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 technology’s FriendFeed, for these sufficiently old to recollect the sooner try from the Internet 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 frequent because the open social net grows: With the intention to sustain, folks have to make use of tons of providers and achieve this a lot app-switching.

Amid a flurry of growth 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 associates 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 most important draw however this might, in the intervening time, additionally restrict the app’s attraction past the early-adopter crowd.

A unified app

At present, 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 examine for these updates alongside these from different social networks it’s possible 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 kind of timeline, very like Twitter’s, the place all updates scroll by. There are additionally further, extra superior instruments you need to use to configure that timeline — like choosing which content material to mute and which to “muffle,” or collapse — so you may choose to view it if desired whereas limiting display house.

The latter can be utilized to enhance each the aesthetics and the vibe of your timeline. As an illustration, it’s possible you’ll wish to muffle political matters so that they don’t overwhelm your display as you scroll or muffle spoilers of your favourite TV exhibits.

After including the social accounts, RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts, and extra that you just wish to view inside Tapestry, you may then arrange your timeline, in addition to further timelines, providing a customized view of this info. As an illustration, you might 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 present numerous thought to the kind of info and updates you wish to monitor and the way you’d wish to see them organized. Viewing all the things in a single feed could be noisy due to all of the social app updates. Your timelines are basically Tapestry’s model of customized feeds (much like Bluesky’s feeds, however with the power 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 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 instances, and a few of its consumer interface decisions want extra polish.

As an illustration, Tapestry defaults to opening feeds in-app once you select the choice to “open unique” from the “extra” (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 one of the best app for individuals who wish to rapidly take part in social conversations as they scroll. In case you open gadgets in-app, you’ll have to 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 straight (like Bluesky) the place you may 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 could possibly be complicated includes the app’s two sections the place you may add sources. One is known as “Feeds” and one other is known as “Connectors.” The previous enables you to add “content material that seems in your timeline,” and the latter is supposed to “create feeds that populate your timeline.” (In case you’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 can be constructed by a neighborhood of third-party developers who wish to prolong 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 might have been pushed additional down the mission’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 enthusiastic about placing customers in command of their feeds and sources for information and data.

Newer social apps like Bluesky and even Meta’s Threads launched the idea of customized feeds, whereas startups like Graze offer advanced feed-building tools, and Flipboard introduced a new app called Surf for constructing customized feeds from throughout providers. In contrast to Tapestry’s, Surf’s consumer interface enables you to view feeds that may be filtered to be seen in numerous codecs — watch, learn, or pay attention — or you may 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 purpose to deal with is that right now’s open social networks work on totally different protocols. Mastodon, Pixelfed, and others use ActivityPub, and Bluesky and a growing number of clients 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 built to attach networks like Bluesky and Mastodon, social apps like Threads are integrating with ActivityPub, whereas WordPress blogs and newsletter platforms like Ghost are working to affix the open social net referred to as the fediverse, via ActivityPub.

That leaves us in a transitional interval the place you may’t simply choose 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 finally connects — continues to be being constructed.