CursorParty shows the live cursors of other people browsing the same public page, with quick chat bubbles for real-time moments.
I would browse the internet often and ask myself: how many people are seeing what I'm seeing right now, yet we don't know about each other? We share unique interests or look at the internet at the same place and time, yet we never make these connections. Browsing online can be very isolating, and I wanted to make it slightly less so.
A bit of both. Each website is a different experience, so I wanted to add a bridge rather than create a full-scale new experience. I wanted people to feel like they are not alone. It's like a conference—you already know the people attending are closer to you because of shared interests. I wanted to preserve that ease of initiating contact.
It mirrors what people are accustomed to in tools like Figma or Miro. It’s a symbolic way to communicate the physical positioning of attention rather than an abstract chat. It allows for 'cursor personalities'—having a custom look or a specific browsing pattern that attracts others to specific parts of a page.
It's a battle of perception. People are used to repulsive tracking software, but CursorParty is about providing just enough information to establish a connection. I found myself manually installing the extension for people just to show them that moment of wonder when they realize others are there. The biggest obstacle wasn't technical; it was a lack of imagination for how we could interact with the web.
People mentioned wanting to go on 'browsing trips.' Being on one website is cool, but following each other across multiple sites—like a 'web hunting trip'—turns a one-off meeting into a journey. It transforms the experience into adventures or quests where you could follow a leader or vote on which website to visit next.
