{"id":751171,"date":"2026-07-08T20:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T20:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/751171\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T20:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T20:27:10","slug":"slow-cial-app-roost-forces-you-to-slow-down-to-the-speed-of-a-carrier-pigeon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/751171\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Slow-cial’ app Roost forces you to slow down to the speed of a carrier pigeon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somewhere above the Great Plains, a virtual woodpecker is on its way to Alaska to deliver a message to my anonymous pen pal. At the same time, a zebra finch named Tucker soars into Manhattan to send a friend my shabby doodle of the Cool S<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These messages take hours or even days to send, depending on how far the bird has to fly, as that\u2019s the point of Roost<\/a>, the viral \u201cslow-cial\u201d app that\u2019s making carrier pigeons cool again. Roost arrives at a time when people crave the opportunity to slow down<\/a> and disconnect from the apps that constantly demand their attention and are embracing technology that adds friction<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverything on a phone is instantaneous these days \u2014 every single thing you do, it\u2019s like you\u2019re always getting some notification or something,\u201d Roost creator Logan Mendelsohn told TechCrunch. \u201c[Roost] is kind of a break from the instant. It\u2019s resonating with people in a way where they don\u2019t feel pressure all the time to have to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Image Credits:Roost, screenshots by TechCrunch<\/p>\n

When you sign up for Roost, you choose four birds to add to your rookery, which allows you to send messages to your friends on the app. <\/p>\n

Each bird moves at the speed that it travels in real life, so a falcon will deliver a message much faster than a hummingbird. (Yes, not every bird is a carrier pigeon, but including other species makes collecting birds and seeing your friends\u2019 birds more interesting.) If you really want to slow things down, you can send snails or turtles instead. <\/p>\n

A senior product manager in trust and safety at Ticketmaster, Mendelsohn started building Roost as a fun side project to use with his friends, but they loved the app so much that they encouraged him to publish it to the App Store. <\/p>\n

Mendelsohn\u2019s friends were onto something. The app developed a very small niche following, but it started to grow exponentially when a mother posted on Threads<\/a> about how her daughter was communicating with her friends in Elizabethan English on an app that sends messages at the speed of actual birds. <\/p>\n

\"\"Image Credits:@_karenlewis on Threads (opens in a new window)<\/a><\/p>\n

Within three days after that post, the app grew from 10,000 to 100,000 users. Now, about five weeks later, Roost is about to hit 300,000 users.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people are what really make this platform, and what people kept talking about is how wholesome it is, and how whimsical it is, and how much this really helps them put more intention into what they\u2019re saying to people,\u201d Mendelsohn said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot less pressure when you know that the message isn\u2019t going to someone immediately that I think has really resonated with the user base.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a trust and safety professional by day, Mendelsohn knows that any social platform \u2014 even his innocent bird app \u2014 has the potential to be abused. So, by default, only a user\u2019s city is shared with their friends. You can choose to manually enable a \u201cclose friends\u201d feature to share your precise location with specific people, however.<\/p>\n

\"\"Image Credits:Roost, screenshots by TechCrunch<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally think that for any new platform that connects people, trust and safety should be the first thing they think about,\u201d Mendelsohn said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re able to start at zero with that lens, then you can build it into the platform instead of doing it later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Privacy concerns were also front of mind when Mendelsohn created the \u201cPen Pals\u201d feature, which allows you to exchange messages with anonymous users in your age group. When onboarding onto the feature, you are explicitly warned not to give out your actual contact information or personal details. The app deliberately does not support photo sharing yet, as Mendelsohn wants to build out more sophisticated content moderation tools first.<\/p>\n

Given the sheer size and scope of Roost \u2014 did we mention there are mini games? \u2014 it doesn\u2019t come as a surprise that Mendelsohn has used Claude Code throughout its development. But the kind of people flocking to Roost tend to be people who are fatigued by the state of the tech industry, which drove them to seek out a \u201cslow-cial media\u201d app in the first place. <\/p>\n

Soon, Mendelsohn started receiving an onslaught of complaints from people who were disappointed to learn that he used AI-generated art for the images of birds.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the AI art side, I completely understood the feedback. I won\u2019t lie, it was daunting to see the reaction online, [but] I don\u2019t think it\u2019s productive to dig your heels in when your community is vocal about something they care for,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the same time, I also knew I couldn\u2019t flip a switch overnight. Replacing the art in an app this size takes time, planning, and money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mendelsohn\u2019s resources are limited as he continues to work on Roost in his spare time. He has no outside funding, and the app only generates revenue from in-app purchases like extra birds. To address users\u2019 concerns about the use of AI, he\u2019s now running a contest that will allow artists to contribute art instead. While that has satisfied complaints for now, the situation reflects a rising tension in the consumer app space. Many users now boycott AI art<\/a> out of respect for artists, but the situation with Roost\u2019s vibe-coded<\/a> app shows the situation isn\u2019t always cut-and-dried.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a solo founder, I don\u2019t think I could build and maintain something at this scale without AI-assisted development, but every product decision and direction for Roost still comes from me and the community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Somewhere above the Great Plains, a virtual woodpecker is on its way to Alaska to deliver a message…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[165,322169,74],"class_list":["post-751171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-roost","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}