Ed Spencer

Software Engineer. Product focused.

Twitter alternatives

7th Jun 2023

Twitter is a mess, and it's not a stretch to say that it's in a downward spiral. After all Twitter has been put through, the only value it currently has is that everyone is already on there.

I'll write a post about what is going wrong with twitter at a later date, but in the meantime, let's have a look at the alternatives that are out there, and how they fare. In no particular order:

Post.news

Pros

  • Nice interface
  • Nice writing interface
  • Easy to use
  • Easy to get an account

Cons

  • Needs to gain more traction in order to really pop (a critical mass of popular users)
  • UI can look a bit noisey as pictures and article previews take up a lot of screen real estate
  • Feels a bit like facebook with the length of posts, and less like a micro-blogging platform

BlueSky

Pros

  • Feels very much like a twitter clone, which isn't a bad thing
  • Intuitive

Cons

  • It's simply not ready yet, lacking in certain features
  • Restrictive sign up process

WT Social / TrustCafe

Pros

  • Is created by the Wikimedia Foundation so will be very well intentioned
  • Will already have experienced moderation teams
  • Will have the Wikimedia Foundation's excellent web infrastructure
  • Will have the experience that the Wikimedia Foundation have in hosting high demand web apps

Cons

  • Feels like it is still in an early development stage
  • Fragmented. Is hosted out of 3 domains:
  • Needs some UI/UX tlc. It's not very intuitive - there are concepts to grasp - "Trunk", "Branches" etc
  • Commenting on posts feels disconnected from the main posting experience
  • Feels a little closed to new users. I got a snarky response to one of my first posts

Mastodon

Pros

  • Seems to have a decent number of users
  • Decentralised, so if a giant baby takes control of the instance you use, you can move to another
  • Fragmented, so I can be on one instance to talk about dev, another to talk about local politics
  • Neat verification feature (you essentially verify another object on the web you own, like your website)
  • Interface is somewhat familiar

Cons

  • Fragmented. As above, but I'll miss what is being said on other instances
  • Questionable privacy concerns

Threads

Pros

  • From Meta, so will have excellent web infrastructure and networking knowledge baked in
  • From Meta, so will have the resources to be able to iterate quickly and add new features
  • Seems to have a critical mass of people willing to sign up
  • Intuitive UI
  • Available as a native App where it matters (iOS and Android)

Cons

  • From Meta, which a lot of people will have privacy concerns about
  • No desktop web interface at the moment
  • The default feed setting aren't very sensible - as a result your feed will likely be filled by people that you don't follow
  • Lacking a topic support (no trending topic section, no hashtag support)

Conclusion

I downloaded Threads as soon as it became available in the UK and I feel like this will be the real challenger to Twitter. Even if it's feature set is a little spotty, it feels like it has hit the critical mass of users across different communities for it to be the world's next microblogging platform.

Take for example the football community (football twitter). A football journalist known for breaking stories about important transfers, Fabrizo Romano, is on Threads. If he is active on Threads and dropping his transfer news on there, a good chunk of football twitter will follow him there.

This does not mean that there is no space for the other platforms to exist. Take for example TrustCafe. With it's community oriented feel - Branches dedicated to a particular topic, like photography - it could fill the space currently being given up by Reddit, who have forced 3rd party Reddit apps to shutdown in favour of their own app.