Alternatives
Products that do what The way I'll beat Facebook? does
Hi! 3 months ago, while I was exploring my Facebook newsfeed, was the first time I really got bored of Facebook. I started to wonder why, and to be honest - I haven't figured it out yet. But I did start to think of the gaps Facebook doesn't cover. Maybe I'm wrong, but one of the things that came up to me is the subject of interests and users will to use social networks in order to get to know new friends (real ones), in an efficient-good way. I thought combining those two gaps is a really good idea. So I started to develop that big idea (double meaning) - interests based social network. The…
- 1WD
Hey there, First time posting on Hacker News in about 2 years! The reason I’m posting is that I thought I’d write about the product I’ve been building, in hopes it resonates with people. Why build yet another social app? Because I deleted almost all social media around 3/4 years ago as it was just net negative on my life. There was very little that was truly interesting, I didn’t care about looking good to other people and because of the ‘media’ and ads, the apps were all designed to make me spend too much time for what I was getting. I hated it and what it meant for people’s behaviour,…
2022 · oncircles.com
- 2SD
Hey fellow HN-ers, I'd like to ask HN about my latest startup: SocialFolders. We take a Dropbox-like approach to managing your content on your social networks by mirroring all the content you have on these networks in folders on your computer. Moving this content around, between folders or between services, is mirrored in the all-mighty "cloud" (ugh, I hate this word). We'd love to know what you think. We think our approach solves the problem of managing content at scale. We put together a quick 2'30 screencast to show HN how it works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s2TFsVezZQ If you want…
2012
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- 4BA
I noticed I had reduced my posts to Facebook because I was self-conscious about what people would think. At the same time, I had an urge to post so I could receive validation by way of likes.
2015 · chinchin.co
- 5NP
I created a pet project to see if it is of use and interesting to people. The idea is on-demand real-time chat rooms for trending topics and for personal use. You can go to the main page at www.urshoutbox.com to create your own room then share it across your social networks/email, etc. I created a hacker news specific "shoutbox" at http://www.urshoutbox.com/bLmYAL/hacker-news . If nobody is in there, please be patient and (I hope) people will join soon to start talking. The idea is to have trending topics on facebook/twitter/etc and have chat rooms to get…
2014 · urshoutbox.com
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- 8SO
Hey HN, My co-founders and I have been working on a project for the last month or so, and we'd like to get your input on it. We wanted to hear your thoughts on what we're doing - so check out our landing page, and let us know what you think/understand. Does it sounds like something you guys would want to use? http://www.thesharedweb.com/alpha/intro We'll tell you guys more about exactly what we're doing as the conversation evolves, but we just wanted to see what the initial reaction is, and what you understand (i.e. are we describing it in a way that makes sense). Really excited to hear your…
2010 · thesharedweb.com
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- 10DO
Link: https://apps.facebook.com/degreesapp/ We built this for fun to see how people are connected to one another and to help people connect/network. We're starting it as a Facebook App and will be adding more search features soon, ie by Work, Education, as well as the ability to import email/phone contacts as a Web/Phone App, but wanted to see what the feedback was for the basic search. We do have the chicken and the egg problem in that the more users we have, the shorter the paths will be, but we have to start somewhere right? There used to be something like this on FB, but it seems to have…
2013
- 11MA
Hello. :) I've noticed for the last few years it feels like everyone has been saying the same thing, that social media got baaad, timelines feel hostile, nothing you see is actually from people you chose to follow, and every platform seems optimized for outrage, screenshots, and engagement bait rather than the original microblog ideas of the early 2010s I miss the 2010 social styles, where you have to share your @name with a friend IRL because search wasn't really search... A place where you followed people, saw what they wrote, stumbled into interesting discussions, and hashtags meant…
Jan 2026 · meepr.co
- 12SL
We are looking to get feedback for http://www.samefeather.com. We have tried this with friends and family but want to get some critical feedback (note to self: do this sooner next time). SameFeather is a location based network of people with similar interests. Our emphasis is offline. We provide a way for people to find others in their vicinity that share their interests and meet them offline. We are trying to stay away from calling it a social network because that seems to scare away a lot of people. The differentiating factor from whats already out there is we focus on individuals and…
2011
- 13WW
I have done it. I quit my job and started a company. And I have to say it was the best decision I’ve ever made. http://talk-about-jack.com Since I’m a tech guy and starting a company is about more than just having an app, I asked two friends of mine - which happen to be pros on their respective fields: business and marketing - if they would join me. They liked my idea and both said yes and quit their jobs. So, it can’t be that bad of an idea, right? The first thing we hear every time we tell someone about Talk About Jack is: “But webchats do already exist? Why another one?”. We aim…
2015
- 14MC
Show HN: MindWallet.com Insanely Organized Social Media You can read this on MindWallet as intended here: http://www.mindwallet.com/?ItemKey=787541c7-0860-41ea-a21a-2322e06675c3&ParentID=48851752-ea96-40cc-bfb4-c8b07beba934 Hi HN. Here is my ‘project’: http://www.mindwallet.com I’d love to get your feedback. I’m going to put a lot here about how I got here and where I’m going. If you want a TLDR: I layered social media on top of the ‘todo list’ style app that has been popular recently because I think it is an amazing interface for do things beyond todo lists. And here is a video:…
2011
- 15MF
Hey everyone, Common advice for inexperienced hackers suggests "scratching an itch." Like many others here, I spent too much time on HN, Google Reader and Twitter searching for interesting stuff, so I decided to write an app that brings interesting links to you with no other distractions. HighFive uses Twitter and bit.ly's APIs to find interesting links in your timeline. When you log in, you'll see a group of five links with voting arrows. No HN comments or RSS feeds with hundreds of links--just a few interesting articles that you can read, then get back to work. HighFive was built using…
2011
- 16FT
I'm dreading the day Facebook flips my profile to Timeline. It takes away the focus from what I think is/used to be the best part of Facebook, a fun way to communicate with friends (by posting to their wall). So, my best friend and I built the kind of timeline we wish Facebook had. (Yes, it requires FB login. No, we won't spam.)
2012 · le-bond.com
- 17SN
I've just launched swytch.net, a little social network I've been working on for a month or so. It's nowhere near ready for public consumption but the core ideas are there and I'd be interested to hear what others think. Here are some of the things that I think differentiate it from facebook and co: 1) multiple profiles: having one set of "friends" from all your different social circles limits you to sharing only what you're willing to share with the entire group. On swytch, a user can have a separate, distinct profile for each social circle. 2) robust privacy: each profile is either public…
2010
- 18CS
Hi HN, over the years of using the social media (Instagram, Pinterest, etc..), I’m quite weary of the trend that people tend to polish their content so well and post the perfect aspect of their lives. I feel like that I’m not one of them, and anything I post will be either not so polished to fit the “magazine” style of the community or so insignificant for anyone else to care about. Scrolling in those apps more and more and seeing more and more perfect lives, I feel like I was abused by those platforms and made me anxious about myself. I want an online space that can give my voice back,…
2023
- 19MF
Please have a look at www.socialeaks.com and tell me what you think. This is my first adventure in coding (my background is not CS). I started learning rails about a month ago via railstutorial.org. When I finished that, I felt the best way to continue learning would be to just build an app from scratch. I came up with this concept while observing how crazy the world had gone over WikiLeaks. I thought this was a funny idea. I also thought it would be fun to build! So, here I am. I built this in rails 3 and it is currently living on Heroku. It took me about two weeks to code, doing just about…
2011
- 20GM
Just finished this over the last few weekends, wanted to get this in front of a few users. A few things: - There are no users as of me posting this. - Add "Hacker News" to your interests once you've signed up. It'll allow us to see each other. - You will only see other users with similar interests. - Only common interests will be revealed. Let me know any feedback/suggestions/bugs/idea sucks, etc.
2011
- 21OD
I've been quietly learning web development for about a year now after getting intoxicated by the media darling startup scene back when it was REALLY going mainsteam with the release of the social network. So I drank that koolaid and joined the club and I resolved to create a semi-competent web dev from my humble highschool CS 1 roots. A year's gone by and my first project is finally done. It's a simple online dating app that tries to make online dating appeal to a more casual crowd while removing a few of the major pitfalls of current online dating websites, most notably fear of rejection,…
2011
- 22RO
2021 · github.com
- 23AM
TLDR: I built a "quick and dirty " private social network for my friends, posted on Reddit and HN, got some interest so now have built it properly along with my brother. site link: https://intimost.com/login/ demo creds: [email protected] Demo123! Full version: I needed a social network where I can just send updates and nothing else. So I built it, my friends liked and now I have built it "for the world". Everything is private by default. - Text-only updates - No likes. Only views to acknowledge a post - [in development] Comments are private between the poster and…
Oct 2025
- 24MN
I've spent around a year building a Facebook, Twitter, MySpace & LinkedIn iPhone app, which aside from the API hell, has been a pretty fun experience! I think it's turned out really nice. It's been a technical challenge to sync not only a single address book, but also your address books on all the social networks, but in hindsight, I'd do it all again. I'd love to know what HN think's of it, the app URL is: http://itunes.apple.com/app/friends-plus-facebook-twitter/id407846513?mt=8&ls=1 Here are some promo codes, not sure how long they will last: WPTA4M99L3YF MR39LWPTKNYT ME346Y3TPNY9…
2011
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