My Latest Web App Is A Zombie!

Well, there’s no nice and easy way to say this, so I’ll just have to say it with as straight a face as I can:

My latest web app is a Zombie.

Not quite the walking and flesh-eating type, but definitely it reminds me of those hoardes of Undead.

See, when I set out to create NomadHideout, I envisioned an app that would help developers promote their mobile applications developed with React Native.

React Native, a Facebook project, allows a developer to create a native mobile application very rapidly. This is done by using the ubiquitous JavaScript programming language.

JavaScript has a famously low barrier to entry, and so the choice of JavaScript for React Native has made it so that many more developers can now create mobile apps, even if they don’t love the native platform or its default tools.

Suffice it to say, developers already in love with Java for Android or Swift on iOS are going to be the reluctant ones when it comes to making the switch, and I can’t say I blame them.

For the rest of us, however, JavaScript on mobile is huge.

So I naturally created NomadHideout to help something I see a lot of value in myself. I had plans to be actively using React Native for some of my own apps, but got deep into completing my first book, a science fiction novel, which is coming soon!

I toyed briefly with the idea of making NomadHideout cater to the needs of bloggers for simplified access to influencers. I got a lot of inspiration towards this from Glen Alssopp and the Gaps team.

This was a good problem to solve, and applies to me personally as a blogger. However, at this stage, I’m just not doing that much influencer outreach and so I kind of gravitated towards something I was much more directly involved with.

Later, however, I just realized the app I had created was actually perfectly suited to allowing authors to showcase their books and get involved in deep discussions with readers.

This is something that appeals to me as I’ve examined the publishing ecosystem, and realize we probably need something like this.

Developing the actual app was, funnily enough, quite easy. I used Backbone.js, some good ol’ JavaScript, a dash of the Elixir programming language and tied it all up with the bold and audacious Phoenix framework. If you are making apps, you can do much, much worse.

I don’t plan to be actively developing the app for a while because I’m taking a hiatus from apps while I work on a small number of digital marketing and writing projects.

But the app itself is back in action. Enter the zombies from left!!!

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