are polished! If you find anything inconsistent, just report it to me. I'll fix it!

And all features are added. If anything breaks, it'll be fixed soon.

And once all the features get more proper...

I'LL ANNOUNCE CROWDWIDE V2!! 🚀🔥

And thank you very much for checking out my platform!!

Also, maybe I forgot to tell you that I integrated weekly newsletters! 👀

They suggest posts and some content according to your interests!

OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW... MAGICCCCCCC!!! ✨😂

If you wanna try that... yea, you should... YOU MUST!!

Just create an account and scroll through a few posts. It'll get an idea of your interests from those posts, and BOOOOMMMM 💥

A newsletter on Sunday in your inbox!!

A little note about Waves 👀

We're giving 25 Waves for creating an account on Crowdwide, which is equal to the one-time threshold to start an advertising campaign!

Also, at this stage, we don't have too many posts or users. That's why we want you to try it out!

As Crowdwide grows, it'll have more diverse content and more people, so it'll have better reach without money flowing everywhere, along with better-quality newsletters!

Also, if anyone needs more Waves on Crowdwide, just tell me! I'll give you some to try out its features.

Because Crowdwide is still in its initial stage rn, we know users must get quality content.

So, to maintain that, if anyone wants to spend Waves or try any feature, they can do it without hesitation. I'll give them free Waves for now!

And that 25 Waves on account creation is only for accounts created by initial users. 👀

AND NGL, THE TRANSLATIONS STARTED WORKING AGAINNNNNNN!! 😭😎

Idk howwwww!!

I changed NOTHING in that function. Everything was the same.

While writing this article, I was just going to mention that I hadn't worked on it, and thought I'd check it once again...

AND AND AND IT WAS WORKING!!

IDK HOWWWWWW!! 😭😂

Just API mood swingssss!!! 🙌

Thank you very much for reading my article ❤️

Links 🔗

GitHub (star it ⭐): https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwide

Try Crowdwide: https://www.crowdwide.run.place

Need Waves? Message me on Crowdwide: https://www.crowdwide.run.place/u/6ac0cd21d3c2c898c1917ea0

Day 7 of Building Crowdwide — UI Polishing, My First Advertiser, and Translation Breaking AGAIN 😭

Puneet-Kumar2010 — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 11:41:34 +0000

First of all, THANK YOU for this progress and reading my articles! ❤️

Welcome back to another update on building Crowdwide, my social platform!

A lot has happened since my last update. I'm working on polishing the UI, improving the Waves system, getting my first external advertiser, welcoming a new moderator, and trying to fix a translation feature that keeps breaking for some reason. 😭

So yeah, there's a lot to talk about. Let's get into it!

1. Current Progress 📊

Here's where Crowdwide stands right now:

7 members
35 posts
4 communities
2 advertisers, including me

I know these numbers are still small, but I'm happy that people are starting to join and try the platform!

Every little bit of progress matters, especially when you're building something on your own with a budget of basically ZERO (I'm not harmed by this line). 😂

I'm still at the early stage, and I know there's a long way to go. But getting actual people to try something you've built yourself feels different from just seeing it work on your own computer.

2. My First External Advertiser! 🎉

One of the most exciting things that happened recently was getting my first external advertiser!

The advertiser submitted an application, and it was approved by both a moderator and an admin.

At that time, I was handling both the admin panel and the moderator panel myself.

But there was one problem...

The advertiser didn't have enough Waves to start their campaign. 😭

And honestly, I hadn't even thought about this situation properly before.

Here's how the advertising process works on Crowdwide:

An advertiser submits their website, product, or service details along with a description.
The campaign goes through moderator and admin approval.
Once approved, the advertiser needs to set a campaign budget of at least 25 Waves.
The campaign can then run, with Waves being charged according to impressions and clicks.

The idea is to make promotion accessible to people who want to reach an audience without needing a huge advertising budget.

Now, here's what actually happened.

I approved the advertiser's application, but I didn't focus on whether they had enough Waves to launch the campaign.

I even emailed them twice because I was wondering what was going on. I thought, What's the matter? Why aren't they starting their campaign?

Then I checked the details and finally realized...

THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE 25 WAVES NEEDED TO START THE CAMPAIGN!

That's why the campaign was paused.

I had been wondering why they seemed busy, when the actual problem was something I hadn't considered in the first place. 😭

This was a good lesson for me: approving an advertiser's application is only one part of the process. The advertiser also needs to be able to fund the campaign with enough internal Waves to get started.

Crowdwide is still in its early stages, so the audience is small right now. I'm hoping that changes as more people join!

3. The Waves System 🌊

After this happened, Harun( @koda2026 ) suggested giving an approved advertiser a one-time boost of 25 Waves so they could try launching a campaign.

That got me thinking...

Instead of helping only one advertiser, I decided to give 25 Waves to every current user account as a one-time early-user boost!

This should give early users a little more room to explore the platform and try its features.

I also realized that I need to think more carefully about how people get their first Waves, especially when some features require Waves before users can fully try them.

But I want to clarify something important:

Waves are an internal platform currency. They are NOT real money, NOT cryptocurrency, and NOT connected to a bank account.

They are designed to help users participate in Crowdwide's internal reward and promotion systems.

Since I'm under 18 and building this project with a very limited budget, I wanted to experiment with an internal system rather than deal with real-money payments.

The goal is to make the platform's reward and promotion features accessible without requiring users to make real-money payments just to participate in this internal economy.

How can users earn Waves?

Here's the current reward structure:

Activity	Waves Reward
Creating a post	1–3 Waves
Creating a comment	1–3 Waves
Receiving likes	0.1–1 Wave
Receiving comments	0.1–1 Wave
Joining a community	1–2 Waves
Creating a community	2–5 Waves
Completing a quest	1–5 Waves

These rewards are intended to encourage participation and help users explore different parts of Crowdwide.

Waves can also be used for promotions and other supported platform features.

I'm still learning how to balance the reward system so it feels useful without making it too easy to abuse.

I want people to have reasons to participate, but I also need to make sure the system isn't easily exploited by people trying to collect rewards without genuinely using the platform.

That's something I'll keep improving as Crowdwide grows.

4. A New Moderator Joins Crowdwide! 🛡️

Another important update: Harun( @koda2026 ) agreed to help moderate Crowdwide! 🎉

I'm really grateful for this because building a platform alone means you have to think about everything yourself: features, UI, bugs, moderation, rewards, advertising, and about a million other things.

Having someone else look at the platform and give honest feedback helps a lot.

Harun also gave me some useful suggestions about separating moderation actions according to their risk.

Here's the general approach I'm working toward.

Lower-risk moderator actions:

Mark a post as a “Good post.”
Propose an edit to a post.
Flag obvious spam so it can be automatically hidden while awaiting final review.

Higher-risk actions requiring admin approval:

Warn or suspend a user.
Permanently delete a post.
Change community settings.

The idea is to let moderators handle routine tasks while keeping more serious actions under tighter control.

I don't want moderators to be powerless, but I also don't want one person to have too much control over the platform.

Some actions are simple and reversible, while others can seriously affect a user's account or community. It makes sense to treat them differently.

I'm still working on improving the moderation system, but this feedback gave me a clearer direction.

Welcome aboard, Harun! 🎉 And thank you for the suggestions!

5. UI Polishing Is Taking FOREVER 😭

Now comes the part I've been spending a lot of time on: polishing the user interface.

Crowdwide has more than 80 pages, and I still have around 30 or more pages left to polish.

BRO, WHY ARE THERE SO MANY PAGES? 😭

I thought adding features was the big challenge, but now I'm going through all these pages and finding things that could be clearer, better organized, or more consistent.

And honestly, this process has taught me a lot about UI design.

I'm learning things like:

Keeping interfaces simple and clear.
Using bold text to highlight important information.
Improving spacing between elements.
Organizing headings, subheadings, and content properly.
Making layouts more consistent.
Improving alignment so pages feel more organized.
Making information easier to scan instead of putting everything in front of the user at once.

Sometimes, a page technically works, but it still doesn't feel right.

The buttons work, the information is there, and the feature does what it's supposed to do. But the page can still feel cluttered or confusing.

That's why I'm trying to focus on more than just functionality. I want Crowdwide to feel understandable and comfortable to use, too.

I'm also trying to avoid unnecessary backend calls. I already have a preloader, and I don't want to add unnecessary work for the server just to make the interface feel more polished.

Since I'm using free-tier hosting, performance is something I have to keep in mind as well.

I can't just throw money at better hosting, so I have to work with what I've got. 😂

For now, I'm focusing on improving the existing pages instead of endlessly adding new features.

6. Helping Early Advertisers

The first advertiser situation also got me thinking about how difficult it can be to start advertising on a platform that doesn't have a large audience yet.

Since Crowdwide is still new, advertisers might not get much reach right now.

That's understandable. A platform with only a handful of members can't offer the same audience as a huge established social network.

So I'm considering giving early advertisers some Waves from my own account to help them test their campaigns.

Harun's suggestion about the one-time 25-Waves boost made me think more about how to help people get started.

I don't want someone to go through the application process, get approved, and then discover that they can't launch a campaign because they don't have enough Waves.

At the same time, I need to keep the system fair and make sure the rules are clear.

I also want to keep track of transfers and make sure the system has proper abuse detection.

If Waves are transferred between accounts, I want those transfers to be recorded properly so I can understand where the Waves are going and investigate anything suspicious.

Transparency and abuse prevention are important, especially when a reward system is involved. I made the system for it.

I want the Waves economy to be useful, but I also want to understand how it's being used and keep improving it as the platform grows.

and yea, my system detected that... someone has to give those 179waves to system basic to make him neutral!!

At this point, I'm basically considering taking a loan from myself. 💀😂

7. Translation Is Broken AGAIN!! 😭

Okay, this one is frustrating.

I noticed that the translation feature stopped working again, and I honestly don't know why.

At first, I tried integrating Google Translate using its developer documentation.

But after going through the setup, I found out that the option I was trying to use required payment or billing setup.

SORRY SUNDAR PICHAI (CEO OF GOOGLE), MY BUDGET IS LOW (OR YOU CAN SAY 0) LOL 😂

Then I tried another service, thinking maybe I could get a smaller plan or a little free trial.

BUT THEY ASKED FOR MONEY TOO!!

I SAID NO AGAIN. 😭

Then I asked Claude for help, and somehow it got the translation feature working! It also refactored some of my code.

And guess what?

TRANSLATION WORKED FOR SOME TIME...

I checked again later, and it was BROKEN AGAIN!! 😭😭

I genuinely don't know what's causing it.

Is it an API issue? A configuration problem? Something in my implementation? Did something get changed during the refactoring?

I haven't figured it out yet.

I'm almost done with this feature, and I really want to get it working properly. I don't want to abandon it after putting so much effort into it.

So I'm asking for help from the community.

If you've worked with translation APIs, multilingual features, or debugging API integrations, could you help me figure out what's going wrong?

Even a suggestion about what to check first would be useful.

Here's the repository:

https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwide

And here's the live platform:

https://www.crowdwide.run.place/

If you're willing to take a look or have any ideas, please let me know!

Any help, suggestions, or guidance would genuinely mean a lot to me. ❤️

8. Video Tutorials Might Be Coming (Not sure) 🎥

I'm also thinking about creating some short video tutorials to make Crowdwide easier to understand.

Even if a platform has useful features, people might not know how to use them when they first arrive.

I could make short tutorials covering things like:

How to create an account.
How to create posts on the main feed and inside communities.
How communities work.
How to use quests and events.
How the Waves system works.
How to create an advertising campaign. and adding them in docs maybe useful for someone... The idea is to make it easier for new users to understand the platform without having to figure everything out by clicking around.

I haven't made these videos yet, so this is still a plan rather than something that's already available.

But I think tutorials could be useful as Crowdwide grows and more people start trying its features.

9. Crowdwide Spotlight? 👀

Another idea I've been thinking about is something called Crowdwide Spotlight.

The idea is to let people share links to their external reviews, along with a short description.

For example, someone could share a link to a review they've published elsewhere and add a little context about what it's about.

It could give users another way to share their work and help others discover useful content outside Crowdwide.

I'm still thinking about how exactly it should work, so this is just an idea for now. But I already created a community named Crowdwide Spotlight on Crowdwide and you can post there...

I don't want to rush into implementing it before I have a clearer idea of how it would fit into the platform.

For now, it's on my list of things to explore later.

10. What's Next for Crowdwide? 🚀

There are still quite a few things I want to work on.

My current priorities are:

UI polishing: Continue working through the remaining pages and make the interface clearer and more consistent.
Translation: Figure out why the translation feature keeps breaking and get it working reliably.
Waves system: Keep improving the reward system, transfer tracking, and abuse detection.
Advertising: Make it easier for approved advertisers to understand what they need to launch a campaign.
Moderation: Continue improving moderator tools and safeguards for higher-risk actions.
Crowdwide Spotlight: Think through the idea before deciding how to implement it. (community is already there... you can post and build it)

There are plenty of things to do, but I'm trying to take them one step at a time.

I don't want to keep adding features forever without making the existing ones better.

At this stage, improving what I've already built is just as important as building something new.

11. I'd Love Your Feedback! ❤️

First of all, thank you again to everyone who has read my updates, checked out Crowdwide, offered suggestions, or supported this project in any way.

I'm building Crowdwide with a very limited budget, and I'm learning a lot as I go.

Some things work, some things break, and sometimes I discover a problem only after someone tries to use a feature. That's part of building something new, I guess. 😂

There are definitely things I still need to improve, and honest feedback helps me figure out what to focus on.

I'd especially love to hear your thoughts on a few things:

The Waves reward system: Do the reward ranges seem reasonable? Are there any obvious ways people might abuse it?
Advertising: What could make the campaign setup easier to understand for a first-time advertiser?
Moderation: What other safeguards or tools should I consider?
Translation: If you've worked with translation APIs, could you help me figure out why mine keeps breaking?
UI design: What makes a social platform feel simple and easy to use?
General feedback: If you check out Crowdwide, what's one thing you think I should improve first?

You can check out the project here:

🌐 Live platform: https://www.crowdwide.run.place/

💻 GitHub repository: https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwide

I'm still at the beginning of this journey, and Crowdwide has a lot of room to grow.

But I'm excited to keep building, fixing things, learning from feedback, and seeing where this project goes.

Thank you for reading, and see you in the next update! 👋❤️

Day 6 of Building Crowdwide — I Think I’m Finally Done Adding Features

Puneet-Kumar2010 — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 04:26:37 +0000

That finally feels like I don't need more features.

I recently published one more feature — the platform currency of Crowdwide. Its name is Waves.

You can earn Waves just for using Crowdwide: giving a like, getting a like, getting a comment, making a comment, creating a community, completing quests, etc.

So what can you do with it?

If you're a normal person, just use social media, post stuff, and that's all.

So you can remove ads on it.

Yeah, I know... it feels weird that my platform has ads??

How?

In the early stage, getting approval from a white-label company is very difficult... hahahaha.

But if you didn't get anything, just build it.

So in Crowdwide, I built its own advertisement system where developers or creators can advertise their products without real money, just using the platform currency called Waves.

And it looks cool because many people don't have money in the initial stage. Especially developers/learners under 18 can't even transfer money easily, and they just rely on social media platforms where large communities lead and their posts get neglected.

The idea is simple.

For advertisement, how does it work?

Firstly, you have to create an advertisement, put your link and basic details for your ad.

Then moderator and admin will check it out.

Then you get approved, set your budget and further details, and then it goes through approval again.

After that, your advertisement gets activateddd!! YEEAAAAA! 🚀

And unlike big tech companies, I don't take weeks to approve. Max 48 hours, and I just see it when I'm online.

It's done.

Here you go!

And I made this system because I need only clean ads.

No gambling.
No poor-quality ads.
No cheap banners.
No violence.
Just clean and useful ads.

And not only ads — you can promote your articles too.

There will also be a plan to remove ads soon because I don't get enough advertisers yet, so why would I give an option to remove ads? 😂

Advertise first, then remove ads. Not remove first, then advertise lol.

Tech philosopher Puneet... lol.

Apart from this, I have built:

Proper dashboard with feed mechanism and algorithm, with support for growing new communities while maintaining the interest of users
Newsletter
Birthday cards for users
Security mails on sign-in
Authentication system
Real working stats on the landing page — no fake details, small but real
User settings for privacy, profile editing, notifications, emails, password changes, device logins, etc.
Search and interest systems with hashtags, searches, likes and comments engagement
Community Map — look at all communities on a real-world map
Personal Recap
Community Radar
Waves wallet, transaction system and transfer records
Profile stats, post engagements and sharing
Chat with search, posts, articles, polls, sharing and message deletion
Group chat with group management
Communities with a wide variety of features
Advertising system with dashboard, stats and proper approval system
Security system with 2FA authentication — authentically lol

And much more.

Even I can't remember all the features while writing this article. I'm getting so many things I built but I don't know in which category to mention them.

Like requesting your full data download, public/private profiles, reactions, co-author posts, media transcripts, alt text, etc.

I think it's enough.

Now I just want to polish everything. SMOOOTHING ROUGH EDGES!

I'm making everything responsive, replacing old UI elements with new, authentic, relaxed styling, and adding more responsiveness.

That has already started.

But this project has 70+ page templates only and 5+ mail templates, so it may take a week.

But as I finish even one page, I deploy it!

That's how its development is going.

After this, maybe I think I just need to do these things already added to my todo list.

But first, I'll go with polishing the pages, and then with Waves transfer using usernames.

Because providing an email in public to someone may sound a bit unsecure, so that's why I'm changing it.

And the textarea is also part of polishing.

Add Ad-Free feature using Waves if premium is introduced
Transfer Waves by username
Make all textarea grow as you write
Polishing UI for all pages
Polishing UI of all partials

Current progress

6 members

24 posts shared

4 communities

I think this is finally becoming something much bigger than what I initially started building.

And honestly, I still don't know where Crowdwide will go.

I'm just building it.

And before I end this...

A big thanks to Harun @koda2026 too. 🤝

Bro has actually used Crowdwide, found bugs, reported them, and even gave me ideas that helped me improve things.

It's honestly different when someone doesn't just say "looks good" but actually uses the thing and tells you "yo, this is broken" 😂

So yeah, thanks Harun for actually using Crowdwide and helping me make it better.

It genuinely helped a lot. ❤️

That's how development is going. 🚀

Have anything to say?

Say it.

Critic?

Criticise it!

Crowdwide Monetization Is Coming Together — And Communities Can Actually Grow With It

Puneet-Kumar2010 — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 10:18:15 +0000

Crowdwide is starting to reach a point where communities won't just be places where people post and interact.

They can become growth engines. 🚀

A big part of that is the monetization and advertising system we've been building.

And honestly...

It's getting pretty damn powerful.

Communities Can Show Ads

Communities that meet Crowdwide's requirements can apply for monetization.

Once approved, they can have advertising enabled inside their community.

That means a community can have:

Sponsored content
Advertisements in configured placements
Controlled ad frequency
Advertisement reporting
Community-level ad statistics
Admin-controlled monetization settings

Ads don't just randomly appear.

Campaigns go through Crowdwide's moderation system before they can run, and communities have to actually qualify for monetization.

The goal is to keep the system controlled while still giving communities another way to grow.

But There's Something Bigger Here

The interesting part isn't simply:

"Communities can show ads."

The interesting part is what this can eventually do for community growth.

A community can build an audience.

That audience creates activity.

The community becomes eligible for monetization.

Advertisements can then run inside it.

And Crowdwide can use that system to create more opportunities for communities to grow and attract new people.

It's not supposed to be:

Big community → gets everything → small community stays invisible.

Crowdwide is being built around the opposite idea.

Give communities a chance to come forward.

Waves Power the Advertising System

Crowdwide uses an internal platform currency called Waves.

Waves can be earned through activity across the platform and can also be used for advertising campaigns.

That creates an interesting loop:

Participate → Earn Waves → Use Waves → Promote → Reach more people → Grow

Advertisers can fund campaigns using Waves.

Campaigns have budgets, daily spending limits, moderation, reporting, impressions, clicks and CTR tracking.

So advertising isn't just a simple "put an ad here" feature.

It's becoming an actual system.

New Users Can Matter Too

One of the things I care about with Crowdwide is making sure new users aren't completely buried under accounts that already have huge audiences.

The same idea applies to communities.

A brand-new community shouldn't need thousands of members before it has any chance of being discovered.

If it grows, becomes active, meets the requirements and contributes something valuable to Crowdwide, it should have opportunities to move forward.

That's where this system gets interesting.

Community growth + advertising + Waves + discovery can become one connected ecosystem.

And We're Not Just Throwing Ads Everywhere

There are moderation controls built around the advertising system.

Advertisers go through review.

Campaigns go through review.

Moderators can screen campaigns.

Admins make the final decisions.

Campaigns can be suspended or removed.

Users can report advertisements.

There are also controls for prohibited categories and suspicious activity.

So the goal isn't:

"MORE ADS EVERYWHERE!!!"

😂

The goal is:

Useful advertising, controlled by the platform, while giving communities another growth opportunity.

There's Still More To Build

This isn't the final version.

There's still work around the community reward/revenue side, more anti-abuse protections, additional testing and more polishing.

But the foundation is now there.

Advertisers can create campaigns.

Campaigns can be funded with Waves.

Communities can qualify for monetization.

Approved ads can actually appear.

Impressions and clicks are tracked.

Advertisers can see their performance.

Admins can moderate everything.

And Waves connect the whole system together.

That's a pretty big step for Crowdwide.

The Bigger Picture

Crowdwide isn't supposed to be another platform where only the biggest accounts get all the attention.

The idea is to build a platform where people, communities and creators can actually grow.

And if we can make advertising work as part of that growth system rather than simply throwing banners everywhere...

then we might have something pretty interesting.

We're still building.

But this part?

It's starting to feel like Crowdwide is about to get a whole lot more powerful.

🚀🌊

I got one more weird idea for Crowdwide... 🤨

Puneet-Kumar2010 — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 14:08:44 +0000

And I’m probably going to ask this on Dev.to because...

is this actually a good idea, or am I just losing it? 💀

So, I have 7.2k+ followers on Dev.to.

But let's be honest...

I know a good number of them are probably bots.
And there are quite a few bots on Dev.to too.

While building Crowdwide, I somehow ended up taking inspiration from completely different platforms:

🎵 Spotify → personal recap
🗺️ Obsidian → graph/map plotting
🏆 Dev.to → quests
🔐 Google → 2FA
📧 Newsletter platforms → weekly newsletter emails
📊 Instagram → algorithm ideas
🐦 Twitter/X → some ideas
...and much more

Basically, Crowdwide is the result of me looking at random platforms and going:

"Hmm... that's actually a cool idea." 😭

But here's the thing...

Only 6 users have joined Crowdwide so far. 💀

And I genuinely don't know why people aren't using it.

Maybe they don't know about it.
Maybe they don't trust it yet.
Maybe I need to improve something.
Maybe people are just waiting for other people to join first.

I have no idea.

And somehow my brain went:

"Wait... Dev.to has bots."

Then I started thinking...

What if there were just a few harmless bots on Crowdwide?

Like, nothing crazy.

They just randomly show up, like some posts, follow some people, maybe make Crowdwide look a little less empty...

Like the bots on Dev.to. 🤖

And then...

NOOOOOOO. 😭

I'm NOT going to do that.

Seriously.

I'm not building a bot army for Crowdwide. 💀

I don't even know WHY I was thinking about this.

I was just sitting there thinking:

"Hmm... what if..."

And now I'm writing a whole Dev.to post about it. 😂

It's weird.
It's completely outside the original direction of Crowdwide.

And honestly, doing that would probably go against the whole reason I'm building Crowdwide in the first place.

The goal is supposed to be real people, real communities, and giving smaller communities/users a chance to come forward.

So adding fake activity just because there are only 6 users would basically be:

"I couldn't get people, so I hired robots." 💀

No.

But I still wanted to ask:

What do you think?

Would a few harmless bots ever make sense for a social platform?

Or is this just another random idea that should stay inside my brain? 🧠

I'm probably not going to implement it.

I was just thinking.

I don't even know why.

Just thinking. 😭

If you want to see what Crowdwide actually looks like:

🌐 https://www.crowdwide.run.place/
💻 https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwide

And please star the GitHub repo ⭐

Otherwise...

a bot will come into your dreams and force you to dance with him. 🤖💃

Day 4 of Building Crowdwide — The Hard Part Isn't Building Features

Puneet-Kumar2010 — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 10:42:21 +0000

So today again, I wanna share Day 4 of building Crowdwide.

For anyone who doesn't know what I'm building:

Crowdwide is an open-source social/community platform where users can create communities, post articles, polls, discussions, follow people, discover communities and basically build their own little corners instead of everything being controlled by already-big accounts.

You can check it out here:

Crowdwide: https://www.crowdwide.run.place/
Source code: https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwide

I've also got a Build in Public community on Crowdwide:

https://www.crowdwide.run.place/communities/build-in-public

It's an open community, so anyone can post there.

Right now though...

I'm basically the only one posting there. 😭

So yeah, I'm using my own empty community to post my own building updates until someone else decides to show up. 😂

I also posted some of my better articles there in the general/open Crowdwide feed.

While working on it, I improved some of the UI and made the newsletter feature more interesting.

Now it can understand your interests and show you more relevant articles, posts and communities.

And then I started thinking...

What if a new user comes to Crowdwide and doesn't even know what kind of stuff people post there?

How are they supposed to understand what the platform is capable of?

So I made another endpoint just for that:

https://www.crowdwide.run.place/posts

Anyone can visit it and see what people are posting on Crowdwide.

You can read everything, but you can't comment, like or share unless you're actually using the platform.

Basically...

"Here, have a taste before you join." 😂

I'm also still working on finding a partner-style monetization setup for Crowdwide.

No replies yet.

I mailed 5 companies and explored some more, but something funny happened while doing that.

Some websites had email addresses that looked completely dead or like dummy emails.

I was honestly shocked.

Like... bro, you're an actual website 😭

Maybe they're outdated, maybe they're abandoned, maybe I'm just unlucky.

If anyone knows why companies sometimes leave dead/dummy contact emails on their websites, tell me in the comments.

Current Crowdwide progress

6 members

20 posts

3 communities

And if you still don't know what Crowdwide is, basically I'm trying to build a social platform where users and communities can actually grow instead of everything being dominated by whoever was already big.

But honestly, this article isn't really about Crowdwide or the numbers.

It's more about the experience of building it.

Before Crowdwide, I tried building another project called Rizzzler.

And I noticed the same thing again:

Building a feature isn't always the difficult part.

Getting users to understand that feature and actually use it?

That's the difficult part.

I've built a bunch of features in Crowdwide, but then I look at the usage and...

Nobody is using them. 😭

Nobody is even touching hashtags.

And that makes me wonder:

Why would someone actually use my platform?

Is it because they want to discover something?

Is it because they want to build a community?

Is it because they want to share their work?

Is it just to waste time?

But then again...

people literally switch platforms just to waste time. 😂

So what actually makes someone say:

"Yeah, I'll use THIS one."

And I think this might be one of the biggest FAAAAAAH moments for indie devs.

You can build 50 features.

You can make the UI clean.

You can add search, hashtags, communities, newsletters, recommendations, whatever...

And the user can still look at it and go:

"Cool."

...and never come back. 😭

That's the part I'm struggling with now.

And then there's another thing I've started thinking about.

Creators need a reason to keep creating.

At least that's what my experience so far is making me think.

If someone is regularly spending time writing posts, making videos, building communities or creating content for a platform, eventually they need something back from it.

Maybe it's money.

Maybe it's recognition.

Maybe it's growth.

Maybe it's an audience.

Maybe it's all of them.

I don't know if this is universally true.

I'm still learning.

But I know one thing:

It seems to work.

That's why I started looking into monetization for Crowdwide.

Not because I want to turn Crowdwide into some giant ad machine.

I want to experiment with a system where the platform can grow and creators/community owners have a reason to keep putting effort into it.

So I contacted 5 companies about possible partner-style monetization.

And...

still nothing.

No replies yet. 😭

Maybe they'll reply tomorrow.

Maybe next week.

Maybe never.

Who knows.

But I'm trying it because I want to test whether this idea actually works instead of just thinking about it.

And that makes me wonder about another thing.

Is Crowdwide going to become another project sitting inside my GitHub account with a nice README and a few screenshots?

Because on the first day I had around 4 users.

Second day, 6 users.

And then...

it basically stayed there.

Posts keep increasing, but the user count isn't really moving.

I think this is probably a very common nightmare for solo developers and indie hackers.

You spend weeks or months building something.

You finally launch it.

And then...

silence.

And most indie developers aren't sitting on huge budgets either. A lot of them are building on free tiers, cheap servers, whatever they can afford.

But the amount of work behind those projects is still real.

And lol, sometimes I open an app store and see people downloading some random crop-photo/click-photo app while hundreds of underrated solo-dev projects are sitting there with almost no users. 😂

I don't even know if this article will get engagement.

Maybe it'll flop.

Maybe 3 people will read it.

Maybe nobody will care.

But I'm still writing it because this is part of learning and building something.

One thing I'm slowly realizing is that a new user needs a kick to get started.

Not a physical kick. 😭

A mental one.

If someone joins a completely new platform, they don't automatically know:

what to post
who to follow
what communities to join
why they should stay
what they can actually get from the platform

That's a problem I'm still trying to solve.

Even some of my projects connected to Google Search Console haven't gotten Core Web Vitals data yet because there isn't enough real-user data over the last 90 days.

And that itself is kind of funny.

You need users to get data.

You need data to improve things.

But you need the thing to already be useful enough for users to come in. 😂

Then I started thinking about platforms like Blogger, YouTube, Instagram, etc.

They give users a reason to keep creating.

More views → more motivation.

More users → more content.

Day 3 of Building Crowdwide: Teaching Users a Feature Is Surprisingly Hard

Puneet-Kumar2010 — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 09:52:32 +0000

It has been 3 days since I launched Crowdwide, and even though the platform is still very small, I’ve already learned something I didn't really expect:

Building a feature is sometimes easier than getting users to actually use it.

A little progress update

Here are the current numbers:

6 members
13 posts shared
3 communities

These numbers are obviously tiny compared to established platforms, but for me, these first users are valuable because I can actually observe how people interact with something I built.

And that's where I noticed this problem.

I've experienced this before

Before Crowdwide, I built Rizzzler, a link-in-bio platform.

You can create your own page for free, without ads or promotional requirements. One of the features I added was the ability to add custom music to your page.

I documented the feature and even shared my own page as an example because I thought it looked pretty cool.

There are currently 10+ users, but only 2 of them are using the custom music feature.

Everyone else mostly uses the normal built-in music.

My first reaction was basically:

"Why isn't anyone using this? I literally built it for you." 😂

Then Crowdwide started teaching me the same lesson.

Where do these feature ideas even come from?

A lot of the features I build aren't completely random.

I get ideas from other products I use, problems I personally experience, and things I think could work differently in my own projects.

For example, the community map in Crowdwide was inspired by Obsidian.

I liked the idea of visually seeing connections and information instead of everything being presented as a simple list.

So I thought:

"What if communities could have their own locations and we could see communities from around the world on a map?" 🌍

That's how the idea for the Crowdwide community map started.

It's not a direct copy of Obsidian's feature. I simply took an idea I found interesting and adapted the concept to a completely different use case.

And currently, the map has basically one resident:

My own community. 😂

So much for seeing the whole world.

Crowdwide has a lot of features nobody uses

I've added quite a few things:

Hashtags for posts, articles and polls
Posting directly as a community
Scheduled posts
Quests
Co-authoring
Recaps
Community locations on a world map
And several other smaller features

For example, hashtags can help organize content and make related content easier to discover.

But most people simply write their content and post it without using them.

The same thing happens with community posting. I wanted people to be able to post as their community, rather than always posting from their personal account.

I've even explained some of these features directly to users and friends.

Still... they don't use them.

Maybe "users are lazy" isn't the answer

It's very easy as a developer to think:

"I built it. It's documented. I even explained it. Why isn't anyone using it?"

But maybe that's the wrong way to think about it.

The better question might be:

"Did I make this feature easy enough to discover and understand?"

A user doesn't know what I was thinking when I designed a feature.

They don't know why I built it.

They don't automatically know what problem it solves.

And they definitely don't want to study documentation every time they want to try something new. 😅

Building the feature isn't the end

As developers, we often think:

Idea → Code → Test → Done

But from the user's perspective, there are several more steps:

Discover that the feature exists.
Understand what it does.
Understand why it is useful.
Know how to use it.
Actually have a reason to use it.

Documentation helps, but documentation alone isn't product education.

A feature can be technically complete and still fail to get adoption.

That's something I'm starting to understand only after putting my projects in front of real people.

What I'm changing in my thinking

I'm starting to think about the process more like:

Idea → Development → Testing → Discovery → Education → Adoption → Feedback → Improvement

A feature that nobody discovers is almost like a feature that doesn't exist.

So I'm not only trying to build more features for Crowdwide.

I'm also thinking about how those features are introduced, discovered, and made useful to users.

Maybe that's one of the less obvious challenges of building software.

You don't just build the feature. You also have to build the path that leads users to it.

Try the projects

Crowdwide:
https://www.crowdwide.run.place/

Crowdwide source code:
https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwide

Rizzzler:
https://www.rizzzler.work.gd/

Rizzzler source code:
https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Rizzzler-Stable

It's only Day 3, so there's still a lot to build, test, improve, and probably break. 😂

But that's exactly why I'm building in public.

One more thing 🍫

To the users who actually discover these features, understand why they exist, and proudly use them:

You deserve a chocolate. 😂🍫

Seriously, if you're one of those people who finds a feature without me having to explain it, uses it properly, and then flexes it — you're exactly the kind of user every builder secretly dreams about. 😂

Consider this an unofficial Crowdwide Chocolate Award. 🏆🍫

6 Members, 8 Posts, 3 Communities — And We’re Just Getting Started

Puneet-Kumar2010 — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 09:07:57 +0000

Thank you for the review! ❤️

A huge thank you to Harun( @koda2026 ) for sharing such a detailed review of Crowdwide. I took the feedback seriously — and I’ve already started making changes!

What’s improved:

🔎 Improved Search UI and search quality — and I’ll keep improving it
🐛 Fixed multiple layout bugs
💬 Fixed chat media loading issues
🔗 Fixed invitation link problems
💻 Improved code highlighting
🔔 Fixed notification issues

And this is not the end. We’re going further. You just wait and see. 👀🚀

Harun - solo dev

Oct 4

I Tested Crowdwide v1 for 48 Hours. Here Is What Worked, What Broke, and Whether You Should Join.

#review #community #buildinpublic #opensource

3 min read

📊 Crowdwide so far(under 48hrs)

6 members
8 posts shared
3 communities

It’s still small, but every member, post, and piece of feedback matters. ❤️

Want to be part of it? Join Build in Public and share what you’re building!

Crowdwide:🌐 https://www.crowdwide.run.place/
My community:🏗️ https://www.crowdwide.run.place/communities/build-in-public
Open Source:💻 https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwide

This is just the beginning. 🚀

Crowdwide v1 Is FINALLY HERE!! 🚀🎉

Puneet-Kumar2010 — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 10:07:38 +0000

Okay…

IT'S DONE.

Not “almost done.”

Not “I'll finish it tomorrow.”

Not “just one more bug.”

CROWDWIDE v1 IS FINALLY RELEASED!! 😭🎉🚀

After weeks of building, testing, breaking things, fixing them, breaking them again, fighting APIs, fighting free-tier limitations, and occasionally questioning why I started this project in the first place…

the first stable version of Crowdwide is LIVE.

🌐 Live: https://www.crowdwide.run.place/

💻 Open source: https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwide

🚀 Crowdwide v1 — Released!

Crowdwide started as an idea for a social platform where communities could actually grow and have their own space.

And now…

It's a working platform.

The first stable version includes the core social features I wanted Crowdwide to have, along with a bunch of things that I didn't even plan when I started.

Posts, articles, polls, communities, profiles, chat, media, reactions, bookmarks, notifications, moderation tools, and much more are now part of the platform.

And honestly…

Looking at it now, I still can't believe I built all of this. 😂

🌍 But I Didn't Want It To Be "Just Another Social Media"

One thing kept bothering me while building Crowdwide.

If I just add posts, likes, comments, followers, chats, communities, etc…

what actually makes Crowdwide different?

Those are features that basically every social platform can have.

So instead of stopping there, I started experimenting with some more unusual ideas.

🗺️ Community Map

Communities can be represented on a map, with the size of their presence growing as the community grows.

The idea is to make communities feel like they're actually part of a larger world instead of just existing as another page in a database.

And yes…

the map looks REALLY COOL. 😂

🏆 Community Quests

Communities can create quests or challenges for their members and announce a winner.

Winners can receive a badge on their profile.

I originally got the idea after seeing a quest/challenge concept on DEV and thought:

"Wait… why don't I make something like this for communities?"

So I did. 😭

🎧 Personal Recap

Inspired by things like Spotify's personal recap, Crowdwide now has a recap section that can show things about your activity and interests on the platform.

As Crowdwide gets more useful statistics, I want to expand this even further.

Maybe one day you'll look at your recap and think:

"WHAT WAS I EVEN DOING THIS YEAR?!" 💀

✍️ Co-authored Posts

This is another feature I really wanted to try.

A post can have multiple authors, and the co-authors can work on the same post.

Not just a mention.

Not just a tag.

Actual co-authorship.

I think this could be especially useful for community announcements, collaborative articles, projects, and other shared content.

💬 And Yes… The Basic Stuff Too 😂

While working on the bigger ideas, I also realized there were a bunch of things I simply couldn't leave out.

So Crowdwide also includes things like:

GIF support
Media sharing in chats
Message search
Group chat details
Community moderation
Polls
Articles
Drafts
Scheduled publishing
Hashtags
Mentions
Quote posts
Replies
Reactions
Bookmarks
Private/public communities
Community roles and moderators
Post approval
Pinned posts
Community guidelines
Profiles
Followers/following
Saved posts
Two-factor authentication
Recovery codes
Password reset
Email verification
And a LOT more

There are probably still tiny things I've forgotten to mention. 😂

🐛 The Bugs… OH GOD THE BUGS

Of course, getting here wasn't exactly peaceful.

I learned a LOT while building Crowdwide.

Sometimes I'd find a bug and spend hours trying to fix the code.

Then eventually…

the code wasn't the problem.

It was an API key.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA 😭

Sometimes an API key would get revoked or a service would stop responding, and I'd sit there debugging perfectly fine code.

That was a fun experience.

10/10 would not recommend.

🗺️ The Map Nearly Made Me Lose It

Adding the map sounded simple.

Until I actually started doing it.

Endpoints weren't working.

Policies were getting in the way.

Some things worked locally but not where I expected them to.

Documentation sent me in five different directions.

And every time I thought:

"Okay, NOW it's working."

Something else broke.

But eventually…

I GOT IT WORKING.

And honestly, seeing the final map was one of those moments where I went:

"Okay… all that pain was kinda worth it." 😂

🌐 Translation… Yeah, About That 😭

Okay, I need to be honest about one thing.

Translation is STILL not working properly in the released version.

The funny part?

It works on my local device.

But after deployment…

NOPE. 💀

It decided to behave completely differently.

I've spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out why the exact same thing works locally but doesn't behave properly in production.

So yes, Crowdwide v1 is released, but translation is still a known issue.

I'll keep working on it and hopefully get it working properly in a future update.

So if you visit Crowdwide and notice that translation isn't working…

it's not you. It's me. 😂

🎨 And The UI Isn't "FINAL" Either!

Another thing I want to make clear:

v1 being released doesn't mean I'm never touching the UI again.

The platform is stable enough to call this the first version, but I'll continue improving the UI over time.

There will probably be:

Better layouts
Better spacing
Small design improvements
Better mobile experience
Improved interactions
More polished components
And random little things that I suddenly decide look ugly. 😂

So expect Crowdwide to keep changing.

v1 is the beginning, not the final-final version.

💸 Building Without a Credit Card Is… Interesting

Another big challenge was infrastructure.

I don't have a credit card, so I've been relying heavily on free-tier services and free resources.

And finding free services that actually work for what you're trying to build is sometimes like:

chewing nuts through your nose.

😂

But honestly, this limitation taught me a lot.

You learn how to research.

You learn to find alternatives.

You learn what different services actually provide.

And you learn that sometimes the solution is simply:

"Okay… what free thing can I use instead?"

💰 Community Monetization Is Still Coming

One of the bigger things I want to add in the future is community monetization.

The goal is to give community owners a way to monetize their communities, somewhat similar to how platforms like Blogger allow creators to monetize their content.

This part isn't ready yet.

It requires more infrastructure, research, and resources to do properly.

But it's something I definitely want Crowdwide to have.

So…

coming later. 👀

🧠 What I Learned From Building Crowdwide

Honestly, this project taught me way more than I expected.

I learned about:

Building a large application from the ground up.
Working with APIs.
Authentication and account security.
Production debugging.
Third-party services.
Database design.
Community systems.
Moderation.
Handling media.
Working with free infrastructure.
Testing.
Deployment.
And probably the most important one…

A feature working on localhost does NOT mean it will work in production. 😭

I also learned that building a project isn't just about writing code.

A lot of the work happens after the code is written.

Testing.

Finding weird edge cases.

Fixing production-only bugs.

Making things reliable.

Trying to understand why something that worked yesterday suddenly doesn't work today.

And then doing it all again.

🎉 So… Crowdwide v1 Is Here!

This is the part I've been waiting to write.

Crowdwide v1 is officially released.

The test data has been cleared.

The first stable version is now live.

And Crowdwide is officially moving from:

"A project I'm building"

to:

"A platform that's actually out there." 🚀

That feels REALLY weird to say. 😂

❤️ It's Open Source!

Crowdwide is completely open source.

You can check out the code here:

💻 https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwide

And yes…

The repository still has 0 stars.

FAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH. 😭

It's fine.

If nobody stars it…

I'll star it myself.

Problem solved. ⭐😂

But seriously, if you want to contribute, find a bug, suggest something, improve something, or just explore the code, you're absolutely welcome.

Create a branch, make your changes, and open a pull request!

🌐 Try Crowdwide

The platform is live here:

https://www.crowdwide.run.place/

Go create an account.

Create a community.

Join one.

Make a post.

Try the chat.

Explore the features.

And if something breaks…

PLEASE TELL ME. 😂

Crowdwide is currently running on free-tier infrastructure, so unexpected problems can still happen.

🚀 What's Next?

v1 doesn't mean I'm finished.

Actually…

it's kind of the opposite.

Now that the foundation is stable, I can start working on the things I've been putting aside.

More community features.

Monetization.

Better infrastructure.

Better translation support.

More statistics for Personal Recap.

More improvements to the map.

More UI improvements.

More tools for community owners.

And whatever crazy idea I get next. 😂

Hopefully, over the next 6–8 months, Crowdwide can grow enough for me to move it to better infrastructure, get a proper domain, use better databases, and make the whole thing more reliable.

We'll see where it goes.

🙌 Special Thanks

A small shoutout to the people who tested and used Crowdwide before the v1 release — thanks for helping me test, break, and improve it! 😂❤️

@koda2026

Feel free to come back and check out the final v1! 🚀

🥳 THANK YOU!!

I don't really know how to end this article without sounding dramatic, so I'll just say it:

THANK YOU.

To anyone who checks out Crowdwide.

To anyone who reports a bug.

To anyone who contributes.

To anyone who reads this ridiculous article.

And even to the people who just open the website for 30 seconds and go:

"hmm… interesting." 😂

It all means something when you're building something from scratch.

I'm 15.

I started Crowdwide as a project.

It grew into something much bigger than I expected.

And today…

Crowdwide v1 is officially LIVE.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! 🎉🚀🔥

Now let's see what happens next.

— Puneet

Crowdwide is ALMOST DONE!! WOOOHOOO!! 🎉🚀

Puneet-Kumar2010 — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 08:35:32 +0000

So… after weeks of building, fixing, breaking, fixing again, questioning my life choices, and repeating the same cycle…

Crowdwide is almost done!! 😭🎉

And by almost done, I mean almost ready for its first stable release!

GitHub: https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwide
Live website: https://www.crowdwide.run.place/

I dont wanted crowdwide to just look like a simple social network platform so at first I thought that i will build all the features like common social media platform have and then i will add some my own feature ...

When I first started building Crowdwide, I thought about all the features a social media platform should have.

Chat? Done.
Group chats? Done.
Sharing links? Done.
Media uploads? Done.
Communities? Done.
Posts, articles, polls, reactions, bookmarks, notifications… all those usual social media features? Done!

But then I started thinking…

If other platforms already have these features, what can I build that makes Crowdwide feel a little different?

I didn't want to build just another social media platform with the same features arranged in a slightly different UI.

So I started looking for ideas, exploring other platforms, and thinking about what else communities and their members could do.

And I found some pretty NOICE ideas!! 😂

🗺️ 1. Community Map — THIS IS SO COOL!!

Imagine opening a map and seeing communities from different places represented on it.

That's the idea!

Community owners can choose to show their community on the map. And here's the fun part: the bigger the community, the bigger its dot on the map!

So, as a community grows, its presence on the map grows too.

Just imagine zooming out and seeing communities popping up across different places. It makes the platform feel a little more alive, doesn't it?

And honestly, when I started building this, I kept thinking:

BROOO, THIS LOOKS SO COOL!! 😭
AND THIS ONE IS MY FAVORITE FEATURE IN CROWDWIDE MY OWN SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFROM
UK ONE THING THAT I LIKE IS IN MY OWN CREATIONS IS IF I NEED ANYTHING I CAN JUST ADD IT... THIS IS THE EXAMPLE OF THAT

Of course, building it was a whole different story. More on that later…

🏆 2. Community Quests and Challenges

as you can see I won the quest created by me thats smart move 🙄🦊

I came across a quest-like challenge on DEV and thought…

Wait a minute. Why not bring something like this to Crowdwide communities?

So I added the concept of community quests!

A community can create a quest or challenge, announce it to its members, and declare a winner.

And the winner? They get a badge on their profile! 🏅

I want communities to be places where people don't just scroll through posts but also participate in things together.

There are still some limitations, though. My budget is… well… let's not talk about it. 😂

I'm 15, still under 18, and working with free resources, so some things are harder to set up than others.
I Really wanted to building something like that give some real rewards
But the feature is part of the plan, and I hope to keep improving it!

🎧 3. Personal Recap — Inspired by Spotify

I'm the most active user of this platform! The OG myself... lol

You know Spotify Wrapped and those personal recaps that show what you've been listening to, discovering, and enjoying?

That got me thinking.

What if Crowdwide could give users a recap of their activity on the platform?

Things like:

What topics they were interested in.
What new things they discovered.
What they shared the most.
A summary of their activity and interests.

So, I added a Personal Recap section!

For now, it's just the beginning. As Crowdwide collects more useful activity statistics, I can add more interesting insights to it.

Imagine looking back at your activity and discovering what your internet-self was up to. 👀

✍️ 4. Co-authors on Posts?!

Here's another concept I wanted to try.

What if a post could have two authors instead of just one?

Not just tagging someone or mentioning them in the post. I mean actual co-authorship!

Both owners can edit the same post.

I think this could be useful for people collaborating on announcements, community updates, articles, or other shared content.

And yes, it's in Crowdwide now!

💬 5. Some More Features!

Apart from the new ideas, I also added some things that were missing from the platform.

btw mansio is so busy that he never replies ... keep it up mansio

Things like:

GIF support.
Sending media in chats.
Searching messages within chats.
Group chat details and settings.
More complete group chat functionality.

These might sound like small things, but they make the overall experience feel much more complete.

And that's the thing about building a platform: you keep finding little things that you somehow forgot to add earlier. 😂

🐛 Things I Learned the HARD Way

Now comes the fun part.

Actually, no.

The PAINFUL part. AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!! 😭

Building Crowdwide taught me a lot, but some lessons came with a ridiculous amount of frustration.

1. API keys can waste HOURS of your life

I've been keeping Crowdwide in development for over a month, testing features and fixing bugs.

Sometimes, an API key gets revoked, expires, or stops working as expected.

And what do I do?

I see an error, assume something is wrong with my code, and start debugging.

I check the logic.
I inspect the endpoint.
I rewrite things.
I question everything.

And then I discover that the actual problem was the API key.

BROOOOOOOOOOO.

ALL THAT TIME. ALL THAT CODE. FOR AN API KEY?! 😭

Lesson learned: check your credentials and service status before spending hours debugging your code.

Please learn from my suffering.

2. Adding a map is NOT as easy as it looks

I thought adding a map would be straightforward.

Just get the map, plot the communities, adjust the markers, and done!

HAHAHAHAHAHA. NO.

I ran into API restrictions, policies, unavailable endpoints, configuration problems, and errors that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

One moment, something worked. The next moment, another endpoint refused to cooperate.

I spent so much time figuring out what was wrong.

But eventually, I got it working!

And seeing the result made the struggle feel worth it. 🗺️

3. TRANSLATIONS. WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?!

Okay, this one is still haunting me.

The translation functionality works on my local device, but it's not working properly in the deployed version.

And I've been trying to figure out why.

Same project. Same feature. Different environment. Different problems.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH.

I'm still working on this, and I hope to get it fixed in a future update.

For now, the rest of the platform is working, but translations may not work as expected for everyone.

I'll keep working on it!

4. Being broke while building a platform 💀

Another challenge: I don't have a credit card.

So I'm relying heavily on free tiers, free services, and whatever resources I can find.

And finding free services that actually fit your requirements, setting them up, understanding their limitations, and making everything work together?

Sometimes it feels like chewing nuts through your nose.

WHY IS IT SO HARD?! 😭

But honestly, working with these limitations has also taught me to be more resourceful.

You learn to research, experiment, find alternatives, and work with what you have.

Still, if I ever get the chance to move Crowdwide to proper paid infrastructure, I WILL CELEBRATE.

💰 Community Monetization Is Still Coming!

One of the bigger features I want to introduce is community monetization.

The idea is to let community owners monetize their communities, somewhat like how creators can monetize content on platforms such as Blogger.

I want community owners to have more opportunities to grow their communities and potentially earn from them.

However, setting this up properly requires more work, research, and resources.

So, monetization isn't ready yet.

The same goes for some of the more advanced possibilities around quests and community features. I'll keep working on these as Crowdwide grows.

🧠 What Building Crowdwide Taught Me

This project has taught me much more than just how to write code.

I've learned about:

Building and maintaining a large application.
Integrating third-party APIs.
Debugging production-only issues.
Handling authentication and account security.
Designing features around communities.
Working with limited resources.
Understanding that a feature working locally doesn't mean it'll work in production.
And, most importantly, that building a project is one thing, but making it reliable is a whole different journey.

I've also learned that sometimes the best ideas come when you're trying to solve a completely different problem.

And sometimes, you spend three hours debugging something that turns out to be a revoked API key.

Both experiences are equally educational, I guess. 💀

🚀 TOMORROW IS THE DAY!

Okay, enough talking.

Crowdwide's first stable release is almost here!

Tomorrow, October 3, 2026, I'll clear the test data and prepare the platform for its first stable version: Crowdwide v1.

So, if you want to check it out, create an account, explore the communities, and try things out, you can do so today.

Just remember that all test data will be cleared on October 3, 2026. Anything you create before the reset may be deleted.

After the reset, the platform will be ready to start fresh!

🔗 Check it out!

🌐 Live website: https://www.crowdwide.run.place/

💻 GitHub repository: https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwide

And yes, it's OPEN SOURCE!!

Also, the repository currently has 0 stars.

FAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH. 😭

It's okay, though. If nobody stars it, I'll just star my own repository.

PROBLEM SOLVED. 😂⭐

❤️ A Small Request

Right now, Crowdwide is running entirely on free-tier resources.

That means there may occasionally be unexpected issues, limitations, or downtime. If you encounter a bug, please let me know!

And if you'd like to contribute, you're welcome to explore the repository, create a branch, make improvements, and submit a pull request.

I'd genuinely appreciate the help.

I'm hoping that, over the next 6–8 months or so, as Crowdwide grows and I find the resources to support it, I can move it to better infrastructure, get a proper domain, and use more reliable database and hosting solutions.

For now, we're making the most of what we have!

One Last Thing…

Crowdwide isn't perfect yet.

Translations still need work, monetization isn't ready.
For now all the main core features are done just tranlation is broken (working on my device but on deployed it brokes!?? dirty translator!!)

But seeing something that started as an idea slowly turn into a working platform is an amazing feeling.

I'm just 15, and this is one of the biggest projects I've worked on so far. Before this i tried to build one social media platform but that was not very good like u can post and after some time you'd find that your post's banner was missing ... yea that was supremacy of my old platform vibeconnet (its deleted 2 min silence for it... lol)

There were bugs, frustrating days, broken APIs, confusing documentation, and moments when I genuinely wondered why I was doing all this.

But here we are.

Crowdwide is almost ready for its first stable release!

And this is just version 1. There's still so much more I want to do.

Thank you to everyone who checks it out, reports bugs, contributes, or simply takes a look.

Now excuse me while I prepare for the release and hope nothing breaks tomorrow.

PLEASE. NOTHING. BREAK. TOMORROW. 😭🙏

WOOOHOOOOOO!! 🎉🚀

Crowdwide Is Almost Ready — Stable Release on October 3rd! 🎉

Puneet-Kumar2010 — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 11:00:49 +0000

Wooohoooo!! Finally!! 😭🚀

I've been working on Crowdwide for almost a month, and I'm finally getting close to releasing its stable version.

The plan is to bring Crowdwide back online on October 1, 2026, followed by the stable release on October 3, 2026.

There have been a lot of changes, improvements, bug fixes, and small details to work on. Honestly, I'm excited to finally get this thing out there!

First, about the temporary downtime

If you've tried visiting Crowdwide recently, you might have noticed that the server is suspended.

Unfortunately, this is due to the limitations of the free hosting tier I'm currently using. The platform has been offline for around 6–7 days.

But don't worry! I'm planning to redeploy Crowdwide on October 1st. 🎉

The downtime hasn't stopped development. I've continued working on the platform, fixing issues, improving existing features, and preparing the stable version.

What's new in Crowdwide?

Quite a lot, actually!

During this development period, I've worked on several improvements across the platform.

🧠 Feed and discovery

A smarter feed algorithm.
A smart interest-detection algorithm.
Improved post loading.
Better suggestions for people to follow.
Advanced search.
Hashtags and mentions.
Writing suggestions.
Translation support.

The goal is to make discovering interesting people, content, and communities easier, especially for smaller communities that deserve a chance to grow.

💬 Posts, comments, and interactions

Reactions and multiple reaction options.
GIFs and emojis.
Nested comments.
Improved comments and chat UI.
A sharing system.
Better image alignment.
Media captions and transcripts.
An author-like feature inspired by this DEV post.

I've also worked on making the overall posting experience smoother and more consistent.

💬 Chat and social features

An improved chat system.
Better sharing functionality.
More customization options.
Improved people-to-follow suggestions.
Better layouts across different parts of the platform.

🛡️ Communities and moderation

Community management is an important part of Crowdwide, so I've continued improving it.

Community moderation tools.
Group moderation features.
Improved moderation workflows.
Better controls for managing communities.

I'm also looking for community moderators!

If you'd like to help moderate communities on Crowdwide, I'd love to hear from you. As the platform grows, having people who genuinely want to help build healthy communities will be important.

🔐 Security, privacy, and reliability

I've also worked on several less-visible but important things:

CAPTCHA protection.
Required authentication for protected actions.
Improved error handling.
Responsive UI improvements.
Statistics and activity insights.
A help center.
The ability to request a copy of your own data.

These aren't necessarily the flashiest features, but they're important when you're trying to build something people can actually use.
faaaaaaaaah!! sounds good but doesn't feel complete!!
i will see and add that my cycle of learning and creating
but still i have a thought like will it work like a social media platform or just another project in my github repo

Also there are few i'm thing to keep in long term plan

About monetization 💰

One thing I've decided is to keep community monetization as a long-term goal rather than introducing it immediately.

My initial idea was to let community owners eventually monetize their communities and receive a share of advertising revenue.

However, I don't want to rush that part.

First, I want people to build real communities, attract members, publish content, and establish active audiences. Monetization makes more sense when communities have actual users and meaningful activity.

I'm expecting this to take at least a few months after launch, potentially four months or more. That's an estimate, not a fixed deadline.

For now, the priority is getting the platform stable and helping its communities grow.

A little about Crowdwide's story

Crowdwide is the latest social media platform I've built.

Before this, I worked on another project called Vibeconnect. That project taught me a lot about building social platforms, and some of its visual inspiration has carried over into Crowdwide.

NGL, Crowdwide's theme is still inspired partly by Vibeconnect and by the social platforms I use today. I wanted to build on what I'd learned rather than start from zero in every possible way.

But Crowdwide has its own direction: giving communities of all sizes a place to grow and helping people discover communities beyond the ones that are already popular.

It's still evolving, and there's plenty left to improve.

My Signalcrest score 👀

I recently checked Crowdwide on Signalcrest, a platform that tracks emerging topics and their momentum.

My Crowdwide topic currently shows:

Signal score: 67.4 / 100

The topic is marked as Heating, although its trajectory is still listed as Too early because more data snapshots are needed.

It's exciting to see the project show up there! Of course, this isn't a measure of Crowdwide's user count or a guarantee of future success, but it's a nice little milestone during development.

What's left before release?

The core foundation is almost ready, but I'm not pretending everything is perfect.

I still have some smaller tasks to finish, including:

Further SEO improvements.
Additional UI polishing.
Checking for responsive layout issues.
Fixing any remaining feature glitches I can find.
More testing and stability improvements.

I'm sure some bugs will survive despite my best efforts. 😭 That's software development, I guess!

I'll keep working on them as they come up.

October 1st → October 3rd 🚀

Here's the current plan:

October 1, 2026: Redeploy Crowdwide and bring it back online.
October 3, 2026: Release the stable version.

I'm excited, a little nervous, and honestly relieved that this is finally coming together.

Almost a month of work, so many small fixes, new features, and UI improvements — and now I'm finally approaching the finish line.

The foundation is almost ready. Now I want to see what happens when real people start using it.

Want to check out the project?

GitHub repository: https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwiderepo

If you're interested in helping with community moderation, testing the platform, or sharing feedback, I'd love to hear from you.

Thank you to everyone who's followed the journey so far.

See you on October 1st. WOOOGOOOOO!! 🎉🚀

Let's get Crowdwide out there!

🚨 Crowdwide is temporarily suspended

Puneet-Kumar2010 — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 16:49:06 +0000

As I mentioned earlier, Crowdwide is currently under public testing. Unfortunately, the service has now been temporarily suspended due to a billing issue with the free tier of the hosting/service provider.

Puneet-Kumar2010

Sep 20

Crowdwide Is Now Public for Testing 🚀

#discuss #webdev #buildinpublic #javascript

3 min read

I’m working on getting it back online, but I’m also looking for free or low-cost alternatives that could reliably support a social platform during its testing phase.

If you know any good alternatives for hosting/infrastructure that offer a reasonable free tier, please share them below. I’d really appreciate any suggestions! 🙌

I’ll post another update once Crowdwide is back online.