On Day 50 I said I would pick TVLens back up in March 2027, with one goal: a working demo for a small group to test. That changed today. TVLens is live at app.tvlens.org.
Anyone can browse it. Only a few people can sign up. The beta is invite-only, and I made 15 invite codes. Fifteen is the second circle of Dunbar’s number: the people you would call for advice. I want feedback from people who will tell me the truth.
What changed my mind was cost. Not money, time. Getting the engine online took one evening, not a season. It runs on Fly.io. The machine sleeps when nobody is using it and wakes up when someone visits, so the first page can take a second or two. The database lives on a disk that stays when the machine sleeps.
The catalog refreshes itself every night. Each night it updates the ten shows that have gone the longest without a refresh, which takes seconds. Looking for new shows took more than twenty minutes, so that only happens on Sundays. I learned that by watching the first run take far longer than I expected.
On Day 51 I said I would not open TVLens to the public right away. I still haven’t. This is not the public. It’s a small room with the door open a crack.