Dot Friends Where internet friends build things together.

Dot Friends

Where internet friends build things together.

Latest Articles

Five Faces Beat Zero Faces: The Case for Putting Your Whole Crew on the About Page
Community Stories

Five Faces Beat Zero Faces: The Case for Putting Your Whole Crew on the About Page

An anonymous group project reads like a corporate front; a site with five goofy headshots and honest bios reads like a porch light left on. Here's why the About page is the most underrated trust-building tool a friend-built website has — and how to write one that doesn't feel like a LinkedIn hostage situation.

First Foot in the Door: How a Simple 'Start Here' Page Turns Strangers Into Regulars
Community Stories

First Foot in the Door: How a Simple 'Start Here' Page Turns Strangers Into Regulars

Friend-built websites are great at welcoming the people who already belong. But what about the visitor who wandered in off a search result at 11 p.m.? Here's why the humble 'New Here?' page might be the most important thing your crew never built.

Lights Off, Lights On: The Art of Retiring a Website You Built With Friends
Community Stories

Lights Off, Lights On: The Art of Retiring a Website You Built With Friends

Every group project eventually runs out of steam — but how you shut it down says everything about the friendship behind it. A field guide to archiving, saying goodbye, and keeping the domain drama out of the group chat.

When the Website Outlives the Friendship: A Field Guide to the Internet Breakup
Community Stories

When the Website Outlives the Friendship: A Field Guide to the Internet Breakup

You met online, built something real, and now one of you is quietly drifting toward the exit. Who keeps the domain, the repo, and — the hardest question of all — the group chat? We talked to people who survived the split.

Fifteen Years of Dust: The Friends Who Resurrected Their GeoCities-Era Site on a Fresh Domain
Community Stories

Fifteen Years of Dust: The Friends Who Resurrected Their GeoCities-Era Site on a Fresh Domain

A group of college friends who ran a mid-2000s fan site decided to rebuild it together on a modern domain — and discovered that the code changed, the hosting got cheaper, but the group chat dynamics stayed exactly the same. Here's why nostalgic rebuilds are quietly becoming a trend among millennial web hobbyists.

Field Notes From the Dot Friendship Trenches: Unwritten Rules Every Internet Collab Needs
Community Stories

Field Notes From the Dot Friendship Trenches: Unwritten Rules Every Internet Collab Needs

Every internet friendship eventually reaches the moment where someone says 'we should build something together.' Before you do, read the field guide nobody wrote — until now. These are the rules you'll either learn here or learn the hard way.

It Started as a Joke: Five Group Chats That Shipped Something Real
Community Stories

It Started as a Joke: Five Group Chats That Shipped Something Real

A weekend joke site. A Discord bot nobody meant to monetize. Five internet friend groups explain the exact moment their side project stopped being a hobby — and the awkward money talk that followed.

Six Names, One URL: The Gentle Chaos of Co-Owned Domains
Domain Investing

Six Names, One URL: The Gentle Chaos of Co-Owned Domains

When a group of friends splits the cost of a domain, nobody's thinking about exit clauses — until somebody goes quiet. We talked to friend-built projects about their unwritten domain rules and the paperwork they wish they'd signed on day one.

Nobody Quit Over the Code: How Font Fights Actually Kill Friend-Built Websites
Domain Investing

Nobody Quit Over the Code: How Font Fights Actually Kill Friend-Built Websites

Ask around and you'll hear the same story: the project didn't die from a hard technical problem, it died from a six-week argument over typography. On surviving the small creative disputes that sink collaborative builds.

The Dues Day Solution: Splitting Server Bills Without Splitting Up the Group Chat
Community Stories

The Dues Day Solution: Splitting Server Bills Without Splitting Up the Group Chat

Shared hosting is cheap until five friends are Venmo-ing each other $3.17 at midnight. Here's how real friend groups handle hosting bills, renewals, and tool subscriptions — plus a copy-paste agreement that keeps the friendship intact.

The 2 A.M. Ping Test: How Group Chots Quietly Become Families
Community Stories

The 2 A.M. Ping Test: How Group Chots Quietly Become Families

Somewhere between splitting the hosting bill and arguing about favicon colors, a project chat stops being a workspace and starts being a friendship. We talked to internet friend groups across the US about their unwritten rules — and why no app will ever replace them.

Skip the Feed: Five Little Corners of the Internet That Still Feel Like Neighborhoods
Community Stories

Skip the Feed: Five Little Corners of the Internet That Still Feel Like Neighborhoods

Algorithm fatigue is real, and a growing wave of small web spaces is proving you don't need an engagement metric to build something people love. Five digital third places worth studying — and what solo creators can steal from each one.

Nobody Writes Songs About WHOIS Privacy: The Quiet Loyalty of a Shared Domain Renewal
Domain Investing

Nobody Writes Songs About WHOIS Privacy: The Quiet Loyalty of a Shared Domain Renewal

Friendship bracelets fade. Matching tattoos are forever in the wrong way. But the real test of internet commitment is simpler: did you split the renewal fee again this year? An ode to the people who keep the DNS alive.

The $12 Trust Experiment: How to Vet an Internet Collaborator Before You Build Together
Community Stories

The $12 Trust Experiment: How to Vet an Internet Collaborator Before You Build Together

You've traded memes with this person for eight months, but can you actually ship a project with them? Here's a field-tested checklist—red flags, green flags, and one cheap experiment involving a domain renewal—that separates real collaborators from chat noise.

Small Sites, Big Rooms: Five Tiny Websites That Turned Strangers Into Regulars
Domain Investing

Small Sites, Big Rooms: Five Tiny Websites That Turned Strangers Into Regulars

You don't need a budget or a growth team to build a loyal following — just a page, a point of view, and one repeatable habit. We look at five small, quirky websites that grew real communities and the exact tactic behind each one.

The Third Dot: Every Group Project Has One, and Yours Deserves a Raise
Community Stories

The Third Dot: Every Group Project Has One, and Yours Deserves a Raise

Behind every side project that actually shipped, there's a third friend who never wrote a line of code or bought the domain — but showed up anyway. Here's why the 'third dot' might be the most valuable person on your internet team, and how to become one.

Your Domain Deserves Better Than a Parking Page: 7 Ways to Build a Real Audience Around It
Domain Investing

Your Domain Deserves Better Than a Parking Page: 7 Ways to Build a Real Audience Around It

Parking revenue is fine, but it's a rounding error compared to what a domain can earn when it anchors an actual audience. Here are seven practical ways to turn your portfolio into communities people actually want to join.

From Group Chat to Launch Day: The Quiet Rise of Internet Co-Founders
Community Stories

From Group Chat to Launch Day: The Quiet Rise of Internet Co-Founders

Some of the most interesting startups of the last few years didn't start in a garage or an accelerator — they started in a Discord server. We look at how casual online friendships turn into real businesses, and what the successful ones did differently.