Watchparty

I woke up this morning thinking — if I had a way to watch something like a YouTube video with Hannah while we're on opposite sides of the continent, that'd be nice.

• Ideally we do this without screen-sharing so we get YouTube's native resolution.
• It has to stay in sync despite network latency — if you're watching something funny, one person doesn't suddenly start laughing first.
• It also has to be simple — as long as there's a browser and the internet.

watchparty.jkvc.ai — so here it is.

Go make a room and send someone a four-letter code or the link.

watchparty — source is on GitHub. Redis for room state, Vercel for hosting

Native YouTube controls only — so ads and Premium quirks are yours to deal with, but nobody had to reinvent a video player.

Built on the syncframe anchor protocol: one scalar describes where playback is and how fast it's moving; every browser dead-reckons against a synced server clock. Play, pause, scrub — whatever anyone does, everyone follows. Stall on an ad and you snap back when you're ready; nobody else freezes.

Phase 1 is complete. I'll make another post when phase 2 finishes.