A brand new app known 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 finally 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: With the intention to sustain, folks have to make use of tons of providers 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 buildings, 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 downside is Tapestry’s predominant draw however this might, in the interim, additionally restrict the app’s enchantment past the early-adopter crowd.
A unified app
At this time, 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 gives a single place to test for these updates alongside these from different social networks chances are you’ll use, like Bluesky, Mastodon, Tumblr, and others.
Constructed by the crew that designed one of many unique third-party Twitter shoppers, Twitterrific, Tapestry proposes to introduce a brand new sort of timeline, very like Twitter’s, the place all updates scroll by. There are additionally extra, extra superior instruments you should utilize to configure that timeline — like deciding on which content material to mute and which to “muffle,” or collapse — so you may decide to view it if desired whereas limiting display screen area.
The latter can be utilized to enhance each the aesthetics and the vibe of your timeline. For example, chances are you’ll need to muffle political subjects so 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 just need to view inside Tapestry, you may then arrange your timeline, in addition to extra timelines, providing a customized view of this info. For example, you can have a timeline targeted solely on Apple information, blogs, and podcasts, or one to your social networks, like Bluesky and Mastodon.
To get one of the best use out of Tapestry, you’ll have to provide quite a lot of thought to the kind of info and updates you need to monitor and the way you’d wish to see them organized. Viewing every thing in a single feed may be noisy due to all of the social app updates. Your timelines are primarily Tapestry’s model of customized feeds (much like Bluesky’s feeds, however with the flexibility to tug from a number of providers, not only one). Which means you’ll be within the job of feed creator, not simply shopper — at the least till a extra sturdy developer ecosystem arrives.
Feeds and Connectors
Whereas it looks 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 occasions, and a few of its consumer interface decisions want extra polish.
For example, Tapestry defaults to opening feeds in-app while you select the choice to “open unique” from the “extra” (three-dot) menu on particular person posts.
Additionally, tucking away the flexibility to interact with the unique content material with an additional faucet doesn’t make this one of the best app for individuals who wish to rapidly take part in social conversations as they scroll. For those who open objects in-app, you’ll must log in to the social community to interact. You’ll possible need to set this to open feeds in “Safari” so Tapestry opens the related iOS app immediately (like Bluesky) the place you may like, reply, or repost.
Sadly, meaning Tapestry isn’t actually fixing the necessity to keep a number of accounts throughout a number of apps.
One other design selection that could possibly be complicated includes the app’s two sections the place you may add sources. One known as “Feeds” and one other known as “Connectors.” The previous permits you to add “content material that seems 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 will probably be constructed by a neighborhood of third-party developers who need 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 provide open feeds.
An extensible app is a intelligent concept however one that might have been pushed additional down the undertaking’s roadmap. Initially, the crew ought to give attention to 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 providers combined, as an alternative of utilizing separate apps?
A transitional step or the long run?
Tapestry isn’t the one one which’s fascinated with 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 provide superior feed-building instruments, and Flipboard launched a brand new app known as Surf for constructing customized feeds from throughout providers. Not like Tapestry’s, Surf’s consumer interface permits you to view feeds that may be filtered to be considered in several codecs — watch, learn, or pay attention — or you may decide to see every thing 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 downside these options purpose 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.
Presently, 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 generally known as the fediverse, through ActivityPub.
That leaves us in a transitional interval the place you may’t simply decide your most popular app and count on to see all of it.
As a substitute, we’re being given instruments to mix feeds and sources nonetheless we see match. However a few of these efforts really feel like momentary measures as a brand new, extra open web — the place every thing finally connects — remains to be being constructed.