23 ms·

Show HN: Slow Social, a social network built for friends, not influencers

• slater 4y ago
  Not sure if it's your site, but the sign-up and magic link went straight to my GMail's spam folder, with the link removed.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    Yeah, sadly I couldn't figure out how to not make it happen. The SSO OAuth providers tend to work better. If you mark it as "Not spam" it will fix it on a case by case basis.
    • formerkrogemp 4y ago
      If enough people start marking it as "Not Spam," would that make things better?
      • CitrusFruits 4y ago
        I'd hope so! Ideally I'd be able to send the Magic Link from my own domain, but I haven't found a way to do that yet through Supabase.
  • riffic 4y ago
    curious who they're using for transactional email. there are unfortunately a few hoops to jump through to ensure deliverability.
    • CitrusFruits 4y ago
      Supabase does the auth emails. If you make a post and have the service email it for you, it uses Sendgrid which seems to make it past the spam folder most of the time.
      • riffic 4y ago
        make sure you got the right dns records in place as well. I haven't looked at your mail headers yet[0] but you probably want to send from a separate subdomain than the one you use for everyday use (like for team@slowsocial.us). [0] This may be seen as a back-handed way of saying I have no intention of signing up, but I didn't intend for it to be.
      • aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
        Can you update here what you learn? This is a huge sticking point for new projects and businesses.
• faraaz98 4y ago
  How long until this too succumbs to influencers or dies out?
  • formerkrogemp 4y ago
    Buy my new book to find out! Or something along those lines.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    If I'm running it, I have no intentions of letting it become that way. The whole point of the product is that it's about friends and not influencers. People, not money. This is something for myself, my friends, and people like them more than. If Slow Social had any measure of great success I'd love to make it a B-Corp.
• civilized 4y ago
  Respect the effort, but I think it's not going in quite the right direction. I don't think people need paternalistic restrictions on post frequency. People need to be liberated from engagement-optimizing algorithms and allowed to choose which activity is presented to them and in what order.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • whatshisface 4y ago
    I think the idea of paternalism comes from seeing people harm themselves by undertaking actions they were manipulated into taking, and confusing that with actions they'd have done on their own, independently.
    • civilized 4y ago
      What I object to is we skipped straight from exploitation to paternalism. Freedom was never an option on offer.
  • lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I have WhatsApp/iMessage groups for immediate friends and family who I don’t mind getting real time updates from. Everyone else, I am okay with periodically contacting as desired via text/audio/video call. It seems pretty liberated, and I am not sure what more a social network website could offer. Outside of about 5 people, I have no interest in real time updates…I can wait to see photo albums next time I call or visit, like in the times before broadband. In fact I prefer it, so that there is a jumping off point for things to talk about.
    • civilized 4y ago
      I have the family SMS group as well. I can't imagine having much use for a social network after all these years of social networks being awful, but maybe a truly different and more liberated one would offer some possibilities.
• CitrusFruits 4y ago
  Hey everyone, OP here. I, like many others tend to waffle between loving and hating social media, so this is my take on what I think a better solution looks like. This is something I've been working on for the past couple of months and a concept that I think will be though provoking, if nothing else, to the HN community. If you want to read more on my thoughts and the story behind this, you can check out my blog post here: https://dev.to/duensing/introducing-slow-social-4a90 https://dev.to/duensing/introducing-slow-social-4a90 Besides that, I'm happy to answer questions and take criticism.
  • mind-blight 4y ago
    I'm really curious what your business model is and how you make money. I looked under those sections on the about page, but they don't actually answer the question.
    • CitrusFruits 4y ago
      The app is just launching, and it's a side hustle. Everything right now can run on a free tier, and I'm fairly certain I can support a _very_ sizeable amount of users for < $100 of operating overhead, which is cash I'd totally be willing to spare if I had thousands of users enjoying the app. But, if I get there, the plan would be to explore charging something reasonable for a plus tier which would offer more formatting options, more pictures per post, and a couple other things, for something nominal like $3 of a month. That could help cover the overhead, and maybe would result in some cash on the side.
      • and0 4y ago
        I think there's a lot of honesty and practicality in your response but not the transparency or clarity needed for this to scale. These networks require buy-in / critical mass to function as intended, and not knowing if I (or my friends) will agree to the pricing terms after I get my network on board is a hard stop for me. I do like the idea. Well designed limitations can add a lot of appeal, and in social spaces especially they can be fun to play within.
• kqr 4y ago
  > The goal of the company is to equally value the customer, environment, and profits. In other words, the model isn't to maximize profit like an investor backed startup, but rather to create a lean, useful piece of software that grows with its users and can sustain itself from every angle from day one. If the owners are separate from the users, it's not set up for sustainability. If someone other than the users bear the risk of loss and upside of profits, it creates weird incentives whether you want it to or not. Have you considered running it as a co-op? Every user has an equal stake in costs and profits and an equal voice in decisions. This model literally grows with its users, and it's the only one that does so. I like this but it sounds like you've chosen the wrong model for running it. If I was going to use something like this (which I would like to, I think, if nothing else to share updates with families/close friends) I would want to own it equally with the other users.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    That's an interesting idea! No I haven't considered that. B-Corp is what I was imagining, but a co-op is a great idea as well.
    • Biologist123 4y ago
      Lovely concept. Have a look at the work Commonwealth have done on digital platform cooperatives. https://www.common-wealth.co.uk/reports/digital-co-ops-and-the-democratic-economy https://www.common-wealth.co.uk/reports/digital-co-ops-and-t...
    • fabianhjr 4y ago
      There are several advocacy groups that could help out: https://ioo.coop https://ioo.coop (Internet of Ownership Coop) (Edit: currently down, a snapshot is available at https://web.archive.org/web/20211207224925/http://ioo.coop/ https://web.archive.org/web/20211207224925/http://ioo.coop/ ) https://platform.coop https://platform.coop (Platform Cooperativism site) A good short read on the topic could be Nick Srnicek's Platform Capitalism; it covers concisely a lot of the economics involved.
    • civilized 4y ago
• quijoteuniv 4y ago
  Good stuff! Keep going!
• _greim_ 4y ago
  Upon following the magic link I got this: 500 Cannot find module '/var/task/node_modules/party-js/lib' Error: Cannot find module '/var/task/node_modules/party-js/lib'
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    :( That's happened before, but I thought I fixed it. I guess I'll just take out the party.
    • CitrusFruits 4y ago
      If you reload and go to /onboard it might work, otherwise you can just go to `/`, you'll just have to find your way around by yourself.
• SmallBets 4y ago
  Constraints can be liberating and increase focus and creativity. See limited budget films vs formulaic blockbusters, or even twitters orignal 140 limit and how it led to the platform flourishing. I think there is definitely room for a product like this, and maybe even some kind of max follower limit could also skew more to connection over influencers.
  • riffic 4y ago
    I love this segment of an interview with Charles Eames regarding design's need for constraints: Q: Does the creation of Design admit constraint? A: Design depends largely on constraints. Q: What constraints? A: The sum of all constraints. Here is one of the few effective keys to the Design problem: the ability of the Designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible; his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints. Constraints of price, of size, of strength, of balance, of surface, of time, and so forth. Each problem has its own peculiar list. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Eames https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Eames https://www.vitra.com/en-us/magazine/details/what-is-your-definition-of-design-monsieur-eames https://www.vitra.com/en-us/magazine/details/what-is-your-de...
• riffic 4y ago
  really dig the "slow" idea. Will you federate? There's a good argument for this here (you would have a built-in audience of at least 5m accounts): https://www.michellelim.org/writing/into-the-fediverse/ https://www.michellelim.org/writing/into-the-fediverse/ Federation could be your "moat" to avoid joining the Club of Abandoned Social Apps (it's a harsh ecosystem, ask Clubhouse or App.Net).
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    Probably won't federate. TBH, federation doesn't appeal to me that much. I recognize it has benefits, but it also introduces significant complexity. Plus, Slow Social is already designed to work with the most widely adopted federated platform: email. Posts can be sent as emails, and there is no comment system other than opening up an email and starting a conversation with them that way.
• TekMol 4y ago
  It's cool. A bit rough around the edges. I see a lot of "NULL" and "UNDEFINED" in the interface. What is your stack? For how long have you been coding?
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    Yes, definitely rough around the edges. The DB, Auth, and File Storage is all Supabase. The web framework is SvelteKit, and I'm using Sendgrid to send emails. Also using Tailwind. I've been coding for a long time, but have been working on this mostly in off hours so I haven't been able to give this the polish I'd like to. If you have any screenshots of the nulls or undefineds I'd be happy to fix them.
    • TekMol 4y ago
      Thanks for the info! "A long time" is very relative. I sometimes meet coders who have been coding for 3 years and call it a long time. But for me, "a long time" means 20+ years. So I am still curious :) The "NULLs" and "UNDEFINEDs" went away after I set my user name.
• charcircuit 4y ago
  One big issue with this model is that you can't build an audience. You can't make friends. What's the point of using the site when all of your posts go to the void. Even if you add a friend all of those posts you worked hard on are gone. If it takes a long time before there is new content to see, why would people visit the site instead of forgetting about it? How are you going to make it a rabbit for people to go there?
  • tsuujin 4y ago
    You make friends in real life and then include them in this platform, not the other way around. Not building an audience seems to be a feature. I view this as a great way to keep in touch with people you actually know.
    • CitrusFruits 4y ago
      Yeah, this is basically my take. Not everyone will feel like this, but I often find I have enough friends, but not great ways to connect with them in online spaces. In other words, I'd rather build a tool that helps people understand and relate to each other, not a tool that connects people to others who have the capacity to understand and relate to them but might not necessarily already be in their lives.
  • xixixao 4y ago
    This is true for messaging social networks and they thrive. I don’t think this is necessarily a huge blocker.
    • charcircuit 4y ago
      No, take for example Discord. It's easy to find servers with people who share your interests.
• darawk 4y ago
  As other people have mentioned but I think not quite nailed perfectly, restrictions on behavior aren't quite the right solution to the problems that plague social media. Some people think that the right move is to eliminate engagement optimization algorithms, and I think that's not quite exactly right either. IMO the right solution is personal executive autonomy over content presentation and algorithmic optimization. By which I mean, I want to be able to make an "executive" choice over what kind of experience I want to have on a social platform. By "executive" I mean, I want to be able to make that choice explicitly, not implicitly by my behavior. For instance, an implicit choice is walking by a beautiful chocolate cake and being unable to resist eating it. An explicit choice is being able to architect my environment in advance, such that there are no beautiful chocolate cakes to tempt me. The biggest problem with social media right now is that the incentives of the existing platforms do not allow people to make these choices explicitly. They do not allow us to craft our information environment using our higher order executive functions, they force us to do it using our reptillian brains, one moment at a time. Essentially, they force us to choose: either you get none of what social media has to offer, or you take every aspect of it, whether you like it or not. Being able to explicitly say "for the next hour I want to be fed thirst traps and rage bait, but then I want that turned off" would be an amazing feature. People have a right to that kind of content if they want it. But they equally have a right to engage their higher cognitive functions and choose not to be expose to it if they don't want it, or choose to be able to architect the manner in which they are exposed to it.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    I agree, it's not perfect. Maybe, just maybe though, it's better than other alternatives out there. Your suggestions for being able to apply our "higher order executive function" to our social networks is honestly a great take, and a great suggestion. Unfortunately though, that's not something I can really build, even if I had the time, resources, and personnel. That sort of social network requires critical mass of content and would by definition almost, have to be a competitor or aggregator of other social networks. However, that's not the sort of social network I personally am interested in building either. I think what you're describing definitely falls into our modern definition of a social network, but I also think that definition falls very short of the potential for technology to facilitate relationships. In my opinion, the "thirst traps and rage baits" totally have there place (they're a lot of fun!), but I don't think their place is in the same app as your best friend sharing about their mixed feelings of loss and euphoria as they move from one job to another. That all being said, I think you bring up a really good talking point, one that I hope the people at Instagram, Snap, TikTok, etc. all pay attention to. As for me though, there's nothing I can really do about it other than start discussion.
• vmception 4y ago
  Minutiae seems to do this decently Lets you use the app for one minute a day at a random time, and during that minute you get to see a random users old feed You might think it’s a different use case, but i think it’s tackling the same problem and in a more succinct and simpler way https://minutiae-app.org/faqs https://minutiae-app.org/faqs
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    This is a really interesting concept! I'm trying to solve the problem of creating space for people to share more thoughtful, potentially longer form content, while this seems to be solving for transient "what are you doing right now" type content. I'd say they're different enough, but both seem to be a reaction to similar concepts.
    • vmception 4y ago
      Try it out! Maybe you can incorporate it into your sentiment of solving this goal for a broader population I know some people whose lives it changed by not being able to curate their images they post during their 1 minute (a prerequisite to viewing others images in the 1 minute). They realized they were sitting at a desk every time and didnt want their life to be that way so it was a catalyst to taking more drastic steps to doing something else.
      • martinadolfsson 4y ago
        Hey, Martin here, the co-founder of minutiae - saw a spike in traffic from Hackernews and got curious where it came from. Thanks for sharing the project. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions info@minutiae-app.org
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• engineer_22 4y ago
  You need an android app.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    I need an iOS app too.
• xtracto 4y ago
  Way back in the day there was a great social platform called Multiply.com. it allowed you to post videos, pics and blog posts. I felt it was better than Myspace or Facebook. Unfortunately it didn't survive, but I hope this SlowSocial gets better traction!
• severak_cz 4y ago
  I like the idea of experimenting with a different styled social network. I have built one such network myself. It's called Kyselo and it's for refugees from now-defunct social network Soup.io. It's very different from today's social network in these things: - it has strictly chronological timeline - everything (except DM) is public (this makes leaks from seemingly private spaces impossible) - but it encourages pseudonyms - you can colour/style your profile page as you like - see for example my page - https://kyselo.eu/severak https://kyselo.eu/severak - it's small and mostly meme based Small userbase size and chronological timeline makes it very time saving (except when you are trying to find a right meme in your collection :-D). It works fine for me but it will need some polishing before it's open to wide public. Now it's in semi-open beta (you have to ask me for invitation code).
• omoikane 4y ago
  The "new friends do not get to see old posts" seems very limiting, I would certainly want the option of being able to share some of my old posts with new friends, given that often new friends are made because of some overlap in real life history. I understand that this platform is perhaps deliberately not trying to attract strangers, but other platforms that had taken this stance eventually all faded away because all my friends want to play at where the parties are at, and those tend not to be private networks of this sort. It might be possible to avoid this demise if this network grows to be sufficiently large, but it's hard to grow when all existing contents are invisible to new users.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    You can share old posts with new friends, it's just on a post by post basis. But yeah, more fine grained control would be a nice feature.
    • moffkalast 4y ago
      > Posts are shared with all of your confirmed friends once published (let the people in your life know what you’ve been up to) That part also seems weird to me, and also why I never really post anything to facebook these days (even if I used it more than once a month). Unless the things you're writing are stupidly generic they won't appeal to all your friends, especially since "social media friends" these days also means family, coworkers, acquaintences, that one guy you did a college project with and never talked to again, etc. Not actual friends. I know which of my friends are interested in what, and I can share what I know they'll be interested in hearing via DMs, leading to more productive discussions. I'm not sure what the appeal of friend-only self posts even is these days, unless you're planning a get together of some sort. If you're making a self post, there must be people that you don't know about that can see it, so there is some chance that you'll find someone new that's interested in what you posted. E.g. posting in fb or discord groups or in public like on reddit or here.
• ryanschneider 4y ago
  Honestly if this was geared towards teams inside a company I would probably lobby for it at my job. Have you considered an “enterprise option”? :)
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    Something I hadn't considered. I'm not sure I'd go in that direction but I'm curious what this would look like. Are you thinking of something like a weekly status update on projects/etc?
    • ryanschneider 4y ago
      Ya exactly. Basically to replace daily status updates in slack or scrum or tickets or where ever.
• throwaway892238 4y ago
  Facebook without comments or statuses or groups or likes would be a pretty good social network. I'd also only show mutual friends.
• hrdwdmrbl 4y ago
  Anyone interested building a social network should read: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service tl;dr - There is a specific reason that we like to use social networks, and it's the receiving of status or accumulate capital. From this theory, a network like Slow Social cannot succeed because there isn't enough social capital that can be consumed.
• noobermin 4y ago
  Sorry for the nitpick but the f in the typeface they chose is unfortunately distracting for normal text.
• ubicomp 4y ago
  Re-doing social networks based on one size fits all social activity streams seems like it's going in the wrong direction. Especially since these social shapes typically necessitate funding requirements like ads or pay to play. I wonder when we'll go back to forums to connect. Earlier "slow social" methods (mailing lists / message boards). Forums can be free. People can self-host. They can run for years and years and years. Folks can organize around a single subject or a series of subjects and grow together over time at various levels of engagement without resorting to a one size fits all model that social networks force on users. I really enjoyed running forums for my friends. I never had to pay giant server fees because it was just a few of us. We had 100K page views per month. We never had to have ads. We had forum permissions and mods and a lot of fun times. I see Discord being similar to this vs. social media, where you can slowly join communities and get nearer to the core. More of an onion model of community. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in this space.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    > Especially since these social shapes typically necessitate funding I would actually argue, that with today's technologies and cloud offerings, this isn't necessarily true. The operating costs for a high availability sites aren't all that high. You can easily support a million users for under $1000 a month. The real cost to most other social networks is the need to generate infrastructure and growth engines around returning investment to venture capitalists and other stakeholders. But regarding your other points, I definitely sympathize. I've actually tried to get my friends onto forums, and thoroughly enjoy Discord. Slow Social, however, is for a niche that I don't think those other options fully serve.
• flipdot 4y ago
  I tried to sign up, but the confirmation email got automarked as spam by Gmail and didn’t contain any links.
  • walterclifford 4y ago
    Same, you have to not only tell gmail it looks safe but also mark it as not phishing (from the three dot dropdown), then it will be in your inbox AND have a link to click.
    • flipdot 4y ago
      Thanks! First time dealing with this Gmail’s “feature”. (°⊥°`)
• bfrog 4y ago
  I kind of love it, but it sort of feels like the burn of social networks at this point is less about the bite sized crap stream and more that some entity now has my social network and interests saved for the purpose of targeting ads. Ads are the evil that drives the crap to keep us doom scrolling. Has this somehow found another revenue stream? Ads as a revenue stream is the issue, not the size or rate of posting.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    Low overhead costs and charging users something like $3/mo would be the target for sustainability if the network ever starts to have significant operating expenses. Until then, it's really cheap to keep running.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• ghiculescu 4y ago
  Great to see more ideas in this space! A few years back my wife and I tried something kinda similar, Sundayy. We even launched on HN - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25848793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25848793 Some people still use Sundayy but it didn’t really take off. I am really glad we did it, but I’ll admit it got less exciting to work on when most users would fizzle out after a few weeks. My gut feel on why is that we didn’t do enough to compete with the dopamine drip feeding of typical social networks. Social networks are (amongst other things) a way to kill time and we didn’t offer that. This made it hard for users to make Sundayy core to their lives unless they were really committed, and then even if they did that it wasn’t very rewarding if none of their friends were equally committed. For me personally I stopped using the product when I had some big personal news I needed to keep secret for a few months. It was very hard to write about other stuff on Sundayy because it was all I thought about. So I ended up writing nothing and broke the habit. That sucked - maybe I’ll pick it up again now I think about it. Good luck OP. I hope this gives insight into some challenges you might face. I don’t have solutions to these challenges but hopefully you find some :) If you want to chat more on the topic feel free to reach out by email.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    This is really cool! And those are some great insights. I just might send you an email.
• Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
  What a fabulous idea! I'll bet Zuckerberg hates it, which makes it even better.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    I'd be amazed if the Zuck ever heard about it. Also, I think this is something that could co-exist with Insta, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• ChicagoDave 4y ago
  Crippling frequency isn’t the answer. North sure there’s anything else to say here.
• NanoWar 4y ago
  Missed opportunity to call it "Slowcial" ;)
  • deltille 4y ago
    I had the same thought and had been holding my tongue. I think the more literal name probably suits the intent of the service better but my impulse to terrible portmanteau is screaming. :)
  • jsemrau 4y ago
    glacial ? or slocial?
• stefanv 4y ago
  My first thought after reading the frontpage: this is my “liberation” from Facebook and all the things that FB is doing wrong. I click on “join today” and I see “continue with Facebook”. Why?
  • Method-X 4y ago
    To minimize the friction of switching over for most regular folks. It doesn’t force you to use Facebook. You can use your email, Google and GitHub too.
    • CitrusFruits 4y ago
      Yup, this is exactly right. Facebook was the last OAuth provider I added because I don't love being tied to them, but at the end of the day some people just want the easiest way to authenticate possible, and Facebook is one of the largest authentication providers available in the world. And to put it into perspective, yes Facebook is able to collect information about you when you use them as an authentication provider (like when you log in, how often, how long your sessions are), but beyond that it's a pretty narrow interaction.
      • privatdozent 4y ago
        Question: Does encouraging people to sign up with FB (bc it is faster/easier) also have the unwanted consequence of preventing them from leaving FB in the future? If they are signed up through to Slow Social via FB, can they still log in manually if their FB account has been deleted?
        • loceng 4y ago
          I see it as more of providing a false signal of adoption or success: if people need the friction to be as little as clicking a single button to "sign up" then they're not very convinced or committed to trying something new and likely not willing to invest time actually engaging with the system; all major platforms today used tricks or first mover mechanics for engagement to keep enough people on the platform long enough to make it sticky, rather than adding or creating or providing a wide breadth of usefulness/function to a wide variety of demographics - providing candy to the 80% at very low cost of ingredients vs. creating something of quality (product and service); dumb inflammatory sugary candy vs. quality nutrients that is trying to milk clicks and time engaging on a platform attempting to control and retain a user every moment.
• theplumber 4y ago
  So it's a blogging app, right?
• lobstey 4y ago
  just like the WeChat way of dealing moments.
• hypertele-Xii 4y ago
  "Frequently asked questions What's your business model? The goal of the company is to equally value the customer, environment, and profits. In other words, [...] How do you make money? The goal of the company is to equally value the customer, environment, and profits. In other words, [...]" What? https://slowsocial.us/about#business-model https://slowsocial.us/about#business-model
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    Yeah, there's a bad copypasta there. I'll see if I can update that real quick. EDIT: The FAQ has been updated.
  • davesque 4y ago
    I'm assuming that was a typo?
  • Qahlel 4y ago
    As the world becomes a more digital place, we cannot forget about the human connection. If you're going to build a business that's based on community, your business has to have community in it. If your business is the right business, then money will never be an issue.
    • amelius 4y ago
      Market has been spoiled, everybody thinks social media should be free as in beer.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• waveywaves 4y ago
  If rich text formatting is your feature proposal for a social media network should I even care about it. Users care about a larger abstracted view about what you can do differently with what you can do with the smn interface. Flaunting rich text formatting feels like a core developer's achivement rather than a technology achievement. Do correct me if I am wrong.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    I think what I was trying to get across is that you can do things more in a blog post styles as opposed to Twitter style quick bites. But maybe you're right it's not worth mentioning. The copy for the site hasn't gone through any focus group testing or anything like that.
    • civilized 4y ago
      I think it's a good feature. The FB text box is almost insulting in its lack of features and options.
    • LadyCoconut 4y ago
      Rich text formatting definitely is a plus for me in a social media app! I think it's better to specify such things, especially for users coming from Facebook/Twitter/etc with Facebook/Twitter-like expectations.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• bananamerica 4y ago
  The only thing I dislike is not allowing everyone to see my preview posts. If I write something cool that remains relevant, I'd be sad to see it go. I might end up just posting in a more permanent place instead.
• DreamFlasher 4y ago
  Great work! Wish it were built on Mastodon and e2e encrypted.
• chetanbhasin 4y ago
  Tried to sign up but got the rate limit error.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    Oh, fascinating. Was it a Supabase thing? I haven't run into that before. If you have any more details, I'd love to hear. You could comment here or email team@slowsocial.us
    • kiwicopple 4y ago
      supabase ceo here. Did you set up a custom SMTP? We have rate-limiting on the signup emails by default to protect against malicious users. We also have some DDoS protection (via cloudflare), but it don't think this would have triggered it. Feel free to reach out to support if you need any assistance (https://app.supabase.io/support/new https://app.supabase.io/support/new)
• AndrewSChapman 4y ago
  "4. WHEN AND WITH WHOM DO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION? Affiliates. We may share your information with our affiliates, in which case we will require those affiliates to honor this privacy notice. Affiliates include our parent company and any subsidiaries, joint venture partners, or other companies that we control or that are under common control with us." I would much prefer that this simply read: We do not share your information with anyone.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    I don't plan on sharing personal information with any sort of entity, certainly not for profit. But, the personal information is stored on machines and manipulated by other companies, namely Supabase and SendGrid since its necessary for the site to function.
    • hn_user2 4y ago
      If this is the case, I would recommend a stronger word than "affiliate". My data is always being sold to marketing affiliates.
    • javajosh 4y ago
      It's admirable that you're aware of the risk you're placing on your users, and willing to assuage them. If you're audience is HN, you might want to simply list the 3rd party runtime components you're using (and to go one better, review their privacy notices, recursively -- I can imagine a malefactor doing a backroom deal with a component provider to get kickbacks on data being shared down the line.) I would also include any front end components in this notice, like Cloudflare or GA. Last but not least, it would be nice to know who's behind this, because none of these assurances mean anything if you're really a malefactor. I would recommend putting a real name or two in your "About" page.
      • spullara 4y ago
        For it to be available in EU at all I think they will have to list all of them anyway.
• jdrc 4y ago
  this is more like a journal than a social network then
• anarchogeek 4y ago
  Closed source and no information about who's making it.... this is better how?
• rglullis 4y ago
  The one question I have is: what can I do here that I can not do with a messaging group?
• derekzhouzhen 4y ago
  How is it any different than old style blogging? The whole social network thing is a attention grabbing game. Blogging, on the other hand, is talking into the void: I don't need anyone. All past attempts to combined the best parts of both has been combining the worst part of both: no freedom of speech and no audience.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    I'd argue it's different because it has better privacy controls. Instead of all your content being public, it's all private and you can share it to a non Slow Social member via email. Additionally, it's a more focused, concentrated experience. Otherwise, feel free to make blog posts. I think blogs are great.
    • markstos 4y ago
      Email has privacy controls and is decentralized. Just send HTML emails to the friends you want to get it.
      • janfoeh 4y ago
        Email is push, this is pull. For stuff below the threshold of breaking news ("grandma has passed"), it would feel awfully presumptuous to email people.
        • derekzhouzhen 4y ago
          It is a sad world when marketers boldly blast emails to us but we feel presumptuous to send emails to each other.
          • janfoeh 4y ago
            What marketers do is between them and their conscience. If I want to write about the dozen breakfast dishes from around the world I made during Corona, I do not want to have to wonder if this is worth asking for peoples attention. In a pull model, that point is moot.
• felipemesquita 4y ago
  Nice to see what I think is a trix[0] editor for the rich text posts. [0] https://trix-editor.org/ https://trix-editor.org/
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    Yup! It's Trix alright. I was pretty amazed out how heavy and complicated most rich text editors are. But then again, it's a pretty complex interaction they have to design around.
• fridental 4y ago
  Never ever I would sign up into a social network that doesn't publish any real-world contacts. Who are you, guys? Americans? Russians? Chinese? Why should I trust you with my online life, if I don't even know, where you live, what are your names and how your faces looks like? And, in Germany, publishing of the real-world information is mandatory.
  • aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    Safe to assume they're not Germans, then! ;]
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    I mean, there's an email address and, if your really curious, you could have read the blog post linked in the main site that has my name associated with it. https://dev.to/duensing/introducing-slow-social-4a90 https://dev.to/duensing/introducing-slow-social-4a90 But I see the larger point, there's trust that needs to be built, but I think the standards are going to be different for different people. The German legal requirements are also something I didn't know about. I do my best to protect and guard the personal information, and only request what's directly relevant for the app.
    • CitrusFruits 4y ago
      Also, I'm American and all the data is being stored stateside.
      • sandworm101 4y ago
        >> all the data is being stored stateside. Which brings up all manner of privacy issues for those not stateside.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
    >And, in Germany, publishing of the real-world information is mandatory. thankfully, nobody outside Germany has to give a fuck about German laws
• olah_1 4y ago
  This is awesome, but I’d like to see it built on top of something like https://Manyver.se https://Manyver.se (SSB) where the content lives on user devices!
• sunshi23 4y ago
  What value does this provide at all? This reminds me of Chinese online games will block teenagers at night. (防沉迷) Except that the government forced all online games to do so. Because if some does some does not, teenagers just play the one that does not block them. Maybe we should build a system that have user's actual password to FB IG TWTR TIKTOK, and user only has password to that system and when they post go through that system as a proxy. Then the system can truly restrict the frequency of post. But this violates the term of service of all the social network listed above
• gtirloni 4y ago
  FAQ: How do I export my data?
• yosito 4y ago
  Love this idea, and love that it supports email updates. I think that makes it useful even if most (all) of my friends don't use it yet. That's something a lot of attempts at doing social networks differently miss: it needs to be useful even without all my friends being on it, or I'll just stop using it. I submitted my email and I'll check this out more in the coming days.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    I'm glad someone else is a fan of the email updates. I think it makes gradual adoption much more feasible.
• shlurpy 4y ago
  It sounds like a great idea. I did notice a carveout in the privacy policy for "if we get acquired, they can do whatever they want with any information" which seems... undermining, given how getting acquired by one of the worst data brokers is generally assumed for any successful social media startup.
  • after_care 4y ago
    I will not sign up for a service with a clause like this.
    • karaterobot 4y ago
      What are the chances that you haven't already? Sounds like pretty low, unless you habitually read the entire privacy policy for every website before signing up.
    • lolinder 4y ago
      You're posting on such a service right now. From Y Combinator's privacy policy, which applies to HN: > Business Transfers: If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, financing due diligence, reorganization, bankruptcy, receivership, sale of all or a portion of our assets, or transition of service to another provider (collectively a “Transaction”), your Personal Information and other information may be shared in the diligence process with counterparties and others assisting with the Transaction and transferred to a successor or affiliate as part of that Transaction along with other assets.
    • sushid 4y ago
      I bet you have already done so many times before.
  • lolinder 4y ago
    I wouldn't assume malicious intent here, as this exact clause shows up word for word in dozens of privacy policies. It appears to just be a stock part of a generic privacy policy that made it past their initial edits. I'm also unsure if its absence would really change anything. If a data broker acquires the company, what's to stop them from just changing the privacy policy to be compatible with their uses?
• zaik 4y ago
  Does this built on existing Internet standards like ActivityPub or XMPP?
• jedberg 4y ago
  I think your magic link is broken. I put in my email addy and got an email that said “click here to confirm your email” but there was no link.
• willio58 4y ago
  This whole page could do with a little padding/margin work.
• RajT88 4y ago
  I love it. But my friends all use Facebook.
• gchamonlive 4y ago
  Social Networks should be like email providers. You choose one that fits you best, or deploy your own, without having to worry not being able to communicate with others. Maybe we are long overdue for an open standard protocol for social interactions on the web. If you come to think of it, when the personal data itself isn't the property of the company behind the social network, there should be no reason not to share that information, so we can access it from a provider of convenience. This is what locks people into harmful platforms. I can't go to slow social without all my friends coming with me, so I'm stuck with Instagram/whatsapp.
  • mabbo 4y ago
    > Maybe we are long overdue for an open standard protocol for social interactions on the web We have those. They are called websites and emails.
    • pozol 4y ago
      Yeah but most websites don’t directly talk to each other. And email only covers some of what social media platforms have. It’s difficult to make and plan an event over email. But if I could make an event on a discord-like client, and my grandma can get updates on facebook, and so on, that would be an improvement from what we have now
      • attilaperez 4y ago
        > ActivityPub Problem is that platforms don't see any incentive in letting their APIs loose like this.
  • CitrusFruits 4y ago
    > I can't go to slow social without all my friends coming with me, so I'm stuck with Instagram/whatsapp. This is partially correct. Slow Social would be a lot better if all your friends joined. However, my accommodation for this is that any post can be sent as en email as well. This lets you loop in people that aren't part of the network, and maybe never will be. It's not a perfect solution, but I hope it's better than nothing.
• tonymet 4y ago
  It's a great prototype of features, but features don't build an audience. To Draw in customers, there has to be growth marketing features like friend recommendations, push notifications, syndicating updates to existing networks. It's the network that brings in consumers, not the features.
• cryptozeus 4y ago
  Screen shots, need more screen shots please.
• NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
  I like the idea, but I won't bite unless the network has an open protocol and some mechanism of guaranteeing it stays open at minimum. No more walled gardens.
• dollop43 4y ago
  My thought is that one post per week, seems like a blog platform rather than a social app. Social media is too vague. Maybe you could remove the concept of being a social media, but a diary sharing platform. Define the task as to share a weekly diary among friends, it could gives more commitment for people to write.
• dnndev 4y ago
  This seems odd to me (I am considered a Millennial). Social media for friends, are they really friends? I text, call, see in person my friends. A person does not have that many true friends in my experience. Facebook should not exist for friends- mostly people bragging about something or another. Facebook groups are extremely helpful. That as a social network makes more sense to me. For example, I can find a group of experts that have to do with carpet cleaning to answer questions. So my two cents, your solving the wrong problem. Social networks are not for friends. I also understand I am most likely an outcast odd ball who feels this way.
• didip 4y ago
  Is there a need for another social media app? Isn't the need covered with chat app?
• d-us-vb 4y ago
  Seeing a bit of debate concerning the most defining feature: one post a week. This is my favorite aspect of the site! What this really brings up is the distinction made ages ago about policy vs mechanism. Every social media platform out there has or basically uses the same mechanisms: interactive, submit text/photos/video, add "friends", and so on. You'll notice that Slow Social implements the mechanism of a social network. So... what makes every social networking site different? It's the Policy! Most platforms had a few defining policies. - Twitter: "tweets" must be quite short, originally emulating SMS, all tweets show up in your feed (not sure if this is true anymore). - Facebook: add friends, must use your real name - Quora: must use your real name, posts must take the form of either a question or an answer to a question (but comments may also be made) - Reddit: Upvotes and Downvotes are first class citizens, users submit an idea, and the interface encourages lively discussion in the comments (this isn't technically policy, but more like culture). And so we add Slow Social to the mix: must add a friend to your list for them to see your post or add their email, may only post once per week. It's also just cool to experiment with new policies and see if they work. So, Slow Social adds a new, perhaps daring policy so as to make things more enjoyable overall. As an aside, if I'm only allowed to post one thing per week for my friends, I can't help but think that that would encourage my writing to be more impactful, thoughtful, and polite. It would encourage good habits in written communication. So needless to say, I'm signed up and looking forward to where this goes!
• danamit 4y ago
  Want a social network that's for friends only? simply make registering and adding others possible by phone numbers only, and make phone numbers always visible to friends.
• footlose_3815 4y ago
  [dead]
• fastball 4y ago
  In this vein, an app I've been using with some friends is BeReal[1]. It is intended to be more of an Instagram substitute rather than this which feels a bit more like a substitute for Facebook. The idea with BeReal is that every day you get a notification at some random time (it changes every day). When you get the notification, you have 2 minutes to post what you're doing at the time. The app takes one picture of your environment with the main camera and one of you with the front-facing camera. It's not perfect and if I was developing it there are a couple things I would probably change to keep a little more in the spirit of "being real", but it's a fun thing to be on with friends. [1] https://bere.al https://bere.al
• gmanis 4y ago
  OP, you should charge users a small amount ($24-50 a year), after a trial period. Keep it simple, free of ads and keep the timeline algorithm free. I’m sure there are many who would love something like this and be willing to pay enough to cover costs and maybe generate a full time income for you. Good luck!!
  • 88840-8855 4y ago
    This is not a small amount. 3 USD is a small amount.
  • mayankkaizen 4y ago
    If target userbase is HN like crowd, charging a small fee is fine. However, I feel this model won't be scalable to general public. Hybrid model (make payments or see ads) might also be worth exploring.
  • _zzaw 4y ago
    I wouldn’t pay that much for what this is. I’m sure most of my friends wouldn’t. It’s a neat enough idea that I’d try the free tier, but it doesn’t offer anything compelling enough to make me want to pay for it. I’m not trying to be mean or dismissive; it’s a genuinely cool experiment, and I’d honestly love to see a social network where people actually said longer substantive things rather than low-effort shitposts (or, more and more, just sharing somebody else’s low-effort shitposts). I don’t like the idea that people can’t see my earlier writings. That’s important to me, especially if I don’t share stuff often and I put effort into it. I don’t see the benefit in hiding that from my friends. What I’m looking for these days is actual community, conversation, and connection. I think the effortless posting on Facebook/Twitter encourages kneejerk garbage (and blogs, sadly, have fallen into decline) so I really like the more “slow down and make something meaningful” philosophy here. If you can turn that into an actual community—one that offers something Reddit doesn’t—I’d pay for that.
    • quambene 4y ago
      IMO, building a social network is quite difficult nowadays because you can't monetize it right away. So you either have to bootstrap as a side project and build a community for years or getting paid by VC money early on. We tried something similar [1] a few years ago. The limit is 5 posts per day. Our approach was minimalistic in a sense as you could post links only and no text, pictures, or videos. We named it Turtle, symbolizing the opposite of the chatty twitter bird. It wasn't so clever from an SEO point of view though. [1] https://turtle.community https://turtle.community
• Elll 4y ago
  Heyy,I think we all need something “almost’ like that social network. Tired of all instafacebook/Tik Tok, they are just an annoying buzz. But once a week?!!! Why post just once a week? Honestly I think ppl need to post more than once a week. Well… I need …
• stevenicr 4y ago
  facebook some time ago added a way to export your posts (is that what they are called?) - to wordpress - it's really hard to find - but if it's still working - I'd suggest showing folks how to export thier posts to slow social - and have them saved - then weekly published - give people options to re-order blocks / sort by time/date .. sort by drag and drop or number ordering or something.. offer a way to have that weekly post sent by email for fam / whoever could opt in reply to get it that way.. also rss.. could be a thing. I could see this useful for both pro and non-pro folks in different ways.
• trungdq88 4y ago
  For a long time, I encouraged my IRL friends to set up their personal newsletter and write once or twice a month so I can subscribe to. Quite similar to this social media idea. I think it's a very good way of getting updates from people I care about. Social media is just too noisy. The plan hasn't been working very well unfortunately.
  • jsemrau 4y ago
    Could I have a chat with you about this? I am working on finclout which helps irregular posters earn.
• gverrilla 4y ago
  No innovation whatsoever.
• saos 4y ago
  Could get behind this.
• hanspeter 4y ago
  It's an interesting idea, however the slow part of this social network doesn't make it built more for friends than an unrestricted network. It seems to solve the noise and lack of depth part, but that has just as much value outside of your close friends network. So I would focus the messaging around that part - slow and deep - rather than the friendship part. And then there's the inherit issue of a restricted social network being disadvantaged in competition with other networks. If you limit the use or the reach of a social network, other networks who have more use and reach will grow faster. The reason the current major social networks are full of noise and over-engagement is not because people necessarily like that more or that other alternatives hasn't existed. It's because they won in the inevitable darwinistic battle a social network will join, where maximum reach and volume of content are key advantages.
• Aeolun 4y ago
  Hmm, I feel like I would trust this project more if the first email I saw didn’t immediately come from a non-slowsocial.us domain.
• rbrbr 4y ago
• skoczko 4y ago
  Constrained social networks don't work, look at Google+. You don't need a social network to stay in touch with your friends and family as messaging apps and e-mail fulfil that purpose completely. Algorithms are not the only reason why all social networks drift towards celebrity/influencer/news following -- they are channels for consuming media, the "social" is in the name only.
  • onion2k 4y ago
    The first tranch of social networks (Friendster, Friends Reunited, MySpace, etc) were very much based on people keeping up to date with their friends. They worked quite well for users, but were hard to monetize succeasfully. There was value there, but not much in the way of ideas about how to extract it besides sticking a skyscraper ad down the side. I don't see any reason not to try that model again. Maybe it'll work now people are seemingly a bit disenchanted with things like Facebook.
    • baq 4y ago
      I’ve found long running chats like WhatsApp, telegram or signal fulfill that role.
      • DrSiemer 4y ago
        Posting in a chat demands immediate attention from the participants. It feels "pushy"; I don't want to disturb my friends with my random ramblings. It's also not really possible to compose a single, long, properly formatted story, interspersed with images, in chat. Every separate post will be a call for attention, if they have not muted you yet. Ignored push messages can easily turn into forgotten messages. There is no "mark as unread". Chat does not provide you with an experience of reading carefully crafted posts, on a moment you choose to spend reading only about what your connections have been up to. Knowing what is happening in the lives of friends and family living in other countries is the only thing I really miss since I stopped using post style social media. Sure, we can chat, and sometimes we do. But usually we don't. You're just not going to chat about random little things in your life with people you don't see with some regularity.
• spullara 4y ago
  Just make it a $1/min like it was in the old days and people will limit their communication to folks they don't see regularly for only important things.
• unkulunkulu 4y ago
  From article by the op: > …products owned by publicly traded companies who have a legally binding responsibility to maximize financial return on investment to their shareholders. Can someone enlighten me to this particular detail? How come legally? I believed it was free market?
  • vhiremath4 4y ago
    board members of publicly traded companies have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to make decisions that maximize shareholder value
• movedx 4y ago
  Oooooh! So it's like email, but worse? Worse because: It doesn't scale to infinity like email does. Someone else centralises the data and you have to trust them to keep it safe. Email doesn't have this problem because I can take my emails elsewhere and/or change my address, something I've done plenty of times. You don't know what they're doing with the data and you don't now who can access it. The same applies with email, except I know who Google are and I know they're "reading" it. I accept this cost. I don't know who "Slow Social" are. It's a whole new system for elderly (and even not-so-elderly) relatives to get to grips with. They get email today. They use email right now. It's another website that needs another login for my mum to remember, except she'll just use the same password again (and again), until one day it's breached. I think growth, innovation, and ideas are important, but I also wish we'd focus on building on and improving the systems we already have. So I guess I have to ask: why not (better) email? Why not a new email system that's interoperable with the existing system, but offers a better UI focused on sharing stories with each other?
  • reidrac 4y ago
    > Someone else centralises the data and you have to trust them to keep it safe. Email doesn't have this problem because I can take my emails elsewhere and/or change my address, something I've done plenty of times. I'm not going to defend any social network, and I think that in essence you are right; but using email is a terrible idea. Is just that people don't understand email any more When I've been added to a email chain (last time at the end of the 2010s), it was an awful experience: you can't get out, people including addresses in "To" so they get added to all recipients address book (they keep a copy of each email, security depends on each user of the chain!), windows users get infected with viruses and you start getting those as well, nobody will remove anything from the emails so you get huge emails with top-posts without context on what they are replying to, ... it was a mess! I have no reasons to think things have improved. So perhaps a better email is needed, and I wonder if it may look like a social network.
  • DrSiemer 4y ago
    > It doesn't scale to infinity like email does. The article clearly states you can turn your posts into e-mails > Someone else centralises the data and you have to trust them to keep it safe. That goes for any public medium. At least these guys have a clearly stated mission not to harvest, package and sell your data. Also, see above for your email remark. > You don't know what they're doing with the data and you don't now who can access it. See both replies above > It's a whole new system for elderly Again, it can be turned into emails > It's another website that needs another login for my mum to remember, except she'll just use the same password again (and again), until one day it's breached. See above + unrelated issue > Why not (better) email? Because rebuilding email and convincing everyone to use that is a lot harder than trying to launch a new, experimental social media platform.
• lloydatkinson 4y ago
  Having .us implies it’s only for Americans
• wilbur-larch 4y ago
  I was building a social media network about 6 years ago. I failed to get enough users since the native apps were just web views that had a lack of notifications. @CitrusFruit How did you get so much attraction to slowsocial?
• samarama 4y ago
  The issue is you have built in a mechanism to prevent the site from gaining critical mass. In order for a user to check the site, there would need to be 50 posts from their friends that they can read through. For that to happen, they would need 500 friends for them to make 50 posts a week. In order to reach 500 friends, you would need 100 million users, before that the network would be empty with nothing happening. It’s better to limit the number of posts to 1 per day. This way, you would be able to have some stuff going with 50 friends in some areas and 3 million users. However, you need to get to 3 million users somehow with no value in your network, maybe you can get this through posts like this, but very difficult. You also need to let users upload their contact list otherwise you won’t be able to build your social graph.
  • bartread 4y ago
    > You also need to let users upload their contact list otherwise you won’t be able to build your social graph. In the context of legislation like GDPR and CCPA is this even legal in some jurisdictions any more? Genuinely not sure so any insight gratefully received.
  • smaudet 4y ago
    This seems a bit arbitrary? I would be happy with one, or two posts a day...I only need 5 friends to post a week, at 10 I always have something to read, at 50 friends I am positively awash... Introverts are a big crowd - a fact the socialites like Zuckerberg tend to forget. This will easily grow...
    • spoils19 4y ago
      Agreed. I'll be looking forward to quoting your post when this social network grows and takes off over the next few years.
  • aleken 4y ago
    Isn’t one of the points about “slow” social that you don’t need to read 50 posts a day? I would be happy checking in once a week, the same day I am going to post my update.
• aleken 4y ago
  This looks nice. If I were to use it, I would rely mostly on the mail-feature as none of my family/friends have signed up. That’s a nice feature! But there’s one thing I reacted to, @citrusfruits. If I click the “start private conversation”-button, the email address of the user is revealed. That’s not bad in itself if the user is informed about it. But I didn’t see any information in the otherwise user friendly onboarding about revealing my email address.
• ricardobayes 4y ago
  I think it's irrelevant, most friend groups are using something for this already. Whatsapp group, private discord etc.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• p5v 4y ago
  It makes me so happy to see projects like this one get developed. A few months back, we started working on a pet project with a similar idea - to help people dissociate the good and honest writing on Twitter from all the links, threads, mentions, hashtags, and other engagement tactics. We called it BARE (https://bare.tw https://bare.tw) and it offers an extremely spartan look over one's Twitter timeline. As TWiT's Leo Laporte called it "it shows you all the boring stuff." I believe that with projects like SlowSocial and ours, we will help people find hidden gems among the "boring stuff." Kudos, and will be happy to collaborate on further ideas.
• ivanhoe 4y ago
  IMHO this is doing completely the opposite of the intended effect, because the concept is focused only on pleasing the content consumers, but it completely misses the point of what the content creators need and want out of it. And without content creators you have nothing. The influencers are the ones who post in regular periods because it's a job for them, while ordinary people post whenever they find something interesting to say/share because their motivation is purely emotional - they're looking to channel their MOMENTARY excitement or frustrations about something. It has to happen immediately or it will not happen. Limiting them to a single post per week kinda kills all the fun, because you can't share what you feel when you feel it. System forces you to postpone the reaction until the next weekend, which means it breaks this emotional cycle and the reward of venting online. This would certainly make for a higher quality of reactions, but frankly what would be the motivation for me to sit on some thoughts for a whole week and then login to this service to post a single post, and then again be forced to wait a whole week for the next chance to say something? I can see myself doing something like that only if there's some personal gain in it, so IMHO in a long-term only influencers and self-promoters would be motivated to participate.
  • dejw 4y ago
    What? Opposite of intended effect for who? Platform owners or users? Most of us, users, want to get less but more relevant information.
    • ivanhoe 4y ago
      Opposite of the idea that it's built "for friends, and not for influencers". One post per week is how influencers operate in order to create a sustainable flow of repetitive visits, not ordinary people posting just for fun.
• aabbcc1241 4y ago
  This sounds good fit for researchers to share their work / teens to share their growth / hikers to share their journey
• EdgarVerona 4y ago
  How do you get around the CAN-SPAM act and GDPR for the sending of emails in response to posts, when the people being sent them haven't already signed up on the site? I had to bend over backwards to try and make a workaround for that issue, basically by letting people manually send invite links if they weren't already registered for the site because of the restrictions around who you are allowed to send emails to, when, and for what purpose. It's a real pain in the butt, but maybe I didn't have to go that far? It was articles like this one that got me paranoid about it, really set back my prototype as I went around trying to change features related to email as a result: https://privacyvox.com/news/social-media-inviting-non-user-friends-to-register-requires-their-prior-consent/ https://privacyvox.com/news/social-media-inviting-non-user-f...
  • EdgarVerona 4y ago
    (for context though, I love your site! I just would love tips as someone thinking in this area who ran into what he thought was trouble in this area... I might have just been overly paranoid)
• DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  To OP were you aware of : https://diasporafoundation.org/ https://diasporafoundation.org/ I can't help but feel that a lot of these efforts would be better applied on what is already out there?
• gianpaj 4y ago
  How do I invite friends?? There is no unique URL for my profile... There is no invite link or mechanism on the website. I can't send a link to a post to my friends... I think you went "live" a bit too early.
• duriandurian 4y ago
  Cool concept. Reminds me a bit of Arbtr where users can only post one thing at a time. http://www.arbtr.com http://www.arbtr.com
• nerdyadventurer 4y ago
  I was wondering, can there be sustainable(profitable) social network without being evil? If so how?
• tillcarlos 4y ago
  I was eager to register, but reading the TOS - I'm not sure any more. > You acknowledge and agree that any questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback, or other information regarding the Site ("Submissions") provided by you to us are non-confidential and shall become our sole property. Is this normal? To be honest: I haven't read the facebook TOS - but at the same time I don't post on facebook. If slowsocial owns all the stuff I'm sending out to my friends - I'd rather stay with my email newsletter. What do you think about this?
• Mike-br 4y ago
  I wonder what would come of it. I added it to my bookmarks.