Telescope is almost here. The editor will be launched soon, so everybody will be able to start writing and publishing using the world's simplest and most beautiful publishing platform.
What makes Telescope special?
In two words — simplicity and honesty.
The idea of this project appeared in my head when I understood that I don’t like existing publishing platforms anymore, and it seems like nobody else does — mostly because these platforms have evolved into something monstrous and non-friendly. They show you ads and force you to close several popups before you even start reading the content, their content pages are very far from being simple and pure, and they load a bunch of scripts only to make animations nicer.
So I asked myself one simple question: Why do we need all these things to display static content? People want to read without being distracted by annoying banners or features nobody ever asked for.
Telescope's approach is different — the goal is to provide a fantastic reading experience with pure, nice-looking, elegant, and customizable pages. However, there're other cool features I want to to talk about.
Truly amazing editing experience
An editor is one of the most important parts of any publishing platform.
Our editor is beautiful — it's very minimal, but it contains all the features you need including the ability to use rich formatting, customize links, change styles, and embed pictures or code blocks. This text was written in Telescope Editor, and News is just a regular Telescope project, so you can easily get a feeling of how Telescope pages look like.
What's important is that the editor follows the same honesty principle — it doesn't ask you for anything like personal details and allows you to start writing stories immediately. You don't even need to register, so I need to say that writing and publishing has never been easier.
Unique distribution mechanisms
No publishing platform is complete without an ability to distribute your content. Of course, you can simply share your stories in other social media platforms, but we also have something very cool and unique — an ability to subscribe to projects via RSS, e-mail or Telegram and receive notifications immediately after a new publication appears, or on a weekly basis.
Just open any subscription page (this one, for example), see all the available options, and subscribe using one of them. Of course, soon there will be more options available.
What's next?
As always, a release is just the beginning. There are more features implemented and more features planned to be implemented, and the first release contains only those I found essential for the broad audience. Telescope is here to stay, and its roadmap is full of other cool things.
I feel that the customization options are still limited, and the next step is to give an ability to change absolutely all colors and styles. What's also missing is an ability to include videos and YouTube links — this feature is also in progress. A project page (for example, this one) looks very simple and lacks some individuality — so I am also working on making its layout customizable.
And, of course, there will be an option to export all your articles, and move them to any other place. Just because your content is yours, not ours.
The best way to support Telescope is to subscribe to our Twitter or the blog with news. We would also love to hear your opinions — tell us what you think of Telescope, its goals and ideas by writing to hi@telescope.ac.