12 ms·

Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

95 points by nevaben 7y ago

ctack 7y ago
What's the X of Y here? Facebook of the church confessional booth :D
- JulianMorrison 7y ago
  It's like Tinder, but you get bullied instead of ignored.
Bombthecat 7y ago
> Right now, users can only post a conversation starter every eight hours. The premium tier, which costs $4.99/week, allows users to post as frequently as they want, and also includes a few other premium features, like the ability to talk to people in your location. Woah.. That's really expensive...
- kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
  It might be a useful method of pre-selecting only people who care at least a little bit. And rich people.
Multicomp 7y ago
I like the idea, but 2 things. 1) where did they get the prices of $4.99 a week? Facebook's average revenue per user per quarter is ~$25. That's approximately $1.50 a week, for their most profitable section. Elsewhere, FB makes $6 ARPU per quarter, or around 37¢ a week. I'd be willing to pay $1 a month for a social network if it manages to get around the network effects etc. but ~$20(!) for something Facebook enables at no monetary cost? Yikes. But, I suppose that may just be the patreon effect. 2. Why is this iOS only? Limited resources excuses can be answered with 'do a mobile web so all mobiles can'. Is it the 'sometimes iPhone users tend to pay more for the same things Android users are too cheap to'? I know the above can come off as somewhat harsh, but I do really like the business idea overall, I just want to discuss the implementation challenges.
- AndrewDucker 7y ago
  Wow. I hadn't realised that Facebook's ARPU was so high - or that it varied so much between regions! https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average-revenue-per-user-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average... $35 in US/Canada, $11 in Europe seems like a startling difference! I wonder if advertising and privacy restrictions are the cause, or something else...
  - organsnyder 7y ago
    I could see GDPR easily making monetization of users more difficult.
- phoe-krk 7y ago
  > ~$20(!) for something Facebook enables at no monetary cost? These costs are not something that Facebook does not suffer - all these infrastructure, development, maintenance and other expenses exist for every online service. In case of Facebook, though, these expenses are paid by you being not also the user, but also its main product. And, as much as I would like to think otherwise, Friended - as a VC-backed service - will also go in the same direction once it finishes its "growth" stage and enters the "milking" stage.
- jasode 7y ago
  >Limited resources excuses can be answered with 'do a mobile web so all mobiles can' There's always a delta of capabilities between HTML5+Javascript mobile web app vs native iOS/Android. (E.g. native app has more API access to device hardware like camera video, GPS, accelerometer, multi-touch pinch zoom, etc.) Even if HTML5+Javascript standards get the new capabilities in 2019's iOS 13 and Android 10, both Apple and Google are still adding new features to the native APIs (iOS 14+, Android 11+) which means that standard web apps will always lag behind in some way. The question is if that delta of capability between web vs native matters for an app like Friended.
  - tiborsaas 7y ago
    I think they just want artificial exclusivity, similar to how Facebook was university only in the early stages. You are not limited to browser technologies. There's React native, Flutter and some other cross platform frameworks. What super new OS level features a social messaging app needs?
JohnClark1337 7y ago
This will be a paradise for social engineering
BeerBear 7y ago
The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is nearly old enough to vote. (source for the uninitiated: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/greater-internet-fuckwad-theory https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/greater-internet-fuckwad-theo...) I don't understand why the founders think "this time will be different". The disconnection of digital communication makes it easier to be abrasive, even if real names are used and the comments are private. We have ample evidence of this from other platforms with direct messaging and identifiable individuals. The majority of the messages will still be "kill yourself, you [expletive, slur]". The rest will be spam.
- JulianMorrison 7y ago
  It's more "impunity" than "anonymity" (compare Facebook) but implementing moderation well (1) is the biggest cost in the whole system, you need literally hundreds of full time humans, (2) is somewhat of an unsolved problem, your moderators are also liable to become fuckwads, and (3) this is because your moderators are drinking from the firehose of the internet's dark side constantly and losing SAN points like they were buddying up with Cthulhu. This has commonly been regarded as inhumane.
pavel_lishin 7y ago
> Friended wants to give users a deeper and more meaningful connection to one another, which the company believes they crave. > The idea is to give people a chance to share how they really feel in a vulnerable, one-to-one setting. In playing around with the app, I had conversations with people about how to make friends in NYC and why it sometimes feel like others don’t care about us as much as we care about them. I'm a moderator for a city-specific subreddit, and we get _a lot_ of posts by people bemoaning the lack of personal connections, and seeking _deep friendships_. And I always tell them the same thing: It. Takes. Time. That's it. There's no shortcut. There is no short conversation you can have that'll turn a stranger into the kind of friend they're seeking. You can pay your five dollars a week to bare your soul to anonymous or pseudonymous users, but you need repeated human contact to form the basis for a friendship. I'm glad they're trying to solve a real problem, but I don't think that "penpals - but with money" is it.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  > There is no short conversation you can have that'll turn a stranger into the kind of friend they're seeking. I'm actually not sure this is true. And I say that because I'm actually not sure this is true: > It. Takes. Time. And I say that because of things like [0], which seems to say that connection is more about vulnerability and depth of understanding than anything else, and achieving that depth can be accelerated. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167297234003 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/014616729723400...
  - monkeynotes 7y ago
    Real world relationships, those that are truly meaningful, take a lot of investment from both sides. Outside of the lab being vulnerable carries significant risk. For one, you risk being taken advantage of. This happens all the time, people are manipulated for sex, financial gain, and sometimes just for social status gains (clique shunning etc.). It's pretty common for vulnerable bonding to be misused by one or both parties. This can be in the form of using inside knowledge for blackmail or negative gossip/social shaming of some form. People can be horrible. Finding good friends takes time because you have to learn to trust each other. Fast friends in my experience do not last.
farazbabar 7y ago
About time. I have been working on a similar problem ever since I found out about the Saudi agent that was uncovering twitter user identities to the royals (https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/saudis-recruited-twitter-workers-spy-critics-saudi-regime-u-s-n1077881 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/saudis-recruited-twitt...). The main idea is to have zero knowledge for social graphs (both the connectivity and communication). The product behaves like a newsgroup clone with subscriptions and threads featuring zero knowledge (for host i.e. me and any other parties not subscribed/authorized to the topic).
sorenn111 7y ago
Perhaps I may be very wrong, but the name of this network, "Friended", comes from a term that Facebook turned into common vernacular. "Friend me on Facebook" or "I friended you on Facebook". If you're starting point is a term coined by your goliath competitor, I'd be concerned.
- copperx 7y ago
  Not only that but "I'm on Friended" sounds like I'm unfriended. That's a terrible name in my book of aesthetics.
darepublic 7y ago
I am your friend slaps face for real? yes slaps face again really for real? yes Ok then
steven741 7y ago
This is a pretty good idea but, it's monetization strategy probably isn't inclusive enough. I find that a lot people on social media aren't trying to make friends. They're mainly just there for themselves or content. But, putting the focus on developing proper kinship seems like a step in the right direction.
brenden2 7y ago
I wonder how much it costs to get a PR piece like this on TechCrunch. Does anyone know?
- snug 7y ago
  I wonder how much it cost to get this many upvotes on HN as well?
monkeynotes 7y ago
> No pressure, no public commenting and no rejection Adults need to learn how to handle rejection. It's so essential to learning how to be happy in the real world. People who are lonely because they fear rejection need to fix the fear of rejection part before they will actually experience a real friendship. Being open with each other is essential to friendship, and being open risks rejection. Friendship isn't a individualistic pursuit, it involves multiple personalities and is full of risk and rejection. No reward without risk, contrary to what you might be sold on to mask your social anxiety.
- pavel_lishin 7y ago
  > Adults need to learn how to handle rejection. It's so essential to learning how to be happy in the real world. There's a difference between someone rejecting you, and a bunch of anon/pseudonymous trolls piling on.
  - diminoten 7y ago
    Fine, then adults need to learn how to handle a bunch of anon/pseudo-anonymous trolls piling on. Myself probably included.
    - GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
      I don't think humans are evolved for such stress
    - JulianMorrison 7y ago
      It's contrary to human nature to shrug off bullying. Even if you are strong, it changes and traumatizes you. Society should not rely on people growing unhealthy thick skin.
      - diminoten 7y ago
        A lot of "ought" in what you're saying, but there's a stark reality that clashes with that ideology, and it's how little you can control others. You shouldn't have to deal with people being assholes, so when they are you should let yourself get hurt? You shouldn't have to deal with drunk drivers, so you shouldn't wear your seatbelt?
pcora 7y ago
I just want to be reminded in a year if this still exists or has any real traction.
authoritarian 7y ago
Just what the world needs, another social network....
- ConceptJunkie 7y ago
  But the ones we have are so horrible. It's worth pursuing if there's a chance we can get one that's not horrible. Of course, the corollary is the suggestion that any social medium starts out good, but inevitably becomes corrupted.
Timberwolf 7y ago
If you take "the idea is to give people a chance to share how they really feel in a vulnerable, one-to-one setting" and replace "one-to-one" with "small group" then this feels very close to the way many people used LiveJournal at its peak. Maybe slightly different in that the one-to-one stuff wasn't automated: people would have public posts in which they'd share more generic stuff, then curate private friend groups from people who responded in ways that suggested they would have empathy. These private networks would be where the more vulnerable things got shared and discussed. Of course as a community it was much derided - teens and young adults finding their way in the world looked naive and emotionally immature from the outside - but it's interesting seeing someone trying to bring that pre-Facebook sense of sharing with a small and sympathetic group back.
gnicholas 7y ago
The first-listed option in the account creation flow is to log in with Facebook. Since I'm trying this to get away from FB, I'm not going to do that. But then once I've created an account with email, there's no way to put in any information that would help me connect with my existing friends. Why is there no way to indicate your university, employers, or location?
guskel 7y ago
How do brand new social media platforms like this gather so many users so quickly?
- cmcd 7y ago
  Spending investor money on advertisements
moosey 7y ago
Why not just make it so that people that you don't interact with get auto-unfriended over time. If you just post, post, post and have no meaningful relationship beyond parasocial bullshit, then in no time, you'd be removed from the networking system. With something like this, the network would no longer be a personal marketing system, but would actually only keep you with people that you actually interact with in meaningful ways over time, perhaps through event scheduling, and perhaps through conversation. If you left for a long time, you'd come back to a friendless universe, sure, but only on the network. I guess that the ultimate goal of a network like this would be to get people off of it, which would be healthy for the individual, and bad for the company. Oh well, there goes that idea.
- cy_hauser 7y ago
  I really like this idea. Not sure how it would play out or what the long term consequences would be on people's psyche but it's really interesting and certainly worth thinking about further. Kudos.
walrus01 7y ago
It's unfortunate they couldn't get the name/domain/trademark for Friendster
amoitnga 7y ago
Installed. uploaded a picture. made a mistake of putting email instead of name. Tried to change it - can't contacted support got a notification: "people think you might be bot" uninstalled.
LinuxBender 7y ago
Ages ago I ran a phpbb site that initially followed this concept, but being community driven (I may have been a bit too friction-less), it quickly evolved into a community driven fetish/porn site. Every time I am tempted to create such a thing, I reflect back on how much work it was and lessons learned (about moderation requirements). Hats off / kudos to anyone that can run something like this successfully at scale, as it is a lot of work and you can't make everyone happy. I hope it turns into something great.
- Endy 7y ago
  This may seem like an unusual question, but why does it matter what the subject matter became if the community was accepting and safe?
  - LinuxBender 7y ago
    Your question is quite valid and I agree. That said, at the time the subject matter; while safe and legal, was still a bit taboo. Not so much these days, but I may have been a bit ahead of the times.
Endy 7y ago
My one gripe here is that it's only available as an iOS program. I think it would be much more accessible if it had a web interface, or if it also had an Android program.
notadoc 7y ago
The world needs less digital "social networking", not more of it.
bobblywobbles 7y ago
I like the enthusiasm. It's always a good idea to try and help solve the ever-present problem of "I don't have enough friends, I need more inter-personal connection." Fundamentally, I believe we _can't_ solve this problem through technology. I think it can be used to initiate the friendship, but never sustain it. I feel the problem is you can't be vulnerable on a screen, it just never replicates the face-to-face interaction with someone else. I've been there for many years looking for that online substitute, it just doesn't ever fully work. However - I wish you luck on your network.
isaacgreyed 7y ago
I wonder if regardless of the design of the platform, if simply having this be the idea behind the network will attract the right people, and build the right community to make it work.
BEEdwards 7y ago
Can you search local and are these conversations encrypted? If so this is great for grey/black market sellers. In addition to the inevitable harassment, this could be it's big money maker.
hemantv 7y ago
I feel like all the social network problem stems from posting only positive if we shared about overall we and everyone on the network will be much happier. I thought about various mechanism to implements but nothing comes to mind that is good enough. Example: Force user to maintain happy sharing vs sad sharing to at max 2:1 but now how do you figure out which ones are happy post and sad post.
rolltiide 7y ago
I like the identification of a problem, the remaining problem is that its another social network Would probably be better off Re-using Blind’s pitch
Meerax 7y ago
From the TOS: "2. MEMBERSHIP. To become a Member, you must log-in through Facebook which provides your “Account Credentials”, which you may not transfer to or share with any third parties." Did anyone else see this? They can't promise to not hand over info about you to interested 3rd parties if your account validation and login is based in Facebook. Right?

95 points by nevaben 7y ago

ctack 7y ago

What's the X of Y here? Facebook of the church confessional booth :D

JulianMorrison 7y ago
It's like Tinder, but you get bullied instead of ignored.

Bombthecat 7y ago

> Right now, users can only post a conversation starter every eight hours. The premium tier, which costs $4.99/week, allows users to post as frequently as they want, and also includes a few other premium features, like the ability to talk to people in your location. Woah.. That's really expensive...

kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
It might be a useful method of pre-selecting only people who care at least a little bit. And rich people.

Multicomp 7y ago

I like the idea, but 2 things. 1) where did they get the prices of $4.99 a week? Facebook's average revenue per user per quarter is ~$25. That's approximately $1.50 a week, for their most profitable section. Elsewhere, FB makes $6 ARPU per quarter, or around 37¢ a week. I'd be willing to pay $1 a month for a social network if it manages to get around the network effects etc. but ~$20(!) for something Facebook enables at no monetary cost? Yikes. But, I suppose that may just be the patreon effect. 2. Why is this iOS only? Limited resources excuses can be answered with 'do a mobile web so all mobiles can'. Is it the 'sometimes iPhone users tend to pay more for the same things Android users are too cheap to'? I know the above can come off as somewhat harsh, but I do really like the business idea overall, I just want to discuss the implementation challenges.

AndrewDucker 7y ago
Wow. I hadn't realised that Facebook's ARPU was so high - or that it varied so much between regions! https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average-revenue-per-user-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average... $35 in US/Canada, $11 in Europe seems like a startling difference! I wonder if advertising and privacy restrictions are the cause, or something else...
- organsnyder 7y ago
  I could see GDPR easily making monetization of users more difficult.
phoe-krk 7y ago
> ~$20(!) for something Facebook enables at no monetary cost? These costs are not something that Facebook does not suffer - all these infrastructure, development, maintenance and other expenses exist for every online service. In case of Facebook, though, these expenses are paid by you being not also the user, but also its main product. And, as much as I would like to think otherwise, Friended - as a VC-backed service - will also go in the same direction once it finishes its "growth" stage and enters the "milking" stage.
jasode 7y ago
>Limited resources excuses can be answered with 'do a mobile web so all mobiles can' There's always a delta of capabilities between HTML5+Javascript mobile web app vs native iOS/Android. (E.g. native app has more API access to device hardware like camera video, GPS, accelerometer, multi-touch pinch zoom, etc.) Even if HTML5+Javascript standards get the new capabilities in 2019's iOS 13 and Android 10, both Apple and Google are still adding new features to the native APIs (iOS 14+, Android 11+) which means that standard web apps will always lag behind in some way. The question is if that delta of capability between web vs native matters for an app like Friended.
- tiborsaas 7y ago
  I think they just want artificial exclusivity, similar to how Facebook was university only in the early stages. You are not limited to browser technologies. There's React native, Flutter and some other cross platform frameworks. What super new OS level features a social messaging app needs?

JohnClark1337 7y ago

This will be a paradise for social engineering

BeerBear 7y ago

The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is nearly old enough to vote. (source for the uninitiated: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/greater-internet-fuckwad-theory https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/greater-internet-fuckwad-theo...) I don't understand why the founders think "this time will be different". The disconnection of digital communication makes it easier to be abrasive, even if real names are used and the comments are private. We have ample evidence of this from other platforms with direct messaging and identifiable individuals. The majority of the messages will still be "kill yourself, you [expletive, slur]". The rest will be spam.

JulianMorrison 7y ago
It's more "impunity" than "anonymity" (compare Facebook) but implementing moderation well (1) is the biggest cost in the whole system, you need literally hundreds of full time humans, (2) is somewhat of an unsolved problem, your moderators are also liable to become fuckwads, and (3) this is because your moderators are drinking from the firehose of the internet's dark side constantly and losing SAN points like they were buddying up with Cthulhu. This has commonly been regarded as inhumane.

pavel_lishin 7y ago

> Friended wants to give users a deeper and more meaningful connection to one another, which the company believes they crave. > The idea is to give people a chance to share how they really feel in a vulnerable, one-to-one setting. In playing around with the app, I had conversations with people about how to make friends in NYC and why it sometimes feel like others don’t care about us as much as we care about them. I'm a moderator for a city-specific subreddit, and we get _a lot_ of posts by people bemoaning the lack of personal connections, and seeking _deep friendships_. And I always tell them the same thing: It. Takes. Time. That's it. There's no shortcut. There is no short conversation you can have that'll turn a stranger into the kind of friend they're seeking. You can pay your five dollars a week to bare your soul to anonymous or pseudonymous users, but you need repeated human contact to form the basis for a friendship. I'm glad they're trying to solve a real problem, but I don't think that "penpals - but with money" is it.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
> There is no short conversation you can have that'll turn a stranger into the kind of friend they're seeking. I'm actually not sure this is true. And I say that because I'm actually not sure this is true: > It. Takes. Time. And I say that because of things like [0], which seems to say that connection is more about vulnerability and depth of understanding than anything else, and achieving that depth can be accelerated. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167297234003 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/014616729723400...
- monkeynotes 7y ago
  Real world relationships, those that are truly meaningful, take a lot of investment from both sides. Outside of the lab being vulnerable carries significant risk. For one, you risk being taken advantage of. This happens all the time, people are manipulated for sex, financial gain, and sometimes just for social status gains (clique shunning etc.). It's pretty common for vulnerable bonding to be misused by one or both parties. This can be in the form of using inside knowledge for blackmail or negative gossip/social shaming of some form. People can be horrible. Finding good friends takes time because you have to learn to trust each other. Fast friends in my experience do not last.

farazbabar 7y ago

About time. I have been working on a similar problem ever since I found out about the Saudi agent that was uncovering twitter user identities to the royals (https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/saudis-recruited-twitter-workers-spy-critics-saudi-regime-u-s-n1077881 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/saudis-recruited-twitt...). The main idea is to have zero knowledge for social graphs (both the connectivity and communication). The product behaves like a newsgroup clone with subscriptions and threads featuring zero knowledge (for host i.e. me and any other parties not subscribed/authorized to the topic).

sorenn111 7y ago

Perhaps I may be very wrong, but the name of this network, "Friended", comes from a term that Facebook turned into common vernacular. "Friend me on Facebook" or "I friended you on Facebook". If you're starting point is a term coined by your goliath competitor, I'd be concerned.

copperx 7y ago
Not only that but "I'm on Friended" sounds like I'm unfriended. That's a terrible name in my book of aesthetics.

darepublic 7y ago

I am your friend slaps face for real? yes slaps face again really for real? yes Ok then

steven741 7y ago

This is a pretty good idea but, it's monetization strategy probably isn't inclusive enough. I find that a lot people on social media aren't trying to make friends. They're mainly just there for themselves or content. But, putting the focus on developing proper kinship seems like a step in the right direction.

brenden2 7y ago

I wonder how much it costs to get a PR piece like this on TechCrunch. Does anyone know?

snug 7y ago
I wonder how much it cost to get this many upvotes on HN as well?

monkeynotes 7y ago

> No pressure, no public commenting and no rejection Adults need to learn how to handle rejection. It's so essential to learning how to be happy in the real world. People who are lonely because they fear rejection need to fix the fear of rejection part before they will actually experience a real friendship. Being open with each other is essential to friendship, and being open risks rejection. Friendship isn't a individualistic pursuit, it involves multiple personalities and is full of risk and rejection. No reward without risk, contrary to what you might be sold on to mask your social anxiety.

pavel_lishin 7y ago
> Adults need to learn how to handle rejection. It's so essential to learning how to be happy in the real world. There's a difference between someone rejecting you, and a bunch of anon/pseudonymous trolls piling on.
- diminoten 7y ago
  Fine, then adults need to learn how to handle a bunch of anon/pseudo-anonymous trolls piling on. Myself probably included.
  - GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
    I don't think humans are evolved for such stress
  - JulianMorrison 7y ago
    It's contrary to human nature to shrug off bullying. Even if you are strong, it changes and traumatizes you. Society should not rely on people growing unhealthy thick skin.
    - diminoten 7y ago
      A lot of "ought" in what you're saying, but there's a stark reality that clashes with that ideology, and it's how little you can control others. You shouldn't have to deal with people being assholes, so when they are you should let yourself get hurt? You shouldn't have to deal with drunk drivers, so you shouldn't wear your seatbelt?

pcora 7y ago

I just want to be reminded in a year if this still exists or has any real traction.

authoritarian 7y ago

Just what the world needs, another social network....

ConceptJunkie 7y ago
But the ones we have are so horrible. It's worth pursuing if there's a chance we can get one that's not horrible. Of course, the corollary is the suggestion that any social medium starts out good, but inevitably becomes corrupted.

Timberwolf 7y ago

If you take "the idea is to give people a chance to share how they really feel in a vulnerable, one-to-one setting" and replace "one-to-one" with "small group" then this feels very close to the way many people used LiveJournal at its peak. Maybe slightly different in that the one-to-one stuff wasn't automated: people would have public posts in which they'd share more generic stuff, then curate private friend groups from people who responded in ways that suggested they would have empathy. These private networks would be where the more vulnerable things got shared and discussed. Of course as a community it was much derided - teens and young adults finding their way in the world looked naive and emotionally immature from the outside - but it's interesting seeing someone trying to bring that pre-Facebook sense of sharing with a small and sympathetic group back.

gnicholas 7y ago

The first-listed option in the account creation flow is to log in with Facebook. Since I'm trying this to get away from FB, I'm not going to do that. But then once I've created an account with email, there's no way to put in any information that would help me connect with my existing friends. Why is there no way to indicate your university, employers, or location?

guskel 7y ago

How do brand new social media platforms like this gather so many users so quickly?

cmcd 7y ago
Spending investor money on advertisements

moosey 7y ago

Why not just make it so that people that you don't interact with get auto-unfriended over time. If you just post, post, post and have no meaningful relationship beyond parasocial bullshit, then in no time, you'd be removed from the networking system. With something like this, the network would no longer be a personal marketing system, but would actually only keep you with people that you actually interact with in meaningful ways over time, perhaps through event scheduling, and perhaps through conversation. If you left for a long time, you'd come back to a friendless universe, sure, but only on the network. I guess that the ultimate goal of a network like this would be to get people off of it, which would be healthy for the individual, and bad for the company. Oh well, there goes that idea.

cy_hauser 7y ago
I really like this idea. Not sure how it would play out or what the long term consequences would be on people's psyche but it's really interesting and certainly worth thinking about further. Kudos.

walrus01 7y ago

It's unfortunate they couldn't get the name/domain/trademark for Friendster

amoitnga 7y ago

Installed. uploaded a picture. made a mistake of putting email instead of name. Tried to change it - can't contacted support got a notification: "people think you might be bot" uninstalled.

LinuxBender 7y ago

Ages ago I ran a phpbb site that initially followed this concept, but being community driven (I may have been a bit too friction-less), it quickly evolved into a community driven fetish/porn site. Every time I am tempted to create such a thing, I reflect back on how much work it was and lessons learned (about moderation requirements). Hats off / kudos to anyone that can run something like this successfully at scale, as it is a lot of work and you can't make everyone happy. I hope it turns into something great.

Endy 7y ago
This may seem like an unusual question, but why does it matter what the subject matter became if the community was accepting and safe?
- LinuxBender 7y ago
  Your question is quite valid and I agree. That said, at the time the subject matter; while safe and legal, was still a bit taboo. Not so much these days, but I may have been a bit ahead of the times.

Endy 7y ago

My one gripe here is that it's only available as an iOS program. I think it would be much more accessible if it had a web interface, or if it also had an Android program.

notadoc 7y ago

The world needs less digital "social networking", not more of it.

bobblywobbles 7y ago

I like the enthusiasm. It's always a good idea to try and help solve the ever-present problem of "I don't have enough friends, I need more inter-personal connection." Fundamentally, I believe we _can't_ solve this problem through technology. I think it can be used to initiate the friendship, but never sustain it. I feel the problem is you can't be vulnerable on a screen, it just never replicates the face-to-face interaction with someone else. I've been there for many years looking for that online substitute, it just doesn't ever fully work. However - I wish you luck on your network.

isaacgreyed 7y ago

I wonder if regardless of the design of the platform, if simply having this be the idea behind the network will attract the right people, and build the right community to make it work.

BEEdwards 7y ago

Can you search local and are these conversations encrypted? If so this is great for grey/black market sellers. In addition to the inevitable harassment, this could be it's big money maker.

hemantv 7y ago

I feel like all the social network problem stems from posting only positive if we shared about overall we and everyone on the network will be much happier. I thought about various mechanism to implements but nothing comes to mind that is good enough. Example: Force user to maintain happy sharing vs sad sharing to at max 2:1 but now how do you figure out which ones are happy post and sad post.

rolltiide 7y ago

I like the identification of a problem, the remaining problem is that its another social network Would probably be better off Re-using Blind’s pitch

Meerax 7y ago

From the TOS: "2. MEMBERSHIP. To become a Member, you must log-in through Facebook which provides your “Account Credentials”, which you may not transfer to or share with any third parties." Did anyone else see this? They can't promise to not hand over info about you to interested 3rd parties if your account validation and login is based in Facebook. Right?