5 ms·

I've got two questions: 1. Why don't you have a pirate parrot as a logo? Sqwoooook 2. Are you planning to support the fediverse protocols? Most newer social

I've got two questions: 1. Why don't you have a pirate parrot as a logo? Sqwoooook 2. Are you planning to support the fediverse protocols? Most newer social networks always aim for decentralization (e.g. mastodon instances) and I'm wondering what the USP of squok is - compared to say, another mastodon instance. I'm not judging your idea, I'm trying to find out why users will use sqwok over say, e.g. all the reddit forks that have been started in the past. Usually people need some unique incentive to migrate to new platforms, let it be a safe(r) space or mutual interest.

usrn 5y ago
I keep thinking "oh this time people will realize why federation is important." This will probably be the fourth major event like this where I thought people would be moving to Mastodon/Pleroma and instead someone sets up a centralized service that goes through all the same stuff again.
- holler 5y ago
  For me it's more a matter of "use what you know". The initial idea for this sprouted in 2015 and it took awhile to even figure out how to build it.
- cookiengineer 5y ago
  I guess what mastodon (read as: the fediverse or activitypub) would need is a better visualization of community and interest discovery. Every time some instance gets popular it's basically locked down afterwards and people tend to forget about it.
- jancsika 5y ago
  > I keep thinking "oh this time people will realize why federation is important." On the flip side-- what if it were the case that Mastodon's onboarding, server setup, maintenance, moderation options, and overall UX are so poor that it cannot gain traction, even when a history of four "major events" would otherwise have delivered it a massive userbase by now? Honestly, even if the interface was constrained to a HN aesthetic, if a social media alternative were as fast as git and as easy to install and get up and running, I'd use it in a heartbeat.
  - gman83 5y ago
    The fact that before you can join Mastodon, you first have to choose what server you're going to host your account on is going to turn off 90% of people right there. They should have a default instance you can join from the front page and make it an option to join another.
    - usrn 5y ago
      You have to do that with Email too though
    - egypturnash 5y ago
      The two instances run by the dev team seem to be operating as that to no small extent. They’re super hammered right now. It’s still a confusing process though. Some kind of “find your friends” might help, if we could get people to participate in a big database of “this is my Twitter and this is/are my Mastodon(s)”. Ideally this would be on joinmastodon.org along with the instance picker.
      - DrewADesign 5y ago
        > Some kind of “find your friends” might help While that’s vaguely a step in the right direction, it’s not even in the ballpark of how much friction needs to be removed to get non-nerd adoption. The general populace would stop using social media before they used any of the current federated offerings. Selling non-technical people on the tech when it’s less fun, harder to reason about, and more annoying is a non-starter. The only design that would stand a chance would start with the absolute optimal user onboarding and usage path and begrudgingly degrade when absolutely technically necessary. That’s what the commercial offerings will do, and most people are fine with compromising their privacy and control of their data feed. No spoonful of sugar, no medicine no matter how beneficial.
        trenchgun 5y ago
        Also there is no recommendation algorithm, so it's very hard to find people. And there is not way to automatically follow lists of people either, so I cant even use curators. That is especially insane, given that there are curators who create lists of interesting people, you just have to click one by one to follow...
- maxerickson 5y ago
  Have you revisited your analysis of their motivations and choices?
drBonkers 5y ago
What does USP abbreviate?
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  Unique Selling Proposition
holler 5y ago
I think USP for sqwok is a low-friction, intuitive way to hop into an instant live conversation with strangers. I wanted to design it for general open discussion on the web from day one. The language of the site is designed for a general audience as opposed to say gaming or enterprise.
- pphysch 5y ago
  > "live conversation with strangers"... "general audience" Sounds like "small talk". But who likes small talk so much they would use a service specifically for it? I fear in lieu of a more compelling USP it will have a hard ceiling as "a small online friend group", which is fine, just not something that will grow beyond a profitless hobby project.
  - holler 5y ago
    There are many features I want to build that I think will be compelling for people both on the main site and on their own sites.
- cookiengineer 5y ago
  Do you know the yik yak or jodel apps? I'm mentioning them because those also focus on small talk or general discussions for everyone, but found their niche in hyper locality. They basically show you what people write in (I think) 10km distance in an endless stream. So it's something like an anonymous hyperlocal twitter, with pretty much all kinds of random stuff that you can imagine. Too much downvoted comments are hidden, similar to HN and reddit.
  - Zircom 5y ago
    Loved Yik Yak, there was a quant little sense of community with these strangers that lived within a certain radius of my home/work/school. Someone asking if anyone else saw those 2 flipped vehicles on the corner of Campbell and if anyone saw it live and knew what the hell happened, a flood of posts at 3am with everyone bitching as the fire alarms went off in the middle of the night at the dorms. I actually met my college girlfriend on that app believe it or not.
sjmm1989 5y ago
> 1. Why don't you have a pirate parrot as a logo? Sqwoooook It is apt that this is the number 1 question; because it is a very important one. I want to know this too OP. As per the rest of your comment to OP; I agree with your premise. It's a good question to ask. I remember when Reddit was still new and Digg was the place to be for some random news. And of course let's not forget the countless forums that still exist today even in some cases. Digg still runs; but it's... not the same anymore. And so your question is quite apt, because the reason why I joined up with Reddit long ago; was because it had everything I wanted from both Twitter and Digg. Sort of. It's closer today than it used to be, but even if the UI is better or anything like that; it doesn't matter if the users are toxic. And thus I wish to bring my own question into this fray for OP as well. 3. What's to keep your community from devolving into the same toxicity of any other community thus far? It may be sort of a same question different pile; but I think this particular matter needs its own special consideration. To put it simply. What's to keep your community from becoming the next political soap box? What's keeping it to discussion only in such matters, and not full on agitprop via internet communities? P.S. "Mods/Admins" as an answer doesn't count, since I think we can all agree that they can be biased.

usrn 5y ago

I keep thinking "oh this time people will realize why federation is important." This will probably be the fourth major event like this where I thought people would be moving to Mastodon/Pleroma and instead someone sets up a centralized service that goes through all the same stuff again.

holler 5y ago
For me it's more a matter of "use what you know". The initial idea for this sprouted in 2015 and it took awhile to even figure out how to build it.
cookiengineer 5y ago
I guess what mastodon (read as: the fediverse or activitypub) would need is a better visualization of community and interest discovery. Every time some instance gets popular it's basically locked down afterwards and people tend to forget about it.
jancsika 5y ago
> I keep thinking "oh this time people will realize why federation is important." On the flip side-- what if it were the case that Mastodon's onboarding, server setup, maintenance, moderation options, and overall UX are so poor that it cannot gain traction, even when a history of four "major events" would otherwise have delivered it a massive userbase by now? Honestly, even if the interface was constrained to a HN aesthetic, if a social media alternative were as fast as git and as easy to install and get up and running, I'd use it in a heartbeat.
- gman83 5y ago
  The fact that before you can join Mastodon, you first have to choose what server you're going to host your account on is going to turn off 90% of people right there. They should have a default instance you can join from the front page and make it an option to join another.
  - usrn 5y ago
    You have to do that with Email too though
  - egypturnash 5y ago
    The two instances run by the dev team seem to be operating as that to no small extent. They’re super hammered right now. It’s still a confusing process though. Some kind of “find your friends” might help, if we could get people to participate in a big database of “this is my Twitter and this is/are my Mastodon(s)”. Ideally this would be on joinmastodon.org along with the instance picker.
    - DrewADesign 5y ago
      > Some kind of “find your friends” might help While that’s vaguely a step in the right direction, it’s not even in the ballpark of how much friction needs to be removed to get non-nerd adoption. The general populace would stop using social media before they used any of the current federated offerings. Selling non-technical people on the tech when it’s less fun, harder to reason about, and more annoying is a non-starter. The only design that would stand a chance would start with the absolute optimal user onboarding and usage path and begrudgingly degrade when absolutely technically necessary. That’s what the commercial offerings will do, and most people are fine with compromising their privacy and control of their data feed. No spoonful of sugar, no medicine no matter how beneficial.
      - trenchgun 5y ago
        Also there is no recommendation algorithm, so it's very hard to find people. And there is not way to automatically follow lists of people either, so I cant even use curators. That is especially insane, given that there are curators who create lists of interesting people, you just have to click one by one to follow...
maxerickson 5y ago
Have you revisited your analysis of their motivations and choices?

drBonkers 5y ago

What does USP abbreviate?

rootusrootus 5y ago
Unique Selling Proposition

holler 5y ago

I think USP for sqwok is a low-friction, intuitive way to hop into an instant live conversation with strangers. I wanted to design it for general open discussion on the web from day one. The language of the site is designed for a general audience as opposed to say gaming or enterprise.

pphysch 5y ago
> "live conversation with strangers"... "general audience" Sounds like "small talk". But who likes small talk so much they would use a service specifically for it? I fear in lieu of a more compelling USP it will have a hard ceiling as "a small online friend group", which is fine, just not something that will grow beyond a profitless hobby project.
- holler 5y ago
  There are many features I want to build that I think will be compelling for people both on the main site and on their own sites.
cookiengineer 5y ago
Do you know the yik yak or jodel apps? I'm mentioning them because those also focus on small talk or general discussions for everyone, but found their niche in hyper locality. They basically show you what people write in (I think) 10km distance in an endless stream. So it's something like an anonymous hyperlocal twitter, with pretty much all kinds of random stuff that you can imagine. Too much downvoted comments are hidden, similar to HN and reddit.
- Zircom 5y ago
  Loved Yik Yak, there was a quant little sense of community with these strangers that lived within a certain radius of my home/work/school. Someone asking if anyone else saw those 2 flipped vehicles on the corner of Campbell and if anyone saw it live and knew what the hell happened, a flood of posts at 3am with everyone bitching as the fire alarms went off in the middle of the night at the dorms. I actually met my college girlfriend on that app believe it or not.

sjmm1989 5y ago

> 1. Why don't you have a pirate parrot as a logo? Sqwoooook It is apt that this is the number 1 question; because it is a very important one. I want to know this too OP. As per the rest of your comment to OP; I agree with your premise. It's a good question to ask. I remember when Reddit was still new and Digg was the place to be for some random news. And of course let's not forget the countless forums that still exist today even in some cases. Digg still runs; but it's... not the same anymore. And so your question is quite apt, because the reason why I joined up with Reddit long ago; was because it had everything I wanted from both Twitter and Digg. Sort of. It's closer today than it used to be, but even if the UI is better or anything like that; it doesn't matter if the users are toxic. And thus I wish to bring my own question into this fray for OP as well. 3. What's to keep your community from devolving into the same toxicity of any other community thus far? It may be sort of a same question different pile; but I think this particular matter needs its own special consideration. To put it simply. What's to keep your community from becoming the next political soap box? What's keeping it to discussion only in such matters, and not full on agitprop via internet communities? P.S. "Mods/Admins" as an answer doesn't count, since I think we can all agree that they can be biased.