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 technology’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: With a purpose to sustain, individuals 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’s 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 primary draw however this might, in the intervening time, additionally restrict the app’s attraction past the early-adopter crowd.
A unified app
Immediately, 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 affords 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 staff 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 choosing which content material to mute and which to “muffle,” or collapse — so you possibly can 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. As an illustration, chances are you’ll wish to muffle political matters in order that they don’t overwhelm your display screen as you scroll or muffle spoilers of your favourite TV exhibits.
After including the social accounts, RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts, and extra that you simply wish to view inside Tapestry, you possibly can then arrange your timeline, in addition to extra timelines, providing a customized view of this info. As an illustration, you possibly can 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 present quite a lot of thought to the kind of info and updates you wish to observe and the way you’d wish to see them organized. Viewing the whole lot 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 (just like Bluesky’s feeds, however with the flexibility to tug from a number of providers, not only one). Meaning you’ll be within the job of feed creator, not simply shopper — not less than till a extra strong developer ecosystem arrives.
Feeds and Connectors
Whereas it seems like Tapestry is attempting 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 selections want extra polish.
As an illustration, Tapestry defaults to opening feeds in-app while you select the choice to “open original” from the “more” (three-dot) menu on particular person posts.
Additionally, tucking away the flexibility to have interaction with the unique content material with an additional faucet doesn’t make this the perfect app for individuals who wish to shortly take part in social conversations as they scroll. When you open objects in-app, you’ll must log in to the social community to have interaction. You’ll probably wish to set this to open feeds in “Safari” so Tapestry opens the related iOS app straight (like Bluesky) the place you possibly can like, reply, or repost.
Sadly, which means Tapestry isn’t actually fixing the necessity to preserve a number of accounts throughout a number of apps.
One other design selection that might be complicated includes the app’s two sections the place you possibly can add sources. One known as “Feeds” and one other 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.” (When you’re scratching your head at these descriptions, you’re not alone. The app wants to supply extra of a proof.)
Because it seems, Connectors are supposed to work extra like plug-ins or add-ons. They run in a JavaScript sandbox and can 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 embody sources like Fb, Instagram, X, or others that don’t provide open feeds.
An extensible app is a intelligent thought however one that would have been pushed additional down the challenge’s roadmap. Initially, the staff 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 providers combined, as a substitute of utilizing separate apps?
A transitional step or the long run?
Tapestry isn’t the one one which’s fascinated with placing customers in command 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. In contrast to Tapestry’s, Surf’s consumer interface allows you to view feeds that may be filtered to be seen in numerous codecs — watch, learn, or pay attention — or you possibly can decide to see the whole lot mixed into one, relying on which tab you choose.
Different apps like Feeeed and Reeder have additionally emerged to deal with related points round feed consumption.
One drawback these options goal to deal with is that immediately’s open social networks work on completely 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 e-newsletter 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 possibly can’t simply decide your most popular app and count on to see all of it.
As an alternative, we’re being given instruments to mix feeds and sources nevertheless we see match. However a few of these efforts really feel like short-term measures as a brand new, extra open web — the place the whole lot finally connects — continues to be being constructed.
