Grand opening. Jotsky is open. To celebrate, a small stunt biplane, painted in Jotsky’s story red, loops around the page towing a white banner that reads GRAND OPENING. It’s decoration only; clicking it sends it down in flames. With reduced motion turned on, it holds still.
Read and write.
Jotsky is a nice place to read and write — stories, opinions, PSAs, or anything you’d like. You swipe through a stack, and what you read and enjoy decides what you’re shown next.
Out now on iPhone
to download Jotsky
One jot at a time.
Swipe through the Jot Stack, wander Discover, and leave a sticker on the writing you love.
Made for this moment.
Disenfranchisement with modern social media is at an all time high. We describe our relationship with our phones as addictive more than supportive. We recognize that the internet homepages that were once so awe-inspiring, the likes of Facebook, Reddit, and TikTok are attention vacuums that place engagement over the user experience.
“Healthier” scrolling alternatives like NYT games, Substack, and Morning Brew have seen massive audience surges in recent years due to this phenomenon.
Jotsky is made for this moment.A place that lets you scroll and swipe to your heart’s desire, but centers reading and writing, not pictures and videos.
Inspiration
Like many others, I have a scrolling addiction. Image and video feeds are like magnets, pulling me in without even thinking. So, like many of us have tried, I deleted the social media apps I had. Then, I was in the dark.
It felt great. No more doomscrolling rabbit holes and marathon swiping sessions. It’s like I gained free will. Chores were finished, hobbies were pursued and it was all great. But as time went on, something kept bugging me.
I wasn’t up to date on any current events. I’ve never been that hip but wow I was out of the loop. And during those slow spots in the day, like standing in lines, on lunch break, on transit, I missed catching up with the world.
What I really wanted was a magazine or newspaper, but 1) I don’t want to carry it around everywhere and 2) I don’t want to buy magazines and newspapers all the time — so, email newsletters were the next best thing.
Newsletters are an amazing substitute for social media, but I never found more than 3 that I really liked to read daily/weekly. Substack is supposed to solve this problem by connecting readers (me) with article writers, but the whole app discovery experience is optimized for headlines, not the actual writing. I found good reads between lots and lots of manual searching through headlines and googling “good substacks reddit”. Also, when you open Substack it defaults you to a short form content feed of images, text posts, and headlines (wait isn’t that just twitter?).
Just open Jotsky and you’re reading. If you don’t like it, swipe left. If you do like it, keep reading — we’ll serve you more Jots like that. Search for topics you’re interested in, listen to Jots, leave stickers on Jots you love.
I wanted to apply the gestures of social media that we’ve all grown accustomed to and that are so engaging to users, and apply it to reading and writing. I hope Jotsky can play a small role in making reading and writing more accessible and palatable, especially for the “iPhone generation” (myself included).
Built from the ground up for readers and writers.
01
Jot Stack
One jot at a time, full page. Swipe to turn to the next.
02
Discover
Search the whole catalogue, follow topics, read what’s been featured.
03
Stickers
Earn one each week you’re active. Place it on a jot worth it — permanently.
Free on iPhone