Show HN: Write-Only Interface for Twitter
typefully.app
typefully.app
That’s why I love this idea. Imagine writing a blog but everyone suggesting to you that you have to consume other people’s blogs in order to contribute your own. Twitter can be toxic. But it can be great. If you are not in a mental space to consume the doom scroll, this is a good way to post your thoughts while protecting your mental health.
I’ve been tweeting from the command line for a few weeks now but will probably switch to this.
In this case, the author wants to use twitter as a microblog -- the use case it was designed for. If they don't want to read other input on their twitter, why would they?
Meanwhile HN is explicitly designed as a community with a focus on curiosity, exploration, and discussion... none of which your comment provides.
For external sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging
> However, by 2006 and 2007, the term microblog was used more widely for services provided by established sites like Tumblr and Twitter.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Twitter
> Twitter, online microblogging service for distributing short messages among groups of recipients via personal computer or mobile telephone.
Regardless, another client that treats the microblogging side of twitter as it's sole focus is not unreasonable. Much like reddit.com being better suited to memes and images and old.reddit.com is better suited to discussion, different clients can have different focuses, which is a Good Thing.
Even the "Stoic & Enlightened" accounts like Naval regularly engage with the birdies around them.
Good point. However, making friends/impact is not what everyone wants from twitter.
Some people just want a place to put their thoughts out, and don't really care what anyone else is doing.
Edit: I'd like to apologize for being overly aggressive in my first comment. That was uncalled for. This chain clearly has started a discussion, for which I thank you.
Not being snarky: this is what personal journals are for.
It's difficult for me to reconcile "I want to put my thoughts out, but for as many people as possible to see them, and without caring about impact". At best, it feels like void navel-gazing, and at worst it might be a source of so much thoughtless/marginalizing content on Twitter: because the author did not care what their words will do to the reader. The feedback loop is essential not only for enriching the overall community, but for enriching our own understanding.
I suppose I've interpreted the thought process differently. I see it as "I'm going to put my thoughts out, maybe someone will find it interesting.", with the key difference of not caring about many people see/interact.
> at worst it might be a source of so much thoughtless/marginalizing content on Twitter: because the author did not care what their words will do to the reader.
Alternately, this could be caused by echo chambers where people scream endless affirmation at you because you said something that lines up with their political views.
Neither method of using Twitter is more wrong or more right, just different.
One of the reasons HN is one of the few places I actually post on the internet. People here are generally willing to discuss in good faith.
> something that wouldn't be possible in a write-only scenario...
/me sighs
yes. That was the whole point of the conversation, and why we are having this discussion in a forum designed for discussion, instead of in a platform that is equally designed for microblogging and discussion.
In addition, it's perfectly possible to put contact info in your twitter bio. Someone is just as capable of looking at that and emailing you as they would be if you were blogging off your own website.
Where it's written, if it's designed so, doesn't really matter. I mean it's not practical to do so over text, but email? Yes.
There are even a subsection of people who never engage in twitter and just consume...
You can still allow people to visit your site and email you... But many people tweet successfully without replying to anyone.
If you disagree with what these non repliers say, stop reading.
Other readers don't need protection. They need exposure to more ideas, not fewer.
If you don't care at all about others interacting with your tweets, then Twitter has an edit button: delete the tweet and post a new one.
This conversation though just happened to touch on something I’ve been experimenting with so I was compelled to comment.
That said, give me the read only client for HN (I know this exist already) :)
It would be pretty weird to write a blog, but never read others. Especially if you avoided reading blogs because you thought it was bad for your mental health. Why make more of a bad thing?
Twitter is toxic, yet people enjoy that echo-chamber.
What's wrong with this network where sharing content requires to use such tools both for authors and readers? ;-)
I think it's great that we're coming up with better tools to facilitate the process of writing modular text. Hopefully these tools will make it clearer to writers what Twitter threads are for and reduce the prevalence of behaviors like splitting sentences across tweets.
[1] Unfortunately Twitter's thread-composing UI isn't available when writing a reply to someone else's tweet. It would be nice if they fixed this. (Perhaps the reasoning is that a multi-tweet reply would work better as a quote tweet. I still think it would be nice to have the thread UI available for every tweet, regardless of the context.)
Consuming using "unrolling" is fine, because it only gets rid of the interface that some people don't like.
Isn't that only the case if you don't work with their built in tool on the right to see what the thread will look like? I personally have no problem reading through a thread in this way, especially when the thread is crafted with the individual tweets in mind.
* first built an app that made its users break a message into packets by hand;
* then built apps on top of that app that do the packet disassembly/reassembly for the first app automatically.
There is theoretically no end to the heights this tower of madness can reach! A driven young Hackernews could theoretically be occupied for decades adding to it, all to chase that VC money or Show HN whuffie!
We're so used to social networks being all-in-one, but that doesn't mean it's the only way. A network that doesn't come with all of its own tools isn't necessarily worse -- it might even be healthier that people can solve their own use cases with their own apps.
Jokes asides I am a big fan of blogging[1], but it's not the best medium for reach.
1. There are definitely times when I just want to post something I found interesting to Twitter and not, at that time, get sucked into other tweets
2. It also depends on what you think Twitter is. Wikipedia describes Twitter as a "microblogging platform" and "social network". I think this app looks good for the microblogging aspect of Twitter.
If you don't mind me asking: What type of people do you follow - people you met irl or online, or friend of friends, or famous people? And how do you want to interact with them?
He follows zero people on Twitter. That is a huge red flag if, like me, you are trying to avoid narcissists who aren't interested in listening to others. It's clear that the developers of Typefully are oblivious to this Twitter syndrome.
At best, it's for people who are in transmit mode (like Rob Rhinehart on his blog) and this is a dangerous way to operate because you're not engaging with your hypothetical audience before pontificating.
See, e.g. https://klwightman.com/2016/07/11/zero-twitter-following-cou...
"What a zero following count on Twitter really says is that you are more concerned with your image than your connections. Your ego is more important that the conversations you could have to genuinely build your character.
A zero following Twitter count shows that you don’t care what others on Twitter are saying. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Because actions speak volumes, a zero following count says that you don’t.
No need to worry. This strategy often fails, and for good reason.
Many Twitter users see through this strategy. How much fun is it to follow someone who doesn’t care what anyone has to say, even you?
So many will unfollow these ego accounts and their Twitter follower account once again dwindles."
I have a bunch of drafts up as unsaved tabs in a VS Code window. Having a UI that encourages me to put my drafts in a dedicated spot and is oriented towards creating threads seems really nice.
Some good choices too (e.g. Plausible for analytics).
Only thing I wonder is, why I can only learn that you are Mailbrew Inc. from the PP or Terms of Services, and ...
> For our Patron in-app purchase flow, we collect related information such as payment amounts, times and currencies to validate and secure payments.
... that your revenue model apparently is in-app purchases?
Why not be more open about that with a nice About page where you present yourself and the product you offer.
(Note that this same feedback holds for so many services that are launched, where the lack of this transparency imho is an oversight).
We've put a "by Mailbrew" logo in the header, and also if you click on the chat widget in the bottom left corner of the app, you'll see info about the team.
As for the business model, this is a little experiment to play with the write-only Twitter idea and create awareness around Mailbrew, which is our main product and core business.
Finally regarding Plausible, it's not just better because of how privacy-friendly it is, it's also such a great product that we recommend everyone to use.
I try to stay out of email except for defined time slots so that I don’t get distracted. But sometimes I would like to send an email outside those times.
Most clients require you to see your inbox if you want to send a message.
I believe everyone has the right to express their opinion, but I'm just not emotionally equipped to handle being blasted daily by the firehose of all the opinions in the world.
But I like to get updates.
I've also recognized you. You're the duo from Mailbrew and Boxy Suite! I wonder, how do you find ideas for the great apps? Looks like you start from a need but at the same time I feel like you must be data-driven.
We actually very rarely start from data or market research, but basically from our own needs.
We liked Gmail but hated it using it in the browser, so we've built Boxy Suite.
We like following many websites, authors and creators, but felt overwhelmed by feeds, so we've built Mailbrew.
We love Twitter but needed a focused writing environment to remove distractions when we want to publish our thoughts, so we've built Typefully.
In every case, we decided to go ahead when we felt there might be thousands of people with the same need, and that we can address it effectively, leveraging our specific knowledge.
When we have an idea that feels great, but we feel there's no real market for it, we don't pursue it.
Hope this answers your question!
A write-only interface for Twitter.... you, dear sir or madam, have my clicks. All of my clicks.
If there are sources that they don't support, you can host your own rsshub instance or use the default.
Happy to help you get this set up.
But for a comprehensive, all sources in one app, I'd want even more than categorization. I'd want different reading modes (concatenate tweets, leave other articles alone), maybe an expose-like overview to quickly filter, some intelligent ranking etc.
rsshub seems interesting though. Can it do hackernews user's posts?
Hence is it really required? What REAL pain are your really trying to solve? For how many people will use this? Are people already searching/paying for this?
This is a cold hard and harsh truth. May save you lot of your valuable time in the near future.
Pls DON"T build something that NOBODY wants.
It's fine if it is $100 from 10 customers than $5 from 1000.
...why?