4 ms·

Wonder if there’s any value in a 3rd party curation of Facebook to just give me meaningful updates from friends… aka the original usage. No links, no politics,

Wonder if there’s any value in a 3rd party curation of Facebook to just give me meaningful updates from friends… aka the original usage. No links, no politics, just family pics, announcements, etc. I’d love to get a weekly digest to my email!

gfody 5y ago
I'd be interested in that, ideally not a third party but a custom client that filters everything not from friends and sticks to chronological order.
- Tenoke 5y ago
  Have you tried the popular extensions like FB Purity[0]? As far as I know there's plenty of options that do what you want unless they've been broken by Facebook recently? I haven't tried them in a long time since I do want to see posts by pages and groups I'm in (why else would I follow them), and don't see any of the stuff people typically complain about anyway. 0. https://www.fbpurity.com/ https://www.fbpurity.com/
  - gfody 5y ago
    I really only use the native ios app and figured anything that did what I want would be taken down for violating some tos
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I don't trust extension devs to not be doing only what they claim with the data. Too many stories of things going wrong in the that ecosphere that I threw the baby out with the bath water.
- BbzzbB 5y ago
  That exists, it's www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr No more "X friend liked Y photo or commented on Z post", no more recommended content, not even sponsored posts I think (quite the loophole, if you work at Facebook please move along). Just what your follows (friends and pages) posted, chronologically. Nothing from groups tho if that's your thing.
throwawayboise 5y ago
> just family pics, announcements, etc Easy to do with email. Why do you need Facebook at all if those are your objectives?
- hoten 5y ago
  You won't get everyone in your family to move from social media to a family mailing list. But a third party app that forwarded fb updates to a mailing list ... That's something I'd pay for.
- superfrank 5y ago
  Push vs pull or passive vs active. If I post a picture of my dog on Facebook and my child's teacher sees, that feels normal since they just kind of happen upon it. If I send them an email with a picture of my dog, that feels like I'm over stepping a bit.
  - cpeterso 5y ago
    So how about a pull model for email: newsletters. I'm imagining a service like Substack for regular folks. People could sign up for your personal/family email newsletter. This is like a mailing list, but point to point. Recipients could reply to you, the sender, but not "Reply All" to your full network.
    - lancesells 5y ago
      I like it but forget the whole "network" part. Double opt-in only with the owner of the account not able to upload or add email addresses. That might stop it for a little while from becoming spam and have people that truly want to hear from you.
      - cpeterso 5y ago
        "Double opt-in" meaning a potential recipient would submit a sign-up request and then you, the author, would approve or deny their request? That would be good for privacy and reducing spam, but not allowing the author to upload their own set of email addresses would make bootstrapping your early list harder. Or perhaps the author can upload email addresses, but the service sends an email to potential recipients, asking them to confirm they want to sign up. To bootstrap your list and make the service more viral, the service could cross-post the newsletters (or just an excerpt) to Facebook (and other social media services) with a newsletter sign-up link telling people they could receive your full updates in email without having to log into Facebook.
fullshark 5y ago
It won't be friends, just 5-10 people you connected with 10 years ago who still use the platform religiously producing the content.
- bduerst 5y ago
  The thing is, this is possible to automate this today but it would likely require a level of surveillance that I'm sure most on HN are not comfortable with.
lupire 5y ago
fraidyc.at http://fraidyc.at http://fraidyc.at
sbierwagen 5y ago
The eternal customer ask: Can I get [benefit of product] without paying [the cost of the product]? Can I just watch TV without seeing ads? Can I just get a new car without paying $30,000? Can I just get the chrome browser without telemetry that tracks everything I do? Of course there's value in the product you describe. Value for you, no value for Facebook.
- biddit 5y ago
  I’m actually fine with the ads. It’s all the other “recommended” content they pump into my feed to increase engagement. They recently ruined Instagram the same way - there is no longer any way just to see posts by your followers + ads. Ever nth post is now from some account I’ve never seen. It’s really jarring as a long term IG user.
  - eloisius 5y ago
    Worse then that, it’s also repeating stale content from my friends that I’ve already seen. Facebook has been a weird disorganized feed full of things I think I just saw, over and over, and now Instagram is the same thing.
- BbzzbB 5y ago
  >Can I just watch TV without seeing ads? Piracy >Can I just get a new car without paying $30,000? Choose another model/brand, better yet go 1-2 year old if new(ish) is important to you. >Can I just get the chrome browser without telemetry that tracks everything I do? Degoogled Chrome + uBlock Origin + Ghostery >Value for you, no value for Facebook. facebook.com/?sk=h_chr
  - kevinmchugh 5y ago
    You can watch many (most?) tv shows without ads by paying like $2 an episode. It's legal
renewiltord 5y ago
Instagram was this for me, but now they just put some random nonsense below my friends' posts. It's not that I don't like national parks. I just don't want to scroll-loop on them.

gfody 5y ago

I'd be interested in that, ideally not a third party but a custom client that filters everything not from friends and sticks to chronological order.

Tenoke 5y ago
Have you tried the popular extensions like FB Purity[0]? As far as I know there's plenty of options that do what you want unless they've been broken by Facebook recently? I haven't tried them in a long time since I do want to see posts by pages and groups I'm in (why else would I follow them), and don't see any of the stuff people typically complain about anyway. 0. https://www.fbpurity.com/ https://www.fbpurity.com/
- gfody 5y ago
  I really only use the native ios app and figured anything that did what I want would be taken down for violating some tos
- dylan604 5y ago
  I don't trust extension devs to not be doing only what they claim with the data. Too many stories of things going wrong in the that ecosphere that I threw the baby out with the bath water.
BbzzbB 5y ago
That exists, it's www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr No more "X friend liked Y photo or commented on Z post", no more recommended content, not even sponsored posts I think (quite the loophole, if you work at Facebook please move along). Just what your follows (friends and pages) posted, chronologically. Nothing from groups tho if that's your thing.

throwawayboise 5y ago

> just family pics, announcements, etc Easy to do with email. Why do you need Facebook at all if those are your objectives?

hoten 5y ago
You won't get everyone in your family to move from social media to a family mailing list. But a third party app that forwarded fb updates to a mailing list ... That's something I'd pay for.
superfrank 5y ago
Push vs pull or passive vs active. If I post a picture of my dog on Facebook and my child's teacher sees, that feels normal since they just kind of happen upon it. If I send them an email with a picture of my dog, that feels like I'm over stepping a bit.
- cpeterso 5y ago
  So how about a pull model for email: newsletters. I'm imagining a service like Substack for regular folks. People could sign up for your personal/family email newsletter. This is like a mailing list, but point to point. Recipients could reply to you, the sender, but not "Reply All" to your full network.
  - lancesells 5y ago
    I like it but forget the whole "network" part. Double opt-in only with the owner of the account not able to upload or add email addresses. That might stop it for a little while from becoming spam and have people that truly want to hear from you.
    - cpeterso 5y ago
      "Double opt-in" meaning a potential recipient would submit a sign-up request and then you, the author, would approve or deny their request? That would be good for privacy and reducing spam, but not allowing the author to upload their own set of email addresses would make bootstrapping your early list harder. Or perhaps the author can upload email addresses, but the service sends an email to potential recipients, asking them to confirm they want to sign up. To bootstrap your list and make the service more viral, the service could cross-post the newsletters (or just an excerpt) to Facebook (and other social media services) with a newsletter sign-up link telling people they could receive your full updates in email without having to log into Facebook.

fullshark 5y ago

It won't be friends, just 5-10 people you connected with 10 years ago who still use the platform religiously producing the content.

bduerst 5y ago
The thing is, this is possible to automate this today but it would likely require a level of surveillance that I'm sure most on HN are not comfortable with.

lupire 5y ago

fraidyc.at http://fraidyc.at http://fraidyc.at

sbierwagen 5y ago

The eternal customer ask: Can I get [benefit of product] without paying [the cost of the product]? Can I just watch TV without seeing ads? Can I just get a new car without paying $30,000? Can I just get the chrome browser without telemetry that tracks everything I do? Of course there's value in the product you describe. Value for you, no value for Facebook.

biddit 5y ago
I’m actually fine with the ads. It’s all the other “recommended” content they pump into my feed to increase engagement. They recently ruined Instagram the same way - there is no longer any way just to see posts by your followers + ads. Ever nth post is now from some account I’ve never seen. It’s really jarring as a long term IG user.
- eloisius 5y ago
  Worse then that, it’s also repeating stale content from my friends that I’ve already seen. Facebook has been a weird disorganized feed full of things I think I just saw, over and over, and now Instagram is the same thing.
BbzzbB 5y ago
>Can I just watch TV without seeing ads? Piracy >Can I just get a new car without paying $30,000? Choose another model/brand, better yet go 1-2 year old if new(ish) is important to you. >Can I just get the chrome browser without telemetry that tracks everything I do? Degoogled Chrome + uBlock Origin + Ghostery >Value for you, no value for Facebook. facebook.com/?sk=h_chr
- kevinmchugh 5y ago
  You can watch many (most?) tv shows without ads by paying like $2 an episode. It's legal

renewiltord 5y ago

Instagram was this for me, but now they just put some random nonsense below my friends' posts. It's not that I don't like national parks. I just don't want to scroll-loop on them.