
Peepeth: Unstoppable Microblogging - apo
https://peepeth.com/about
======
bevan
Hi all, Peepeth creator here. Would appreciate your thoughts.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/87k9iz/presenting...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/87k9iz/presenting_peepeth_a_decentralized_alternative_to/)

[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/peepeth](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/peepeth)

~~~
berberous
1) The word "microblogging" threw me off -- for some reason, I hear
"blogging", and don't realize it's meant to be a twitter clone.

2) Maybe it's just me, but the full page image of the woman on your landing
page makes me want to close out rather than engage and find out what the
product is. I'd rather see top peeps immediately, with a partial landing
banner for new users.

3) I think the most critical task for a product like yours is curating a good
community. With twitter already existing, how do you intend to avoid turning
into a boring graveyard of crypto shills (like Steem) or a Gab-like place
filled with only people offensive enough to have been banned elsewhere?

4) Otherwise -- it looks great! I'm on the waitlist...how long before you send
out more invite? :)

~~~
bevan
Thanks!

1) Yeah, it's a weird word. Other suggestions appreciated. 2) Good feedback.
3) Branding is a top priority. This front-end is meant to polarize for a
certain type of user. That becomes more clear during on-ramp and usage.
Copy/messaging needs work. Suggestions appreciated. 4) Thank you. Best way is
to DM me on Twitter at @bevanbarton with the email address you signed up with
and I'll approve you ASAP.

~~~
gregknicholson
On the word “microblogging”: I think this may actually be the fundamental
problem with all Twitter clones (so I'm not singling out your project; you
just happen to be here).

For a mass-market tool, it should be possible to describe the purpose your
tool using words that have existed for more than a couple of decades. At the
moment, the shorthand is always “like Twitter, except not quite”.

So is it public chat? personal status updates? a public short-form diary? crap
poetry? a personal news feed? a way to contact companies with short messages?

All of these are valid, and maybe it's several, but perhaps choosing one use-
case to focus on will lead to a clearer offering.

------
virgilp
For me, the biggest roadblock is actually owning ETH. You may thing that's
trivial, but I'm not so sure. Apparently 10m people in the world own SOME form
of crypto[1] - so, there's your upper bound on number of users. For a mass-
market product, 10m is really not that much .... you don't just need
"traction", you need traction that is so significant that it pushes up the
entire crypto market! I'm skeptical, but who knows? Good luck.

[1] [https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-own-at-least-some-
cryp...](https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-own-at-least-some-
cryptocurrency-as-of-January-2018)

~~~
stevekemp
Agreed. Not just that but the overview suggests:

* I have to be using Firefox.

* And I have to install a firefox extension.

* And I have to have ETH.

~~~
nerform
There is not Firefox requirement.

------
josephwegner
I appreciate all of these distributed social networks (Mastodon, Peepeth,
Diaspora, etc.) getting some buzz right now. I think distributed hosting of
social networks is an important step forward.

However, they're all lacking one major thing that needs to happen in order for
a true Facebook Exodus to take place - distributed discovery and consumption.
Facebook has a HUGE network effect, and simply put there is no way any of my
acquaintances are going to leave Facebook just because of the recent news. I
can start a Mastodon node, but I would be shouting into a void - there's no
one there to see my content, and no incentive for someone to move over. If I
_did_ convince anyone to move, they'd be shouting into the same void, and get
bored. There needs to be a way for us early adopters to post content, but let
it still reach people that haven't jumped yet.

Right now the best solution I have for this is something pull-based like RSS.
Even that's not a great solution, though - my average acquaintance no longer
uses RSS. I might be able to get my mom to install Feedly, but no way is my
old friend from High School going to install it. Open to hear ideas around
this.

~~~
WorldMaker
I understand that concern. There are some compromise solutions already
available, at least specifically for Mastodon, and certainly space to
communally explore further solutions.

A Mastodon feed has built in ATOM (RSS) support so you could encourage someone
to subscribe to you in Feedly if you wished and they were already a happy RSS
user.

You can use tools like IFTTT or Zapier to cross-post from Mastodon to Facebook
(or Twitter or whatever else).

There's a Mastodon to Twitter bridge [1] where Twitter users can volunteer a
primary Mastodon account (on any instance) for people to follow and in turn
see all of the people on Twitter they follow that have posted a Mastodon
address to follow them on Mastodon. A similar bridge should be easy to set up
for Facebook as well, I just don't think it has been done yet.

In a way that bridge is the closest to a public directory of Mastodon users,
and there's certainly room for other sorts of public directories (Mastodon
"yellow pages"/"Yahoo listings") or Mastodon-tuned search engines. (Of course,
existing search engines often already return Mastodon results; Mastodon feeds
are already web pages.)

[1] [https://bridge.joinmastodon.org/](https://bridge.joinmastodon.org/)

------
fenwick67
What do you do when somebody posts death threats or child porn on your
immutable social network?

~~~
bevan
Front-ends like peepeth.com are censorable. Illegal content will be removed
from the peepeth.com front-end.

I think its criminal appeal is limited compared to alternatives. Use of a
known and traceable payment+communications channel reveals more info about the
perpetrators and their networks than non-crypto communication channels +
crypto payments. Pairing communication and money removes a level of anonymity
because of the traceable nature of blockchain transactions.

~~~
CharlesW
> _Front-ends like peepeth.com are censorable._

To make sure I understand, are you saying, "Every client developer has to
handle this on their own, if they choose to at all"?

> _I think its criminal appeal is limited compared to alternatives. […]_

It seems like you're suggesting that anonymity is not possible with Ethereum,
but searches suggests that it's possible now, and will become easier thanks to
projects like Project Alchemy. (I don't know much about Ethereum, though, so
I'd love to hear your thoughts!)

~~~
rhacker
Kindof an interesting legal question - what would make peepeth more liable for
such data more-so than etherscan.io for example? If both sites have the
feature to hide or prevent download of the data, whereas etherscan may not
even bother?

It kinda makes you wonder if the Ether wallet itself that can sync and
download such data is also at risk of being called illegal.

Are FBI raids now going to focus on targeting people that have a copy of the
block chain to put them away?

~~~
icebraining
Freenet has been around for almost twenty years, it's known to contain illegal
content (including CP), and as far as I know its users haven't been
systematically raided.

On a different note, Sone - microblogging over Freenet - has been around for
quite a while, and it's under active development.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freenet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freenet)

[https://github.com/Bombe/Sone](https://github.com/Bombe/Sone)

------
amorroxic
I like it, really! I believe this to be a good use-case for decentralization
as opposed to anonimity - if paired with a good verification mechanism (so
leaving behind the crypto-anonimity mantra) this would also guarantee
integrity of timelines (tampering/algorithmic curation of news and what not).
Good luck to you Sir!

~~~
bevan
Thank you.

Currently there's Twitter account verification (through a blockchain oracle
contract). More verification options are on the way (incl. domain ownership).

------
KirinDave
I'm genuinely curious how this compares to something like, say, Mastodon. It
seems to me like Mastodon actually offers a lot of the same advantages.

~~~
bevan
Good question. With Mastodon, there is no central data store. So if your
chosen front-end goes down (which hosts your content), you're out of luck. I
think they're working on that problem though.

~~~
KirinDave
Alternatively: Mastodon lets you run your own node on your own hardware, have
it exist as an equal peer, and if you want to delete your own data you have
that option.

It's weird to me how the no-retractions thing is a benefit. Seems like a
feature deficit. I can't imagine using twitter without the delete function, if
only just to delete botched tweets.

~~~
briansbum
It looks like you're able to do a similar thing with their batching method to
make using it cheaper. Re-read your peep before it gets pushed to the chain
and you'll be able to delete them there.

~~~
KirinDave
That's fair, but I think the criticism still stands. Why is it good that you
can't delete things?

I can think of lots of situations where that's not a good thing. I can't
really think of any situations where it's a good thing.

------
chickenfries
I feel like this Jack Dorsey profile is fake, because he hasn't mentioned
Peepeth on his Twitter account or anything.

[https://twitter.com/jack](https://twitter.com/jack)

However, it seems to have fooled the real(?) Fred Wilson.

[https://peepeth.com/fredwilson?id=QmNVmVaUiUHKq1B19deSoThkHs...](https://peepeth.com/fredwilson?id=QmNVmVaUiUHKq1B19deSoThkHsW8YquMvyaVbxNJP98BPL)

Not that I think this says something bad about Peepeth... the situation is
obviously not much better on Twitter, even with verification. Just a point
about how easy it to be fooled online when you're not expect it...

~~~
bevan
Haha, good eye. Don't tell Fred! :)

Yes, Peepeth users are aware that unless an account is Twitter-verified (with
a Twitter icon next to their name), the user is not guaranteed to be the
"real" user. Other verifications like domain ownership are coming soon.

~~~
chickenfries
Yeah, having multiple ways to verify identity will be so much better than
Twitter's manual situation that can't scale...

------
whalesalad
I’d seriously reconsider the name. I understand it’s a combo of peep+eth but
combining them is really not gonna resonate with anyone.

~~~
CosmicShadow
Sounds like it's about Shakespearean Peepers, that's the reason I clicked: to
find out what the hell could have that kind of name.

~~~
imron
Sounds like peepee

------
HL1837
Big fan of Peepeth.

~~~
bevan
Thank you! All suggestions appreciated.

~~~
elevenoh
Heads up: my username @twitter seems to trigger a bug, as I expected it would.

------
graceschroeder
I love this. Is the notion that users will be able to monetize their own data?

~~~
bevan
Thanks Grace. Yes, that's part of it. Also, content isn't controlled by a
company (it's immutable on the blockchain).

------
elevenoh
Well done.

The ui/design seems a just a little hard around the edges.

------
pram
Don’t forget to Like and Repeep my Peeps on Peepeth

~~~
chickenfries
Yeah, it's an unfortunate name :\\. This is how I imagine any conversation
about it going:

"Hey friends, you all should try this app I'm using Peepeth"

"Pee-what?"

"Peepeth."

"How do I spell that?"

~~~
bevan
The name jokes are many and hilarious, making a page on the site for that :)

~~~
chickenfries
I'm glad you find humor in it :). I sincerely hope it doesn't hurt adoption! I
really want there to be alternatives to Twitter (I use Mastadon).

~~~
natestipe
You should check Peepeth out. It is a way better alternative to Twitter. It
has more of a community feel without the garbage heckling, etc.

~~~
TylerE
It seems to be great if your goal is to see many copies of the dickbutt meme.

------
dmitrybrant
Methinks thou peepeth falsely, good sir!

