Hellooo! Peter here 👋 I'm the crazy person behind Wusoup.
In late 2024 I started rebuilding Wusoup from the bones up: version 3. Since then it's gained hundreds of improvements, big and small. Here's a short summary of the bestest bits!
The highlights
More handsomer
Huge visual overhaul - plus dark mode and selectable themes.
Chat futuretech
Photos, voice messages, quote replies, reactions, GIFs, full-history search.
Topic Tango
A little conversation game that kills awkward silences.
Real notifications
Get pinged about new messages even when Wusoup is closed.
Reputation, karma & kudos
The community now runs on visible, earned trust.
Quieter, cleaner, safer
Much smarter automod, no zombie accounts, mute controls.
More handsomer 💅
Wusoup got a top-to-bottom visual overhaul - easily a couple thousand tweaks, from the landing page to the tiniest button. It's faster and smoother too, especially on phones.
And yes - dark mode is finally here 🦇, along with colour themes you know and love like: "Lost in Neon", "The Fragrance of Dark Coffee", "Like It's 1979", "Hopelessly Smitten"...
Chat futuretech 🐙
- Send photos in chats - with captions, drag & drop, and a confirmation step to stop mis-sends 😅
- Voice messages 🔈
- Quote replies to answer a specific message
- Emoji reactions 🫶 and animated GIFs
- Drafts auto-save, and chats stay in sync across your devices
- A new/unread separator shows where you left off
- Search your full chat history, no limits
- Chats list: search, sort & filter, pin up to 50 favourites, and clean up stale chats
What will they think of next?
Better ways to meet people 💃
Topic Tango is the headliner: a little game that deals you and a partner fun topics to riff on. Great for skipping the "so... hi" phase.
- Smarter matching that actually weighs shared interests
- Online folks are prioritized, with online indicators while you browse
- Profiles level up: more photos (drag to reorder), profile prompts for when the blank "about me" box stares back, tag suggestions, country flags, and local time
- Choose which languages you're comfy chatting in
It's basically an app now 📳
- Install Wusoup on your home screen, just like an app
- Real device notifications - hear about new messages even when Wusoup is closed
- Audio alerts (with a mute switch, you're welcome 🔇)
- Unread badges, so you always know what's waiting
Wusoup still lives entirely in your browser - no app store, no tracking nonsense. It just behaves like a proper app now.
A community that runs on trust 🏆
- Reputation: members quietly recommend (or don't) the people they chat with - helps to keep out the bots and creepers
- Kudos: public compliments for inspiring, supportive, funny humans 🏅
- Karma, reworked: clear formula, live updates, named tiers, and predictable rewards every 5 levels
- Invites are back - and an invite is a vouch: bring in someone great, earn karma; bring in a troll, lose it
Quieter, cleaner, safer 🧹
Less visible, but you'll feel it:
- A much smarter automod - faster at catching creeps and spammers
- Email addresses are regularly re-verified, so no zombie accounts - right now ~90% of first messages get a reply 🤯
- You can now mute individual users, tune chat privacy, and review previously blocked users
Odds & ends 🎁
- A shiny new community stats page - live numbers straight from the soup.
- You can now join or log in with Google, Discord or Facebook
- Chat anniversaries 🥂 - a little nod when you and a chat buddy hit the one-year mark
- Markdown formatting in chats and profiles
- A compact chats list, and a filter for unread messages
- You now stay logged in by default. Finally.
It's been a minute 🕰
Some context for why this update is sort of a big deal: I've been working on Wusoup on-and-off for 18 years now. Wusoup is old enough to vote in some jurisdictions!
It's been a labour of love, and a source of frustration, and a part of my identity (for better and worse) - through three major rewrites, a lot of ups and downs, and basically every phase of my life so far. If nothing else, it's been a big part of me.
And I think it's actually in pretty decent shape at the moment. I'd like to believe that its mission has never been clearer, nor more important. And I choose to believe that there are at least dozens of people out there that maybe feel similarly ^^
So this is officially "Wusoup: version 3"! I hope you like it, or at least see some potential in it. I'm not done improving things, but this felt like the right time to step back and reflect on some of the progress that's been made.
- Peter Taoussanis ("the Wusoup guy")
Wusoup v2 in its natural habitat, ca. 2015. If you remember this - hello, old friend 💙
"The goal isn't maximum growth, or even maximum engagement. The goal here is maximum meaning."
Wusoup is still one person's experiment in a kinder corner of the internet - no ads, no investors, no rage-bait algorithms. Just strangers making an effort. If that still sounds like your jam, your account is right where you left it. If that sounds like your jam, come on in - the soup's warm.
PS - Thoughts? Gripes? Cute pet photos to share? Ping me - it's really me on the other end.