Hi everyone -

I hope you are all staying safe out there.

It’s been a long, weird summer, but now my children are about to go back to school (a couple of days week in person) and I’ll be able to crank a little bit more. Nothing plays hell with one’s roadmap quite like a global pandemic…

Anyway, I’m very excited about today’s announcement: Subdeputies.

The “Deputy” is the core engine of the site. When you sign up, you create a Deputy that works exclusively for you, building out your newsfeed from links coming through your Twitter account and from other tags you follow.

When you create a “Subdeputy,” you fire up a new Deputy which will focus only on the tags you give it. It will give preference to links coming through your Twitter feed, but it won’t surface them unless they hit something you explicitly follow.

Here are a couple of examples:

In my business account, I created a Serendeputy Tech Stack subdeputy to track updates in the technologies that power this site. I also created a Quantum Computing subdeputy because I’m a nerd and find that stuff fascinating.

In my personal account, I created a Patriots subdeputy to follow my local football team. I tend to hit this one when I’m drinking my coffee in the morning, to see what’s happening with the team today.

How it works:

When you create a subdeputy, it will prompt you to select some tags. (It won’t do anything if you don’t give it any instructions.) You don’t have to get this perfect the first time, you can always tune it later.

When you create a subdeputy, it will automatically set up a daily email for you. Some early alpha testers have told me they mostly the subdeputies as an email-only product; they scan the email and click through what looks interesting.

Once you have your subdeputy, you can flip between deputies using the orange bar at the top of the page. This will also allow you to flip through the deputies of people you’re following on Twitter.

How to get started:

Get started by going to your Following page and clicking the big green “Create Subdeputy” button.

Then, give it a name. When that’s done, enter in some tags or sites that will get you what you’re looking for. Your subdeputy will then start working for you.

The basic account provides slots for five custom subdeputies. The Pro accounts (more on that later – I need to make money at some point!) will provide slots for up to a hundred.

Please give it a try and let me know what you think. Everything should basically work, but I want to tweak the UX based on your feedback. I definitely have the curse of knowledge when I’m playing with it.

Cheers,

Jason