CheerLights is an Internet of Things (IoT) project that allows people from all over the world to synchronize the color of their lights to the same color, creating a kind of global connectedness.
Twitter/X
According to my own History of the CheerLights Project, I created this project around the idea that anyone on Twitter, ahem, X, could change everyone’s lights. Twitter made the most sense. It was open and had a global reach. And the bonus was that followers of people who joined the project would see the tweets, which caused some of them to join the project. It was a nice, virtuous circle that fueled the growth of CheerLights year over year. 2022 was the biggest year for the project, just hitting its peak at the same time Twitter started to crack. The API access that we have had for over 12 years was cut off, users moved to decentralized platforms, and X’s relevance has been in constant question. Don’t get me wrong. I will always have a special place in my heart for Twitter. I can’t unwind Twitter’s on my professional growth over the last 15 years.
Discord
The CheerLights community got together last year and created a Discord server bot and even released the bot’s source code on GitHub. We did this to increase the number of ways to control the CheerLights network, but as it turned out, this is now the primary way to control CheerLights. Hundreds of our users moved over to the Discord server from Twitter/X. In some ways, Discord is way better. I love being able to chat in real-time with other people who are building CheerLights. A lot of people use Discord. And Discord is constantly evolving and keeping up with the trends by adding admin and community features. In other ways, it is not ideal for CheerLights. Discord servers are not easily discoverable. You have to be in the know. It is hard to attract new users since new users don’t see public mentions of the project. But I am not aiming for perfection. I am aiming for a path forward to keep the project growing. Discord is where we are now. Join us.
How can you help?
Since our Discord server is hidden from public view, we could use your help by making CheerLights discoverable. If you share your project on your blog or social channels, include a link to the Discord server invitation. H
CheerLights Discord Server Invitation Link: https://cheerlights.com/discord
Thank you to everyone who has helped build and grow this project over the last 12 years. This is always my favorite time of year getting to see the creative ways CheerLights gets used and how it enables learning of core IoT concepts.
Has the tweeting toaster also moved to discord?
Does the ThingTweet app on ThingSpeak still work?
More generally, does what’s happening at X/Twitter foreshadow what is likely to happen to free/poorly monetized platforms on the internet?
Tweeting (or X’ing?) via the API still works. CheerLights relied on the stream API. This service went away.
X management went a new direction and wants something new at the cost of fringe projects and 3rd-party apps. Monetization is not part of the dimise. This was all business choices.