A Million Brilliant Moments: Creating the Best of the Web
As we get close to 1M projects on Glitch, we take a look at the fantastic apps and creators that have helped define our creative community.
I love working on Glitch. One of the things I like most is the amazingly creative, friendly, and thoughtful community that I get to work alongside each day.
Tech has been getting a good kicking in the media lately, and rightly so. From execs being jerks to privacy woes — at times the outlook for those making tech can seem bleak. But what gives me hope for the future is the genuine positivity and creativity that I see in the Glitch community every single day.
Glitch is the creative community where the cutting-edge of the web is invented. It’s comprised of coders, designers, artists, activists, students and educators. There are those who love to code, and others that think of it as a tool to get stuff done. There are code newbies, and folks who’ve been creating and coding for years. But what they all have in common is that they’re building the apps of their dreams on Glitch.
And, at any moment now, one of our community members will create the millionth Glitch app!
These apps cover everything from bots and websites, to art projects, virtual reality experiences, interactive infographics and much more.
Creators are building on Glitch for fun, creating hit apps, like:
- Webcomicname-mashup by caseyf: An app that mashes up webcomicname panels, enabling you to create your own mashup comics.
- F1-start by jakearchibald: Test your reactions with this F1 start simulator. This app was even used by real-life F1 drivers.
- Emoji-Garden by notwaldorf: Generate a random emoji garden.
For others, it’s not just fun, it’s funding. Like Sam Wilcoxon at Lorem, who created an MVP on Glitch that would go on to help them secure $1.1M in funding and launch their product to the masses. But many in the community are just creating apps as a way of expressing themselves. Some through music, like: 🎶🎧🎶️
- Nelson by arirawr: Slide and tweak the settings to create a super-customizable Spotify recommendation track list.
- Record-player by PatrickWeaver: A Rube Goldberg Machine-like mashup of the Google Cloud Vision and Spotify APIs that selects a song based on an image you upload. It’s like Shazam, but for album covers.
While others are expressing themselves through art: 🎨 🖼️
- Immigrationcolab by mehtapaydin: A 360 immersive experience that follows a water droplet’s journey crossing the desert. Made during Tribeca Film Institute’s Immigration Colab.
- Animated-pixel-gradients by noahleigh: Make pixelated gradient GIFs with words.
- Snowy-island by AVGP: A fun, wintery WebVR scene. Did you spot the bears’ Christmas get together?
Of course there are those who are building apps on Glitch to help teach others how to code. They’re creating resources like tutorials and workshops. While others are using such resources to try out new technologies and learn new skills. Many people in the community are creating apps to help people in other ways too: 😍🤟🏾
- Glitch-notifier by picsoung: Looks out for Glitch Help questions and notifies you about new ones in Slack.
- Trans-gp-finder by uveavanto: A map showing trans-friendly GPs in the UK.
- Routeshuffle by Riley Walz: An app that helps people make routes for running, walking or cycling.
But for me, a clear sign that Glitch truly is a friendly, helpful community is when its members feel safe and empowered to try out new things and share them with the world. There might be almost 1M projects on Glitch, but among them are many that are someone’s first. Whether that’s their first time trying something new:
Or even their first public app ever!
One thing’s for certain, though — as the Glitch community continues to grow and create the best of the web, we’re looking forward to many more firsts to come.
But who will create the 1 millionth app on Glitch? We can’t wait to see what you create 🎏✨
We’ll be hosting a special event soon with our CEO, Anil Dash, where you can ask him anything about the community and the future of Glitch itself.
