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

slowsocial.us

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

#111

Post by ghiculescu »

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

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.

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

#114

Post by thr0wawayf00 »

jimkleiber wrote: post #102
darawk wrote: post #43

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.…

Yes, I've been yearning for platforms really to just let me control the database query, basically. I want to be able to create custom filters/sorts/queries, or even choose some from an algorithm store, that lets me control how I view things. For example, on Twitter, I love having the "latest tweets" option. But maybe I want to also have "only tweets from verified people with over 100 retweets from other verified peop…

> Does it really just unleash too much power in the hands of the users and make these companies afraid what might happen?

Social media companies spend incredible resources trying to continuously improve the stickiness of the app so users keep coming back to it. Giving users total control over curation creates two big problems for this.

1) if I can cut out all of the BS in the feed, I can utilize the app more passively which likely reduces overall usage. I would try to get my social media into a weekly feed, which is not compatible with the business social media companies are trying to run. It's all about DAU's.

2) total curation makes researching and optimizing the UX for eyeballs more difficult because you introduce an entirely new set of variables into the equation. This increases the likelihood that behavioral research draws erroneous conclusions based on the patterns being observed. By controlling the drip of the content to the users, the company can control for this much more easily.

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

#115

Post by scarface74 »

jimkleiber wrote: post #105
scarface74 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The feed was introduced in 2006. Facebook was founded in 2004. Not many people “flocked” to Facebook before the feed.

I think the feed was chronological for a while. Did it switch to being non-chronological in 2006? I thought it was later than that.

The algorithmically generated feed was introduced in 2011.

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

#117

Post by idealmedtech »

darawk wrote: post #43

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.…

I think such a network, while great in theory, would mostly be filled with techies like us, because by design, it favors intentional interaction over mindless swiping, giving advertisers less incentive to fund you and thus eventually struggling to remain solvent.

Now, if we put some regulation on dopamine loop limitations, such a network might absolutely THRIVE!

Just my personal take! Do I wish people engaged more actively with the idea that these products can be living breathing things that we also can exhibit influence over? Absolutely. Do I think the critical mass of such users exists today? Sadly not, but I hope one day to be proven wrong!

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

#118

Post by flipdot »

walterclifford wrote: post #110
flipdot wrote: post #106

I tried to sign up, but the confirmation email got automarked as spam by Gmail and didn’t contain any links.

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.

Thanks! First time dealing with this Gmail’s “feature”. (°⊥°`)

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

#119

Post by tejtm »

darawk wrote: post #43

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.…

Ahhh the original web vision and promise of the Semantic Web. Snippets of machine readable datum everywhere fetched and assembled for you by your own "intelligent agent".

The competition would be innovating better personal agents and data tagging.

I think TBL found the mother of all misunderestimations when they made http servers and browsers as step zero.

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

#120

Post by a-dub »

darawk wrote: post #43

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.…

so, basically blogs and rss readers... with privacy features and channels for subscriptions.

sounds good to me.

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