hi there

Glad you're here

Things is a new website to browse and discover things in Minnesota

A single place to explore all of Minnesota's great places, events, restaurants, shops, activities, arts, entertainment, public services, local journalism, and so much more.

Why?

The internet kind of sucks right now. You get see what the tech bros want you to see. Generally that means ads they are paid to show you, and posts that are more likely to get you to spend more time on their site, so you can see even more ads.

The big sites are all polluted by spam, scams, AI junk, and greed. With a cat or baby video here and there to keep you a little happy and keep you scrolling.

So instead of building the new Facebook or global town square, we're focusing locally. Local businesses, local people, local things. Only for Minnesota.

Find things to do, places to go, new restaurants to try, new music to listen to. Meet new friends to hang out with in real life.

Anti-Anti-User

It's disappointing how much of the internet exists just to trick you or take advantage of you. Not here.

No popups with a tiny little you can't find. No invasive tracking or ad networks. No algorithms. No impossible to cancel subscriptions. No endless personal data harvesting & selling*

* No offense, but we don't care about your data. We don't ask for it, we don't want it, but share it if you'd like.

Who are we?

"We" are one person (for now?). My name is Mitch - I was born and raised in Faribault, moved to Wisconsin (sorry) for a few years for school, then moved to Minneapolis in 2017. I make websites and I like Minnesota, so I thought I'd combine those interests into this.

I'm still going to use "we" and "us" throughout pages though because it sounds weird to use "I".
It's the website and me. "Us".

Keep in mind

I'm working on Things.mn in my free time.

It's just me, so I may be a little slow to fix bugs or respond to whatever. There's a long list of things that I want to get done, including some important things like fixing accessibility issues (super sorry), and security enhancements. Just remember this is an early product.

Want to help?

If you like this project and want to get involved, send an email to hello@things.mn. This is new and we have no money so we can't pay for any work (yet), but if your hobbies include any of the following and you want something to do, we'd love some help.

Adding cool places from around your area to the database
Moderating content - checking reports, warning users, etc
Web development - HTML, CSS, Javascript. More specifically Svelte, Supabase, Mailgun, Leaflet
Database development - Supabase PostgreSQL
GIS - Speficically Leaflet or an interest in map design and (MN) location data.
Graphics - this website is mostly text right now. We need some more graphics.