5 ms·

Show HN: Endless – An attempt to unify the social media experience

88 points by kaangiray26 3y ago

Hey guys, Endless is an open-source mobile app that curates posts from your favorite websites in one place with a common interface. The application uses custom extractors specifically written for each website. This way you can endlessly scroll through posts and save the ones you like without having to deal with ads. With the Endless server I am hosting you can also upvote and leave comments on posts without creating an account! With random tokens linked to your actions you basically use your device as your account and undo your actions in the future without spoiling your identity. I hope to add more extractors in the future. Feel free to install the app and check out the extractors yourself or contribute to the project! I always love to hear your comments and feedback. GitHub: https://github.com/kaangiray26/endless https://github.com/kaangiray26/endless APK Releases: https://github.com/kaangiray26/endless/releases https://github.com/kaangiray26/endless/releases

mydriasis 3y ago
*AWESOME* idea. Nice work, can't wait to see where this goes. I was discussing this same idea with my brother the other day, looks like you're well on the way!
gremlinsinc 3y ago
Crazy idea - add threaded reddit-like comments. Add reddit also, but just use the rss endpoints, then only have local/stored comments, moving all the comments off reddit. Then create a web version, so people can use a chrome extension or userscript that replaces reddit comments with your links, add an ad or two or a server fund ticker and it might get people off reddit.
donio 3y ago
To ask the obvious question: Why use this over my favorite RSS reader?
- thepangolino 3y ago
  Probably the social aspect allowing for comments and upvotes/downvotes
- mxuribe 3y ago
  I'm not the author, but my guess would be that some of the suppoorted websites do not offer an RSS/atom feed to be leveraged by an RSS reader app. So, at a glance, it seems this app aggregates content for those sites/app which lack rss feeds...as well as includes sites which might already have rss feeds. At least, i think.
- kaangiray26 3y ago
  With all respect to RSS, Endless allows for users to interact with posts. Which means you can upvote and leave comments for posts on websites that initially do not implement a way to do this. Thus, you don't have to create an account for that. Besides, with custom extractors you can see posts from pages with no RSS support. Also you will be able to see trending and controversial posts based on upvotes and comments on your front page in the upcoming versions.
  - donio 3y ago
    The votes and comments are local to the Endless instance, not forwarded or federated anywhere, correct? So for example if I run a personal one I'd only ever see my own voting history?
    - hackernewds 3y ago
      it could be very interesting if there is a sidebar of content engagement this way? perversely also useful if Endless has a lot of engagement as a monopoly
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    You could support arbitrary RSS feeds though. Then your list of supported sites grows to millions.
binkHN 3y ago
Love the idea! And kudos to releasing on Android first, which tends to be rare. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the app seems to be mostly JavaScript with a small Android wrapper?
- kaangiray26 3y ago
  Thank you kind stranger! Actually I was planning to make a web app but then I realized not all news websites have APIs for requesting their content. Then I've come across CapacitorJS which allows you to convert your web projects into mobile apps and they have a plugin called "CapacitorHttp", which patches the usual fetch function to use native libraries instead. This way it is possible to make http requests that do not get blocked by CORS-related problems. So, all the requests are made on the client-side, which takes so much work from my shoulders :)
  - binkHN 3y ago
    Neat! Thanks for the details!
gochi 3y ago
You could probably separate the extractors into their own repo for easier contribution, and less of a reliance on you having to manually create and validate them. Great job otherwise!
jtriangle 3y ago
> This way you can endlessly scroll through posts I can't decide if I love this or hate it because I like content and also spend too much time consuming it. I do like the google reader (rip) vibe to this idea though.
dancedar 3y ago
Was expecting FriendFeed based on consolidating the social medias, but more akin to rss
laurent123456 3y ago
Love the idea, but I'm wondering if the backend could leverage one of the fediverse technologies? For example when someone comments or upvotes a page, a post for that page is automatically created on a Lemmy instance, and that will be used to manage the comments and upvotes. That way you don't need a server backend and you take advantage of a decentralised architecture
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Aren't you centralizing on Lemmy?
  - laurent123456 3y ago
    Lemmy is decentralised so... no?
    - ipaddr 3y ago
      But using one instance to handle voting/replies means it's centralized (everything happens in one place). Lemmy doesn't allow someone to edit content from different instances so that aspect isn't decentralized. If I make a post on one instance the post could be shared within the federation which makes that feature decentralized. At best Lemmy is a hybrid decentralized-centralized application.
earlyriser 3y ago
I always wonder how this kind of services show images. Do they hot-link them or they are saved in their own servers? One approach violates web etiquette and the only seems over engineering (save an image that maybe just one use is going to see).
adr1an 3y ago
Nice project, very much needed. I wonder, Is there an option to backup and recover accounts? Also, this sounds very much like centralization of diverse platforms. If the server had ActivityPub compatibility, it would be a great addition to the fediverse! :O.. Do you think it would be possible to do such a thing?
tqi 3y ago
This is basically Cambridge Analytica, isn't it? If one of your friends / followers use this service, it will be able to access all of your shared content?
- kaangiray26 3y ago
  Sorry, I don't understand. Everyone on this service is anonymous as no account creation is needed. Upvotes and comments are not tied to users.
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    I haven't looked through the repo in depth yet, but does that mean that upvotes and comments made through Endless only live in Endless, but aren't pushed to the upstream site? For example, if I leave a comment on an HN article through Endless, is that comment only visible to other Endless users (because otherwise you'd need an HN account to post comments).
Jeff_Brown 3y ago
I know someone who briefly had a startup that sold a service like this. Facebook sued them and they folded.
- mattigames 3y ago
  The trick for such a start-up to succeed is to not be US-based, even better if its on rival countries (e.g. Russia, China)
  - Jeff_Brown 3y ago
    Interesting. He's Colombian, and we met here -- but he went to San Francisco to start the business.
    - mattigames 3y ago
      You wanna hear something funny? I'm Colombian too (and at such country right now, at Bogota), and I also visited the bay area a couple times to start a business but had no such luck (my social skills were not that great tbh)
imiric 3y ago
Interesting idea, but how do you fight spam, prevent abuse and moderate comments? A reminder to "be nice" is too naive for the modern internet.
- chaxor 3y ago
  I would imagine simply creating a scoring function that down-weights posts that only one demographic agrees with, while up-weighting posts that all demographics agree with would be one way of achieving this.
hackernewds 3y ago
awesome idea. great implementation of what Jack has been claiming BlueSky or nostr will do
jasfi 3y ago
I had a similar idea, but no time to implement it. Hopefully a web version coming soon.
tourmalinetaco 3y ago
I wouldn’t call this a “social media curator”. Looks more like a formatted pseudo-RSS aggregator with some project-specific social media elements tacked on. For one, I don’t see any actual curation going on. Additionally, I’m not sure any of the websites being pulled are “social media”, considering most are news in some capacity. It’s absolutely an interesting project, but unless it can target Reddit/Twitter I’m not sure how it could supplement RSS feeds for me, let alone replace them. I mean I follow most of these websites through my RSS already, and don’t need to wait for some custom extractor to be built for the websites I want to target.

88 points by kaangiray26 3y ago

mydriasis 3y ago

*AWESOME* idea. Nice work, can't wait to see where this goes. I was discussing this same idea with my brother the other day, looks like you're well on the way!

gremlinsinc 3y ago

Crazy idea - add threaded reddit-like comments. Add reddit also, but just use the rss endpoints, then only have local/stored comments, moving all the comments off reddit. Then create a web version, so people can use a chrome extension or userscript that replaces reddit comments with your links, add an ad or two or a server fund ticker and it might get people off reddit.

donio 3y ago

To ask the obvious question: Why use this over my favorite RSS reader?

thepangolino 3y ago
Probably the social aspect allowing for comments and upvotes/downvotes
mxuribe 3y ago
I'm not the author, but my guess would be that some of the suppoorted websites do not offer an RSS/atom feed to be leveraged by an RSS reader app. So, at a glance, it seems this app aggregates content for those sites/app which lack rss feeds...as well as includes sites which might already have rss feeds. At least, i think.
kaangiray26 3y ago
With all respect to RSS, Endless allows for users to interact with posts. Which means you can upvote and leave comments for posts on websites that initially do not implement a way to do this. Thus, you don't have to create an account for that. Besides, with custom extractors you can see posts from pages with no RSS support. Also you will be able to see trending and controversial posts based on upvotes and comments on your front page in the upcoming versions.
- donio 3y ago
  The votes and comments are local to the Endless instance, not forwarded or federated anywhere, correct? So for example if I run a personal one I'd only ever see my own voting history?
  - hackernewds 3y ago
    it could be very interesting if there is a sidebar of content engagement this way? perversely also useful if Endless has a lot of engagement as a monopoly
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  You could support arbitrary RSS feeds though. Then your list of supported sites grows to millions.

binkHN 3y ago

Love the idea! And kudos to releasing on Android first, which tends to be rare. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the app seems to be mostly JavaScript with a small Android wrapper?

kaangiray26 3y ago
Thank you kind stranger! Actually I was planning to make a web app but then I realized not all news websites have APIs for requesting their content. Then I've come across CapacitorJS which allows you to convert your web projects into mobile apps and they have a plugin called "CapacitorHttp", which patches the usual fetch function to use native libraries instead. This way it is possible to make http requests that do not get blocked by CORS-related problems. So, all the requests are made on the client-side, which takes so much work from my shoulders :)
- binkHN 3y ago
  Neat! Thanks for the details!

gochi 3y ago

You could probably separate the extractors into their own repo for easier contribution, and less of a reliance on you having to manually create and validate them. Great job otherwise!

jtriangle 3y ago

> This way you can endlessly scroll through posts I can't decide if I love this or hate it because I like content and also spend too much time consuming it. I do like the google reader (rip) vibe to this idea though.

dancedar 3y ago

Was expecting FriendFeed based on consolidating the social medias, but more akin to rss

laurent123456 3y ago

Love the idea, but I'm wondering if the backend could leverage one of the fediverse technologies? For example when someone comments or upvotes a page, a post for that page is automatically created on a Lemmy instance, and that will be used to manage the comments and upvotes. That way you don't need a server backend and you take advantage of a decentralised architecture

ipaddr 3y ago
Aren't you centralizing on Lemmy?
- laurent123456 3y ago
  Lemmy is decentralised so... no?
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    But using one instance to handle voting/replies means it's centralized (everything happens in one place). Lemmy doesn't allow someone to edit content from different instances so that aspect isn't decentralized. If I make a post on one instance the post could be shared within the federation which makes that feature decentralized. At best Lemmy is a hybrid decentralized-centralized application.

earlyriser 3y ago

I always wonder how this kind of services show images. Do they hot-link them or they are saved in their own servers? One approach violates web etiquette and the only seems over engineering (save an image that maybe just one use is going to see).

adr1an 3y ago

Nice project, very much needed. I wonder, Is there an option to backup and recover accounts? Also, this sounds very much like centralization of diverse platforms. If the server had ActivityPub compatibility, it would be a great addition to the fediverse! :O.. Do you think it would be possible to do such a thing?

tqi 3y ago

This is basically Cambridge Analytica, isn't it? If one of your friends / followers use this service, it will be able to access all of your shared content?

kaangiray26 3y ago
Sorry, I don't understand. Everyone on this service is anonymous as no account creation is needed. Upvotes and comments are not tied to users.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  I haven't looked through the repo in depth yet, but does that mean that upvotes and comments made through Endless only live in Endless, but aren't pushed to the upstream site? For example, if I leave a comment on an HN article through Endless, is that comment only visible to other Endless users (because otherwise you'd need an HN account to post comments).

Jeff_Brown 3y ago

I know someone who briefly had a startup that sold a service like this. Facebook sued them and they folded.

mattigames 3y ago
The trick for such a start-up to succeed is to not be US-based, even better if its on rival countries (e.g. Russia, China)
- Jeff_Brown 3y ago
  Interesting. He's Colombian, and we met here -- but he went to San Francisco to start the business.
  - mattigames 3y ago
    You wanna hear something funny? I'm Colombian too (and at such country right now, at Bogota), and I also visited the bay area a couple times to start a business but had no such luck (my social skills were not that great tbh)

imiric 3y ago

Interesting idea, but how do you fight spam, prevent abuse and moderate comments? A reminder to "be nice" is too naive for the modern internet.

chaxor 3y ago
I would imagine simply creating a scoring function that down-weights posts that only one demographic agrees with, while up-weighting posts that all demographics agree with would be one way of achieving this.

hackernewds 3y ago

awesome idea. great implementation of what Jack has been claiming BlueSky or nostr will do

jasfi 3y ago

I had a similar idea, but no time to implement it. Hopefully a web version coming soon.

tourmalinetaco 3y ago

I wouldn’t call this a “social media curator”. Looks more like a formatted pseudo-RSS aggregator with some project-specific social media elements tacked on. For one, I don’t see any actual curation going on. Additionally, I’m not sure any of the websites being pulled are “social media”, considering most are news in some capacity. It’s absolutely an interesting project, but unless it can target Reddit/Twitter I’m not sure how it could supplement RSS feeds for me, let alone replace them. I mean I follow most of these websites through my RSS already, and don’t need to wait for some custom extractor to be built for the websites I want to target.