The new app Byte is really quite something. It’s a deceptively simple app that lets you construct cards of content (“bytes”) by layering and animating text, images, movies, gifs, beats¹, news snippets, or just about anything else you can imagine. The default aesthetic is 90s Trapper Keeper, but there are enough customization options to make almost anything you could think of.

I appreciate that the lack of public profiles forces people to define their own presence on the app. Each byte a unique address, so the trend seems to be to create a profile byte for themselves a their user name. Here’s mine…

Bytes can link to other bytes (in addition to html sites), which gives bytes the flexibility to become many different things. Anyone who has starred a byte gets push notifications when it changes. It has the potential to be an interesting publishing platform. Jenn is using Byte to share egg recipes. Someone is making a Byte version of Oregon Trail. It’s already feeling vibrant in a way that few creative community apps ever do. The way Byte fosters creativity and embraces the early web’s hyperlink and remix culture is a real accomplishment.