A brand new app referred to as Tapestry, which launched Tuesday, aggregates and organizes info from throughout the net and social networks in a single place. It’s, in some methods, like this era’s FriendFeed, for these sufficiently old to recollect the sooner try from the Net 2.0 period to mixture feeds and social media updates in a single vacation spot for discovery and dialogue.
However whereas FriendFeed inspired discussions on-site, constructing a social community of its personal — and in the end attracting an acquisition by Fb — Tapestry works higher as a reader.
The issue the app addresses is one which’s turning into extra widespread because the open social net grows: To be able to sustain, individuals have to make use of tons of companies and accomplish that a lot app-switching.
Amid a flurry of improvement that features the rising social networks Bluesky and Mastodon, designed to rival the tech giants with open supply software program and decentralized energy constructions, there may be additionally the problem of maintaining with buddies and followers who’ve now scattered throughout quite a few locations after leaving X’s and Meta’s platforms.
Addressing this drawback is Tapestry’s essential draw however this might, in the meanwhile, additionally restrict the app’s enchantment past the early-adopter crowd.
A unified app
Right this moment, most individuals have already got processes, workflows, and most popular apps they use to maintain up with information websites, blogs, podcasts, and YouTube movies from favourite creators. Tapestry proposes to alter that. It presents a single place to examine for these updates alongside these from different social networks you might use, like Bluesky, Mastodon, Tumblr, and others.
Constructed by the crew that designed one of many authentic third-party Twitter shoppers, Twitterrific, Tapestry proposes to introduce a brand new kind of timeline, very like Twitter’s, the place all updates scroll by. There are additionally extra, extra superior instruments you should use to configure that timeline — like deciding on which content material to mute and which to “muffle,” or collapse — so you’ll be able to choose to view it if desired whereas limiting display screen house.
The latter can be utilized to enhance each the aesthetics and the vibe of your timeline. For example, you might wish to muffle political subjects in order that they don’t overwhelm your display screen as you scroll or muffle spoilers of your favourite TV reveals.
After including the social accounts, RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts, and extra that you simply wish to view inside Tapestry, you’ll be able to then arrange your timeline, in addition to extra timelines, providing a customized view of this info. For example, you may have a timeline targeted solely on Apple information, blogs, and podcasts, or one on your social networks, like Bluesky and Mastodon.
To get the perfect use out of Tapestry, you’ll have to offer lots of thought to the kind of info and updates you wish to monitor and the way you’d prefer to see them organized. Viewing all the things in a single feed will be noisy due to all of the social app updates. Your timelines are primarily Tapestry’s model of customized feeds (just like Bluesky’s feeds, however with the power to drag from a number of companies, not only one). Which means you’ll be within the job of feed creator, not simply client — at the least till a extra strong developer ecosystem arrives.
Feeds and Connectors
Whereas it appears like Tapestry is making an attempt to scratch an itch that open social net early adopters might now have, its aggregation of all of your content material into timelines can really feel overcomplicated at instances, and a few of its person interface selections want extra polish.
For example, Tapestry defaults to opening feeds in-app if you select the choice to “open original” from the “more” (three-dot) menu on particular person posts.
Additionally, tucking away the power to interact with the unique content material with an additional faucet doesn’t make this the perfect app for individuals who prefer to shortly take part in social conversations as they scroll. For those who open gadgets in-app, you’ll must log in to the social community to interact. You’ll seemingly wish to set this to open feeds in “Safari” so Tapestry opens the related iOS app instantly (like Bluesky) the place you’ll be able to like, reply, or repost.
Sadly, which means Tapestry isn’t actually fixing the necessity to keep a number of accounts throughout a number of apps.
One other design selection that may very well be complicated entails the app’s two sections the place you’ll be able to add sources. One is known as “Feeds” and one other is known as “Connectors.” The previous allows you to add “content that appears in your timeline,” and the latter is supposed to “create feeds that populate your timeline.” (For those who’re scratching your head at these descriptions, you’re not alone. The app wants to supply extra of an evidence.)
Because it seems, Connectors are supposed to work extra like plug-ins or add-ons. They run in a JavaScript sandbox and shall be constructed by a neighborhood of third-party builders who wish to lengthen the Tapestry ecosystem with new feeds of their very own. Sadly, these Connectors can’t embrace sources like Fb, Instagram, X, or others that don’t supply open feeds.
An extensible app is a intelligent thought however one that would have been pushed additional down the challenge’s roadmap. Initially, the crew ought to concentrate on testing the premise that customers need to view info from throughout the net, not simply the social net, as “timelines” within the first place. Do customers need RSS, podcasts, social media, and different companies combined, as an alternative of utilizing separate apps?
A transitional step or the long run?
Tapestry isn’t the one one which’s desirous about placing customers in charge of their feeds and sources for information and knowledge.
Newer social apps like Bluesky and even Meta’s Threads launched the idea of customized feeds, whereas startups like Graze supply superior feed-building instruments, and Flipboard launched a brand new app referred to as Surf for constructing customized feeds from throughout companies. Not like Tapestry’s, Surf’s person interface allows you to view feeds that may be filtered to be seen in several codecs — watch, learn, or hear — or you’ll be able to choose to see all the things mixed into one, relying on which tab you choose.
Different apps like Feeeed and Reeder have additionally emerged to deal with comparable points round feed consumption.
One drawback these options intention to deal with is that at the moment’s open social networks work on totally different protocols. Mastodon, Pixelfed, and others use ActivityPub, and Bluesky and a rising variety of shoppers are constructing on its underlying protocol, AT Protocol. In the meantime, older information websites, blogs, and podcasts distribute their updates throughout the open protocol RSS.
At the moment, bridges are being constructed to attach networks like Bluesky and Mastodon, social apps like Threads are integrating with ActivityPub, whereas WordPress blogs and publication platforms like Ghost are working to hitch the open social net referred to as the fediverse, by way of ActivityPub.
That leaves us in a transitional interval the place you’ll be able to’t simply decide your most popular app and anticipate to see all of it.
As a substitute, we’re being given instruments to mix feeds and sources nevertheless we see match. However a few of these efforts really feel like momentary measures as a brand new, extra open web — the place all the things ultimately connects — continues to be being constructed.
