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Show HN: Squall – A microblogging platform that replaces tweetstorms

40 points by barisser 12y ago

giancarlostoro 12y ago
I saw a similar application here on HN one of the valid points against this is that you cannot really parse the text through the image, so it becomes a barrier against visually impaired users. At first I was thinking it was going to be links to a bigger tweet or something similar.
- barisser 12y ago
  One difference with Squall is that, while the post is an image on Twitter, it lives on as a text post on Squall.io. So you can always follow the link and parse the text there. Also the images are highly legible. Check out this Squall for example: https://twitter.com/bshyong/status/573557768285732864 https://twitter.com/bshyong/status/573557768285732864
  - nicwest 12y ago
    aren't you going to have issues like this in the twitter stream, where the top and bottom of the image is lost: http://i.imgur.com/6jfKcFW.png http://i.imgur.com/6jfKcFW.png
    - ianhernandez 12y ago
      just one more click, and you'll have the entire post in your stream, no redirecting, no extraneous page loads. ( •_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)
    - danneu 12y ago
      You see the title and a legible paragraph when you're scrolling through a feed of random tweets. Seems superior to any alternative I can think of.
- protomyth 12y ago
  I'm not up on the state of screen readers, do any of them look at the EXIF data? I don't think that would be a good solution and am not sure how big a comment can be, but I could be wrong.
  - benshyong 12y ago
    That's a great idea. I'm not sure about screen reader support, but it's definitely feasible to put the raw text of a post into the metadata for an image. We would also have to check whether Twitter preserves this data when it's uploaded with a tweet.
barisser 12y ago
Hi, core team here from Squall. I'd be happy to answer any questions/comments. Squall is a community-built product on Assembly. So each contributor gets some fraction of ownership, commensurate with their contribution to the product. I'd highly suggest writing a Squall post. It's an easy way to say more on Twitter.
- ioddly 12y ago
  > Squall is a community-built product on Assembly. So each contributor gets some fraction of ownership, commensurate with their contribution to the product. How's that work, if you don't mind explaining? edit: Nevermind, I found it: https://assembly.com/help/basics#how-does-assembly-work https://assembly.com/help/basics#how-does-assembly-work
- aiiane 12y ago
  What's your opinion on accessibility?
Fastidious 12y ago
Stucked at "Posting tweet..."
captn3m0 12y ago
Nice work austin! (Fellow assembly user) Thoughts: - I was wondering about this exact same thing the other day. Twitter photos have made it really easy to break the 140 character rule, and there are lots of wordpics in my stream these days. This seems like a brilliant hack. - [BUG] No space between "Posted" and "Month" - It currently counts self-views as well. Maybe remove them from the count? Should be possible as long as images are not on a CDN, I think
bshimmin 12y ago
What is a "tweetstorm"? A rapid series of tweets on a particular event or topic?
- joncalhoun 12y ago
  I would assume it is when a 500 char message is broken into 4 consecutive tweets, or something along those lines.
- whatupdave 12y ago
  Here's an example: https://twitter.com/fredwilson/status/570336180849373185 https://twitter.com/fredwilson/status/570336180849373185
jnbiche 12y ago
Nice work, just read about your project in an Assembly email. That said, based on all of the Squall posts I've looked at, I can only read a fraction of the image. The rest is obscured by Twitter. Given this state of affairs, how is Squall better than just posting a link to a Gist, or something like that, since I have to click on the link to read the full post in both cases?
forthefuture 12y ago
I don't know if it's part of the platform, but all of the watermarking seems a little over the top. By that I mean the "sent from Squall", and "by...via @SquallApp". I'd put forth that you don't need those things to have people understand where the image came from; the link in the twitter post that starts with "squall.io/", and anyone following the link ends up at the site. Not that it's overwhelming, it's just that I don't personally get any value out of those lines of text being there, and it takes away from the concision of the real post.
- barisser 12y ago
  You make a fair point. We're still adjusting the branding. I could see us tuning it down.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
drvortex 12y ago
http://imgur.com/EpY3Ioz http://imgur.com/EpY3Ioz Interface failure all over the place.
- karangoeluw 12y ago
  We'll definitely work on making it better.
EC1 12y ago
Looks like a rearrangement of the Assembly logo.
placeybordeaux 12y ago
This not solving a real problem. This problem was entirely invented by twitter and is slowly being degraded in a horrible, suboptimal way. Maybe I have just having a shitty day, but it is really sad to see people spending time solving silly human imposed problems.
- alex_g 12y ago
  What do you suggest they should have built instead?
  - atticusalien 12y ago
    Nothing. Just use any already existing blog platform. No one says you have to make new blog posts all the time. Just post when you have something valuable to say.
    - wanda 12y ago
      I agree. Instead of dealing with the possibility that no one would pay attention to his blog, he tries to levy his existing followers by bringing the blog to twitter in the most absurd way possible. If everybody's going to start tweeting images I can kiss my mobile data good bye, all because some dude couldn't bear the thought of being nobody in the blogosphere.
webwanderings 12y ago
So you are basically converting text to images, eliminating the character limit? I guess hashtag and @connect wouldn't work in this solution?
maxwin 12y ago
Good idea. I've seen similar things in China Weibo a few years ago. It is a very popular way to write one long tweet(weibo). It seems like Chinese companies may start from copying but they can gradually come up with innovative ideas. Wechat is another example. I think its platform beats what's app, line.
ArekDymalski 12y ago
This could be really powerful if they will enhance the message editor (images, formatting etc.)

40 points by barisser 12y ago

I saw a similar application here on HN one of the valid points against this is that you cannot really parse the text through the image, so it becomes a barrier against visually impaired users. At first I was thinking it was going to be links to a bigger tweet or something similar.

barisser 12y ago
One difference with Squall is that, while the post is an image on Twitter, it lives on as a text post on Squall.io. So you can always follow the link and parse the text there. Also the images are highly legible. Check out this Squall for example: https://twitter.com/bshyong/status/573557768285732864 https://twitter.com/bshyong/status/573557768285732864
- nicwest 12y ago
  aren't you going to have issues like this in the twitter stream, where the top and bottom of the image is lost: http://i.imgur.com/6jfKcFW.png http://i.imgur.com/6jfKcFW.png
  - ianhernandez 12y ago
    just one more click, and you'll have the entire post in your stream, no redirecting, no extraneous page loads. ( •_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)
  - danneu 12y ago
    You see the title and a legible paragraph when you're scrolling through a feed of random tweets. Seems superior to any alternative I can think of.
protomyth 12y ago
I'm not up on the state of screen readers, do any of them look at the EXIF data? I don't think that would be a good solution and am not sure how big a comment can be, but I could be wrong.
- benshyong 12y ago
  That's a great idea. I'm not sure about screen reader support, but it's definitely feasible to put the raw text of a post into the metadata for an image. We would also have to check whether Twitter preserves this data when it's uploaded with a tweet.

barisser 12y ago

Hi, core team here from Squall. I'd be happy to answer any questions/comments. Squall is a community-built product on Assembly. So each contributor gets some fraction of ownership, commensurate with their contribution to the product. I'd highly suggest writing a Squall post. It's an easy way to say more on Twitter.

ioddly 12y ago
> Squall is a community-built product on Assembly. So each contributor gets some fraction of ownership, commensurate with their contribution to the product. How's that work, if you don't mind explaining? edit: Nevermind, I found it: https://assembly.com/help/basics#how-does-assembly-work https://assembly.com/help/basics#how-does-assembly-work
aiiane 12y ago
What's your opinion on accessibility?

Fastidious 12y ago

Stucked at "Posting tweet..."

captn3m0 12y ago

Nice work austin! (Fellow assembly user) Thoughts: - I was wondering about this exact same thing the other day. Twitter photos have made it really easy to break the 140 character rule, and there are lots of wordpics in my stream these days. This seems like a brilliant hack. - [BUG] No space between "Posted" and "Month" - It currently counts self-views as well. Maybe remove them from the count? Should be possible as long as images are not on a CDN, I think

bshimmin 12y ago

What is a "tweetstorm"? A rapid series of tweets on a particular event or topic?

joncalhoun 12y ago
I would assume it is when a 500 char message is broken into 4 consecutive tweets, or something along those lines.
whatupdave 12y ago
Here's an example: https://twitter.com/fredwilson/status/570336180849373185 https://twitter.com/fredwilson/status/570336180849373185

jnbiche 12y ago

Nice work, just read about your project in an Assembly email. That said, based on all of the Squall posts I've looked at, I can only read a fraction of the image. The rest is obscured by Twitter. Given this state of affairs, how is Squall better than just posting a link to a Gist, or something like that, since I have to click on the link to read the full post in both cases?

forthefuture 12y ago

I don't know if it's part of the platform, but all of the watermarking seems a little over the top. By that I mean the "sent from Squall", and "by...via @SquallApp". I'd put forth that you don't need those things to have people understand where the image came from; the link in the twitter post that starts with "squall.io/", and anyone following the link ends up at the site. Not that it's overwhelming, it's just that I don't personally get any value out of those lines of text being there, and it takes away from the concision of the real post.

barisser 12y ago
You make a fair point. We're still adjusting the branding. I could see us tuning it down.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

drvortex 12y ago

http://imgur.com/EpY3Ioz http://imgur.com/EpY3Ioz Interface failure all over the place.

karangoeluw 12y ago
We'll definitely work on making it better.

EC1 12y ago

Looks like a rearrangement of the Assembly logo.

placeybordeaux 12y ago

This not solving a real problem. This problem was entirely invented by twitter and is slowly being degraded in a horrible, suboptimal way. Maybe I have just having a shitty day, but it is really sad to see people spending time solving silly human imposed problems.

alex_g 12y ago
What do you suggest they should have built instead?
- atticusalien 12y ago
  Nothing. Just use any already existing blog platform. No one says you have to make new blog posts all the time. Just post when you have something valuable to say.
  - wanda 12y ago
    I agree. Instead of dealing with the possibility that no one would pay attention to his blog, he tries to levy his existing followers by bringing the blog to twitter in the most absurd way possible. If everybody's going to start tweeting images I can kiss my mobile data good bye, all because some dude couldn't bear the thought of being nobody in the blogosphere.

webwanderings 12y ago

So you are basically converting text to images, eliminating the character limit? I guess hashtag and @connect wouldn't work in this solution?

maxwin 12y ago

Good idea. I've seen similar things in China Weibo a few years ago. It is a very popular way to write one long tweet(weibo). It seems like Chinese companies may start from copying but they can gradually come up with innovative ideas. Wechat is another example. I think its platform beats what's app, line.

ArekDymalski 12y ago

This could be really powerful if they will enhance the message editor (images, formatting etc.)