
Ask HN: What would be ideal replacement for Twitter? - tomashertus
In the past several months I have been struggling with Twitter and looking for the value there. Even though I&#x27;ve tried to limit the number of followers and optimize the usage of the service, the value of using it has been tremendously declining.<p>On the other hand I feel very sorry to say goodbye to it, because Twitter was inseparable part of my online life for so many years. I think that the service introduced many good things and helped to change the World, but now, it just feel old, tired and not worthy anymore.<p>Do you guys have any alternative to it? Some service which is fresh as Twitter used to be 5 years ago? Do you know any emerging new platforms where I can possibly move? If not, what would be the ideal for &quot;next gen&quot; Twitter?
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matt_s
I just don't see the point of Twitter, what would be the point of a
replacement? Honestly, how has the sharing of 140 char thoughts changed the
world?

If the point is to amass followers, then you are using it for marketing a
product of some kind? How successful is that?

I understand there was a spring uprising of free speech in some places that
haven't had much of that. Did that really change things for the better long
term in those places?

It just sounds like millions of people shouting things in an echo chamber.

I am not trolling, I really don't understand the medium or the value. What
would you miss by not using it?

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notforgot
The point doesn't need to be to amass followers. It can be to share knowledge
and spread news. There could be a more useful variation in this medium than
today's Twitter.

Writing also helps develop ideas. Trying to explain things well in short
sentences helps develop your mind. Surely this isn't useless.

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anotheryou
any means of contacting you in private? (asked on another comment, but I guess
it got lost, HNs comments are messy :)

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taprun
I think RSS is ready for a comeback... it's free, it's open and it lets anyone
publish without fear of censorship.

Frankly, I never figured out why people so many folks don't like it.

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gydfi
It wasn't easy enough to use for non technically minded people, and it didn't
have a cute name.

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notahacker
Personally I'd like a HN/Reddit style threaded >140 char comment interface
with Twitter's political figures on it.

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pasbesoin
"Whalesong..."

(Yes, more than one pun in that. But also, semi-seriously -- something that
takes and lasts longer than 140 often inflamatory characters.)

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notforgot
I'm writing a fresh Twitter. Help me build it.

[https://foolow.com](https://foolow.com)

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anotheryou
I have a few thoughts about what else to try. If you want I can write you a
bit about it. I have something in a simmilar state but my back-end partner
dropped out and I'm not sure I can learn python quick enough for a prototype.
[http://malea.lacerta.uberspace.de/up/4cc7b319-8094-423d-beef...](http://malea.lacerta.uberspace.de/up/4cc7b319-8094-423d-beef-2a58c2460fdb.png)

A few things I want to try:

\- dismiss all seen links on a page (on mobile in my prototype you flick away
a page like a card) by default

\- sort by rating rod chronologically, but _NOT_ public/democratic rating,
only rating by the one who posts. This is the main thing I want to try :)

\- auto-retweet (you can make an account that is essentially a currated list
of people or curate "editors" of an imaginary magazine)

\- if you retweet normally, you have to give a new rating for your followers

Mainly for sharing links. I want to allow people to share unimportant stuff
and still getting the important stuff across. And i want to avoid a suggestion
engine, only direct "i trust your rating personally" realationships.

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notforgot
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I went ahead and implemented part of (2):
letting the user who posts to rate. I'll work on ranking posts by this score.

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anotheryou
oh wow :) you are quick.

Can I contact you by other means? Email or some instant messaging? I can sent
you an invite to my little alpha.

People of course might abuse the rating, so the question is if one should
normalize or at least fine-tune by having rating up and down in your own feed.
And if you sort just by rating, without decay, a new user sees ooold posts at
the top (because he has not dismissed any by going to the next page).

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notforgot
Good thoughts. I'll add it on my todo list. You can contact me on foolow.

Won't it get annoying if new posts of lesser ranking keep showing up first?

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anotheryou
did you just put "send PMs" on the todo? haha. I just want to sent you an
invite in private, can we find a channel for that :) ?

And if you're up for it, let's chat a bit or skype.

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WillKirkby
[https://mastodon.social/](https://mastodon.social/)

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smallduck
[http://micro.blog/](http://micro.blog/)

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gydfi
gab.ai is the only one I know about, its major selling point being that it's
uncensored.

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tomashertus
yeah I've heard about it, but there are not yet fully operated. Anyway I'm
like on like 110k spot in the queue, so it will take some time till I get
there.

Additionally, when they are saying that they are not censored, can I censor it
to my preferences? For example, one of the biggest problems on Twitter is lack
of "negative keywords" filter. I like to follow people, but I can't control
what they tweet about and I don't really care about some topics such as
grammy, fashion etc. I would love to avoid these keywords, not the entire
person.

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lj3
> Additionally, when they are saying that they are not censored, can I censor
> it to my preferences?

Yes. There is no such thing as blocking, but you can mute users, words,
phrases, tags, etc. I don't think you can set up user-specific negative
keyword filters, though. If you want to filter the grammies, for example, it
takes effect site-wide.

There are a lot of missing features because Gab is still young, but it has
promise. I'm a little surprised they haven't opened it up to the public yet. I
think they wanted to complete the mobile apps first. Apple's giving them a
hard time.

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tomashertus
That sounds really interesting. Is there a way how to help them maybe? I would
be interested to know more about the app

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defrun
Short posts on Facebook.

