Since leaving Amazon last year, I built a thing. It’s called RobinLetter. I launched it in invite-only mode back in February, but a little over a week ago I opened up registration to the world. So I thought it was time to announce it here too.
The TL;DR:
RobinLetter is a new way to keep in touch. Small circles of people take turns making thoughtful updates to each other, rather than posting to a wide group or even to the entire world.
RobinLetter provides an alternative to how social media tries to maximize the time you spend there, often by showing you things that will make you angry or upset. And to the feeling everybody is just trying to gain followers and attention, with frequent posters putting on a show, while the others slowly tune out more and more.
If you are interested, go to robinletter.com, sign up, and check it out!
If you know me personally, and want to be invited to an existing Robin that might make sense including both of us, ping me, and if I have one that makes sense already set up, I’ll add you. Otherwise you can just sign up and make your own.
And now more detail for those who want it:
RobinLetter reimagines “Round Robin Letters”, a pre-internet way small groups kept in touch by exchanging packets of letters. Since the point is to keep in touch with family or friends, there is no algorithmic feed of content from strangers, so to start, if you haven’t already been invited to an existing Robin, you need to make a new Robin.
Each Robin has a specific list of people in a specific order, and they take turns providing updates. When it is your turn, you write an update to share with the group. One full pass through everyone in the Robin is called a flight; after the last person it wraps back to the first person and a new flight begins.
RobinLetter works best for groups of 5-15 people who know each other, not just the creator, and who want to keep in touch, but aren’t already doing so regularly in other ways. Groups like extended family, friends who have moved apart, or former coworkers you were close with tend to succeed.
Beyond those classic use cases, RobinLetter could also work for groups built around shared interests or activities — book clubs, hobby groups, alumni circles, collaborative storytelling, class assignments, or similar. If the turn-based structure resonates, it is worth experimenting!
RobinLetter has been live in invite-only mode for the last few months as I’ve refined things and debugged, with over 100 monthly active users when I flipped the switch to open registration. I have a long list of additional features I want to add on my roadmap, but it was time to open it up. So here it is.
So far most of the Robins that have been created in this initial phase seem to be working well and participants are enjoying them. I’ve gotten lots of positive feedback from users. The median active Robin has 78% of turns providing updates (rather than passing or timing out). The median update length on those Robins is 235 words. People are actively engaging with and commenting on updates as well.
If any of this sounds interesting to you, please hit me up with questions or comments. Or you could just sign up and start using it. 🙂