Lynx: Sharing Links Like It’s Not The 90s
Sending links has weirdly been left untouched by modern design, until now.
We just released an app called Lynx. It’s more than an app actually; it’s a service you can use on your iPhone, iPad, or computer.
Traditionally, when you find something interesting on the Internet and want to share it with a specific person, you email the URL to them. Or maybe you text it if you are under 25.
The person that receives that URL usually doesn’t have time to look at it right then. So it sits in their inbox. Forever.
Lynx replaces all that.
Sharing links with Lynx is super fast and easy: you simply tap the face of the friend you want to send it to and send.
Here is a screenshot of me sharing an article from the Medium app with one of my co-founders, Simon. I just tap on him and send.
You receive links directly into your Lynx account, and more specifically into your “Green Lynx” which serves as an inbox, but only for links. You can also save things into Green Lynx yourself, so it ends up being a mix of links that were sent to you + ones you’ve saved.
When you are good and ready, you have all your links waiting right there for you. Here you can see my Green Lynx, with a link from Manoj and a link from Kristé.
Our links are bright and colorful and inviting. Each link displays as an image — a big shiny object that you can easily tap or swipe.
Swiping right is how you share from within Lynx, so for instance if I wanted to share that Full House post (which I clearly do)…
I swipe right to reveal my friends. In this example, I am sending to Carolyn and Justin. You can share a single link with an unlimited number of friends all at once.
Besides seeing links from your friends, we also built in a public feed that we call “Blue Lynx”, which is the best of what everyone is sharing in real time.
It’s a great way to discover new content, and we’ll be doing more with it as more links come into the network. And of course, you can share items from Blue Lynx with friends or save them into your Green Lynx.
So that’s Lynx. As of today, it’s available for iOS, the desktop web, and as a Chrome extension. Oh, and it’s free.
Download it. Invite your friends. Try it out. Tell me what you think. This is only Version 1, so it’s just the beginning!
- Paul
