Square Town for developers with many side projects: $1 per favicon

The persona Square Town was built for — a developer with a dozen domains and no marketing budget for any of them.

Square Town (square.pov.town) is a favicon wall where each 1×1 square costs $1, one-time, and shows one site's favicon linked to its URL. If you're a developer with ten or fifteen side projects, that means every project you've ever shipped can sit on one live, 3D wall for $10–$15 total, in adjacent cells, each with its own click count, view count and deed.

At a glance. One URL per square. $1 each, paid via Stripe, no account, no upload. Buy adjacent cells and your projects form a visible block. Each square gets a secret deed URL with views, clicks and kisses; $5 per square unlocks per-day charts, which you only need on the projects you care about. Twelve projects with analytics on two = $22, once. Rulebook: How Square Town works — the complete rulebook. Prices: Pricing — $1 a square, one time, forever*.

The problem: twelve projects, zero places that show all of them#

If you've been shipping for a few years you have a folder of domains. A CLI tool, two SaaS attempts, a Chrome extension, a weekend API, a newsletter, something with "kit" in the name. Each has a favicon you spent twenty minutes on. None of them has a marketing channel, because promotion is per-project effort and you have twelve projects and one evening a week.

Directories charge per listing or want a backlink. Product Hunt is a launch per product. Your GitHub profile shows repos, not sites. Your personal homepage lists them, and only your mother visits it. There isn't a place where a stranger can see all your stuff at once, sorted by whether anyone actually clicks it.

Square Town is that place, mostly by accident: because every square is 1×1 and $1, the natural unit is "one project", and the natural move for a prolific developer is "all of them".

What a $1 square gives you (times twelve)#

1. A permanent square per project. Your favicon in the cell you chose, visible to everyone with the wall open, no expiry, no renewal. Forever* — the asterisk is that anyone can evict you for double what you paid.
2. A neighbourhood. Pick adjacent empty cells and your twelve icons form a block. Anyone who clicks one sees the others next to it. It reads as one person's output — which it is. See Showcase all your projects as favicons for layouts.
3. A click-through per project, counted. Clicks route through /go/:id, are counted per square, and arrive at your site with utm_source=square.pov.town&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=square. Twelve rows in your analytics, one per project.
4. Views and clicks per square on a deed page. Each purchase yields a secret deed URL. The deed shows the square, its views (someone opened its card), clicks and kisses. That's free. $5, one-time, adds per-day charts on that deed.
5. A 3D tower whose height is clicks. Ctrl+drag tilts the wall. Every favicon becomes a box as tall as its click count, tinted with the icon's colour. With twelve projects side by side, the tilt view is a bar chart of which ones people want. Nothing else you own gives you that comparison for free.
6. The social/game layer. Anyone can kiss any icon (free, public, counted); an unkissed icon fades to grayscale after 90 days. Anyone can evict a square for double its price. Leaderboards track most clicked and most kissed. Your block of twelve is in the game whether you play or not.

A worked example: 12 projects, $22#

Say you have twelve live projects, each with its own domain and favicon. Here is the whole plan.

What you get back: twelve favicons in one block on a wall people look at, twelve counted click-throughs, twelve towers you can compare at a glance, and daily charts on the two you're actually watching. If one gets evicted, that square cost you $1; the evictor paid $2, and it's $4 to take it back if you care.

Compare that to twelve directory listings or twelve launches: the price isn't the point, the effort is. Twelve pastes, twelve card payments, one evening. See How to promote 10 side projects at once for the broader playbook this fits into.

How to do it#

1. List your projects and check each favicon. Open each site; a missing favicon means a clown emoji on the wall and a public Hall of Clowns entry. Fix those first (How to add a favicon). If two projects share a favicon, give one of them its own — twelve identical icons in a block tells nobody anything.
2. Open square.pov.town and find a run of empty cells. At launch only the central 16×16 is live; the gold 4×4 Throne is in the middle and the ring around it is off-limits. Zoom in and count out a block — 3×4, 2×6, or a single row of 12 if it's free.
3. Buy them one at a time, in one sitting. Click a cell, paste the URL, pay $1 via Stripe. Square Town fetches the favicon via Google's favicon service. While you're in checkout that cell is held; the next one isn't, so keep going until the block is done.
4. Save every deed URL as you go. Each purchase shows a secret deed link and adds it under the "My deeds" button (this browser only, localStorage). Copy all twelve into a note. No accounts means no recovery.
5. Unlock analytics where it matters. Open the deed page for the projects you'd act on and pay $5, one-time, for per-day views and clicks. Leave the rest.
6. Tilt the wall and look. Ctrl+drag. Your block is now twelve towers. Come back in a month and see which grew.

Tips#

• Pick a spot near the Throne if you want to be seen. The wall opens centred, so the middle rings are what every visitor's eyes land on. They're also the cells most likely to be evicted. A block a few cells out is a decent compromise; How to pick a good square goes into it.
• Put the project you care most about at the corner of the block. Corners and edges of a block are what people notice first, and it's the one you'd re-buy after an eviction.
• Kiss your own icons. Free, resets the 90-day timer, and a block where half the icons have gone grayscale looks like exactly what it is.
• Keep the favicons distinct. Twelve squares at 16 pixels each — colour and shape carry it, text doesn't. Favicon design tips at 16px if you're redoing any.
• Buy the analytics unlock only for decisions. "Views high, clicks low" means the icon is seen but not compelling; "clicks fine, nothing in my own analytics" means the landing page loses them. If you'd change nothing either way, keep the $5.
• Save your deed URLs somewhere permanent. Password manager, a pinned note, a private gist. Twelve deeds is exactly the number that gets lost.

What it won't do#

• No SEO value. The wall is a WebGL canvas and clicks are 302 redirects through /go/:id. There is no backlink, no link equity, no ranking effect. Don't buy twelve squares expecting twelve backlinks.
• No traffic promise. You get a counted click every time someone clicks. How many people click is up to the wall's audience and your favicon; nobody quotes numbers, and you should be suspicious of walls that do.
• You can be evicted, square by square. A $1 square costs $2 to take. Someone can pull one out of the middle of your block. That's the game.
• No accounts, so no recovery. Twelve deeds lost is twelve squares you can't prove are yours (they stay on the wall; you just can't touch the deed page).
• No logo upload, no sizes. Every square is 1×1 and shows whatever favicon your site serves.

FAQ#

How much does it cost to put 12 side projects on Square Town?#

$12, one-time — $1 per square, one square per project. Per-day analytics is an optional $5 per square; twelve squares with analytics on two comes to $22 total.

Can I buy 12 squares in one checkout?#

No. Each square is its own purchase and its own deed. Buy them in one sitting: while you're in checkout your cell is held, but neighbouring cells aren't reserved for you.

Can I put all my projects next to each other?#

Yes, if the cells are free when you buy them. Pick a run of adjacent empty cells and buy them one after another. Someone can later evict any single square out of the block for double its price.

Do I need a separate favicon for each project?#

You need each site to serve some favicon, or it gets a clown emoji. Distinct favicons are strongly recommended — twelve identical icons in a block are twelve squares nobody can tell apart.

What if I lose a deed URL?#

There's no recovery — no accounts, no email. The square stays on the wall under your URL, but you can't open its deed page or buy analytics for it. Save all twelve links when you buy.

Does Square Town give me 12 backlinks?#

No. Clicks are counted redirects and the wall is a canvas, so there's no link equity. It's visibility, a click-through and stats, not SEO.

Is there an API to see how my squares are doing?#

GET https://square.pov.town/api/state returns the whole wall as JSON, including every listing's domain, position, clicks, views and kisses. Filter by your domains and you have a twelve-row dashboard. Details on Square Town API — read the wall, buy a square.