This young programmer’s MySpace “clone” exceeds one million registrations

In 2020, when the young German Anton Röhm created SpaceHey, a website inspired by MySpace, for fun, he was far from imagining that it would be so successful. Four years later, the programmer is 22 years old and his site exceeds one million registrations.

The menu bar, positioned horizontally, seems frozen in time. It has a blog section, one for forums and another for searching profiles. Pseudonyms take on special characters faithful to the advent of web 2.0.

As at the time, music takes pride of place on the home page of this retro platform, with titles ranging from Sabrina Carpenter to Billie Eilish, all available for listening.

This real leap in time that SpaceHey offers cultivates the nostalgia of Internet users who experienced the glory days of MySpace.

Nostalgia for a time he never knew

If we do the math, the creator of this new site, Anton Röhms, was at most seven years old when MySpace collapsed in 2008, accelerated by the massive adoption of Facebook.

Why did you create a site inspired by an era of the web that you never really knew?

A little out of anxiety of failure (FOMO syndrome): I had heard a lot about it, from friends, but also on Reddit, YouTube and Twitter.

I haven’t been able to find a site where I can personalize my profile this much and be this creative.

Not having been able live MySpacehe decided to create it.

Once upon a time… the pandemic

Like many, Anton Röhm was looking to keep busy in 2020, his plans to discover the world before his first university year having fallen through with the COVID-19 pandemic.

A self-taught coder since he was 13, he had small programming projects on the side that he now had time to devote to. SpaceHey was one of them.

A first version of the site, non-functional, was created at the end of 2020. It was an instant success on Reddit. A comment came up often. People told me: it’s very nice, but I would really like to use ithe says.

Not shying away from this challenge, he got to work. Little by little, the programmer recreated the profiles, integrated the comments, added the possibility of having friends, creating a blog, following another, etc.

It’s a pretty big platform.recognizes the young programmer, almost out of breath to list all the work accomplished.

Thousands of Internet users attended. From the first weeks of launch, they created their profiles on the platform.

The young adult continues the work by adding his personal touch to certain MySpace features. For example, it added the ability to make temporary posts, and to choose whether to post content publicly or privately.

And there’s no question of having a news feed managed by an algorithm. Nostalgia is beautiful, but privacy is a very important aspect to me. This is one of the reasons why I am not very active on Facebookhe said.

One million followers

His last four years of effort working in spare time between an internship and his university computer science courses were rewarded in August. SpaceHey has reached a major milestone by reaching one million accounts.

It’s crazy, I didn’t expect it to be this big […] I have users in just about every country in the world. Especially in South America.

People are nostalgic for a time when everything was simpler, yes, but they are obviously looking for a place on the Internet where friendship is more important. Young people also love the platform, due to its customization options different from other social networking siteshe believes.

This good nature is also reflected in SpaceHey’s moderation needs. There is definitely some spam, unfortunately. But it’s in a tiny proportion compared to other social networks.

As proof, Anton Röhm claims to get by with five or six moderators, in addition to himself.

What encouraged him to persevere was precisely the SpaceHey community. And it is thanks to this that he manages to finance his activities, with donations and the sale of merchandise bearing the image of SpaceHey.

I was blown away by the reactions I got.

The advertisers, for their part, don’t rush to the doorshe admits, surprised. This choice of a more confidential platform seems to be a hindrance for them, out of disinterest in advertising on a site that collects little datahe suggests.

The work continues

With the launch of a SpaceHey mobile app for iOS and Android, the work is not over for Anton Röhm. He wants to add new features to his site between now and the holiday season, designed in particular for artists.

The platform is full of small music groups, painters, comic artists who find a new community on SpaceHey.

But until then, Anton Röhm still has to study for his exams at university, and is thinking of perhaps organizing a student exchange… in Canada.