Three companies own 62% of internet advertising.
Meta, Google, and Amazon between them. The top ten own nearly 80%. Digital advertising is a winner-take-all game by design, and it gets more concentrated every year. The auctions, the algorithms, the targeting, the minimum spend tiers, everything in modern adtech is built for one type of customer: someone with millions of dollars to spend and millions of users to acquire.
Meanwhile, there's a real movement of people actively choosing independent creators over big platforms. Newsletters over algorithmic feeds. Indie apps over Big Tech defaults. Small shops over Amazon. The audience exists. What doesn't exist is a way for independent creators to send that audience to each other.
Nook is that. A network where indie creators recommend each other's work through a small widget on their sites.
If you're building something independent, join the first wave. Early members get free credits to start and a permanent spot in the founding cohort.
Reply with thoughts anytime, I read everything.
You add one line of code to your site. A small widget appears in the corner showing a single recommendation from another creator. Every time a visitor sees it, you earn a credit. Spend those credits to have your own work shown on other creators' sites. That's the whole loop.
Embed. One script tag in your site. A small widget appears in the corner showing a single curated recommendation. You pick the category, you can swap or hide it anytime.
Earn. Each impression earns you a credit. The more visits you send to other creators, the more you can spend on traffic of your own.
Spend. Submit your project, set what kind of sites you want to appear on, and use your credits to land in front of other creators' audiences.
No. Every creator and every recommended project is reviewed before they enter the network. Categories are tight, so a meditation app doesn't end up next to a gambling site. Curation is the product.
Directories are passive. You list, you wait, nobody visits. Nook is the opposite. Your work appears in front of someone already on an indie creator's site, in context, when they're already paying attention to small tools.
Impressions are validated, traffic quality is scored, and accounts that try to farm credits with low-quality sites get caught and removed. The economics only work if the network stays high signal.
The core network stays free. Earn credits by displaying recommendations, spend them to get yours shown. If you want more traffic than you can earn, you'll be able to buy extra credits at indie-friendly prices.
The first version goes to people on this list in small batches. Drop your email and you'll be in line.
That is the Nook Widget. Running on this page so you can see what visitors to your site would see. Click it.
Add your project to the network. Early members start with free credits.