Ask HN: What Social Media are you using outside HN?
56 comments
Facebook: All the time. Virtually everyone I know, virtually every event I go to, virtually every business I frequent keeps their content up to date. I derive great value from it.
Twitter: Hate it with a passion. Primarily use it at conference and other such ad-hoc gatherings. Impenetrable UX (I still have no idea how anything works after 10 years of trying), impossible to get the feed working the way I want it, horrible use of space (somehow way less efficient than Facebook even though it's supposed to be for short messages), threading/replies/etc impossible to follow.
Strava: Post all workouts (multiple per day between bicycle/run/peloton/etc). Follow a handful of people. Non-addictive but I don't necessarily derive a ton of enjoyment from it either. Great for tracking my workout data but the 'social' part is something i don't much care about either way.
Reddit: Almost never; makes me feel like an old grump complaining about 'kids these days'. Every subreddit I try makes me feel like it's 1996 again and everything is new, and everyone is wowed by the same old stuff and rehashing the same old political/religious/etc arguments. It feels 20 years out of date to me. I keep hearing you just need to find the 'right' subreddits for you, but so far, no luck.
Instagram: I use it/post fairly regularly. Not quite sure why. I don't enjoy it more than when I see the same pictures on Facebook.
Likely the way I derive value from these things is that I don't care about brands/influencers/etc. People who really like Instagram and Twitter seem to care more deeply than I do about random people they've never met. The reason I derive more value from Facebook than any of the others is REAL people I actually known and care about are there, and their content interests me. I have no more use for 'online personalities' than I have for reality TV.
Twitter: Hate it with a passion. Primarily use it at conference and other such ad-hoc gatherings. Impenetrable UX (I still have no idea how anything works after 10 years of trying), impossible to get the feed working the way I want it, horrible use of space (somehow way less efficient than Facebook even though it's supposed to be for short messages), threading/replies/etc impossible to follow.
Strava: Post all workouts (multiple per day between bicycle/run/peloton/etc). Follow a handful of people. Non-addictive but I don't necessarily derive a ton of enjoyment from it either. Great for tracking my workout data but the 'social' part is something i don't much care about either way.
Reddit: Almost never; makes me feel like an old grump complaining about 'kids these days'. Every subreddit I try makes me feel like it's 1996 again and everything is new, and everyone is wowed by the same old stuff and rehashing the same old political/religious/etc arguments. It feels 20 years out of date to me. I keep hearing you just need to find the 'right' subreddits for you, but so far, no luck.
Instagram: I use it/post fairly regularly. Not quite sure why. I don't enjoy it more than when I see the same pictures on Facebook.
Likely the way I derive value from these things is that I don't care about brands/influencers/etc. People who really like Instagram and Twitter seem to care more deeply than I do about random people they've never met. The reason I derive more value from Facebook than any of the others is REAL people I actually known and care about are there, and their content interests me. I have no more use for 'online personalities' than I have for reality TV.
Tumblr - still the most reliable place to find portfolio art blogs that update every now and then without the opinion fluff. While I do have an art-only blog, I use it mostly for my (separate) personal blog for genuine essays & scrapbooking of interesting links across the internet. May eventually migrate to dreamwidth, though I'm going to miss being able to reblog other folks artwork.
Twitter - self promotion via posting art and chatting with industry folks, but no real feed-reading.
Mastodon - a clone of twitter, see above.
Inoreader - RSS feed reader for all the actual consuming once every ~2 weeks.
Overall - almost non-existent consuming other than the personal blog ... what can I say, I like it nice and quiet. :)
Twitter - self promotion via posting art and chatting with industry folks, but no real feed-reading.
Mastodon - a clone of twitter, see above.
Inoreader - RSS feed reader for all the actual consuming once every ~2 weeks.
Overall - almost non-existent consuming other than the personal blog ... what can I say, I like it nice and quiet. :)
Twitter: I follow Christian leaders I respect as well as a bunch of software developers and some software projects
Facebook: I have a small number of friends on Facebook, but I never use it for posting personal things about my life, just to follow people.
RSS: I follow a lot of software projects, software developer blogs, and some Christian leaders/bloggers. This overlaps with Twitter to some extent but more for interesting articles or product updates that I don't want to miss.
Reddit: I follow some tech and software dev reddits, but it seems like there are too many beginner questions rather than interesting discussions
Blog: I have a blog in the works, not actively writing on it yet
Facebook: I have a small number of friends on Facebook, but I never use it for posting personal things about my life, just to follow people.
RSS: I follow a lot of software projects, software developer blogs, and some Christian leaders/bloggers. This overlaps with Twitter to some extent but more for interesting articles or product updates that I don't want to miss.
Reddit: I follow some tech and software dev reddits, but it seems like there are too many beginner questions rather than interesting discussions
Blog: I have a blog in the works, not actively writing on it yet
> I follow Christian leaders I respect
That made me wonder if Jesus Chris was alive today whether he would have a twitter account for you to follow.
That made me wonder if Jesus Chris was alive today whether he would have a twitter account for you to follow.
Twitter: I follow mostly programming related accounts.
Instagram: Follow church related stuff
Facebook: All my close friends and family, and some groups
LinkedIn: Don't really accept connect requests from people i don't know, so just really professional connections.
Reddit: I follow some bike subreddits, and some tech, try to avoid r/all
HN: For the news
Instagram: Follow church related stuff
Facebook: All my close friends and family, and some groups
LinkedIn: Don't really accept connect requests from people i don't know, so just really professional connections.
Reddit: I follow some bike subreddits, and some tech, try to avoid r/all
HN: For the news
lol, i don't want to make assumptions, but it's hard to not wonder if this post is being downvoted simply because it mentions "church"...
Yep, someone (or a group of someones) went through and downvoted the two posts mentioning "church".
The moderator abuse on HN makes me want to find another "social network" site to waste my precious time on.
(and, yes, I do in fact know this post will get downvoted because it is "uninteresting" to talk about people abusing the moderation system but, as they say, karma's a bitch)
The moderator abuse on HN makes me want to find another "social network" site to waste my precious time on.
(and, yes, I do in fact know this post will get downvoted because it is "uninteresting" to talk about people abusing the moderation system but, as they say, karma's a bitch)
Mostly Reddit and (sigh) Facebook. Recently I've been experimenting both Mastodon and micro.blog [^0]. Different approaches to federation/decentralization, both quite interesting.
[^0]: https://micro.blog/
[^0]: https://micro.blog/
I use Nuzzel to track things shared by multiple people that I follow on various platforms such as Twitter that are trending over a given timeframe.
Great if you are interested in getting news from a niche area - let's say you follow 10 high profile VR people on twitter, and then half of them post an article about some VR thing, I'll see that on Nuzzel, and I won't have to scroll through Twitter and mentally cluster/count to know about the hot new thing in VR that VR people are talking about.
http://nuzzel.com/
Great if you are interested in getting news from a niche area - let's say you follow 10 high profile VR people on twitter, and then half of them post an article about some VR thing, I'll see that on Nuzzel, and I won't have to scroll through Twitter and mentally cluster/count to know about the hot new thing in VR that VR people are talking about.
http://nuzzel.com/
Facebook:
IRC: Classics never die.
Special interest webforms: Another place to meet people with similar hobbies.
Discord: This is starting to take over IRC in several communities I am involved in. It's Slack for fun things instead of work things. I watch about a dozen topics in a half dozen "servers".
* Groups: My primary use of Facebook. I'm involved with several local and special interest groups.
* Messenger: It's better than SMS.
* Videos: The video system is really good, and I've subscribed to several channels. Mostly industry, intellectual, and educational channels.
* Walls: When I ask myself "I wounder what that person I fell out of touch with 2 years ago is up to" this is where I go.
* Events: If I feel the need to go out and get some R&R but I don't have any plans I check this for things to do.
IRC: Classics never die.
Special interest webforms: Another place to meet people with similar hobbies.
Discord: This is starting to take over IRC in several communities I am involved in. It's Slack for fun things instead of work things. I watch about a dozen topics in a half dozen "servers".
Facebook: Eh, I don't check it but I use Messenger at least a few times a day. Events is neat but I never go to any. It was useful for flat hunting because there's a closed group on there with about 70K people in my city. Things like that are pretty priceless.
Twitter: I like Twitter but it took me a few years to get it. I follow a mix of shitposting anime avatars and more serious accounts which I should prune this weekend come to think of it. I've slowly transitioned over time from one of those shitposting accounts to just using my actual name and photo. It's good fun but only if you don't take it seriously.
Reddit: It's great for searching for specific communities ie: /r/thatpeelingfeeling or /r/depthdub but I don't use it too often unless I'm interesting in something in particular
Instagram: I post rarely. I'll sometimes post a photo of a meal if I'm with friends and jokingly say "Look at me, being a big millenial piece of shit" jokingly, haha.
RSS: I use Newsblur daily and it's super nice.
Blog: I sometimes write things but my site is more of an excuse to write code.
Snapchat: It's popular but I could care less. It feels like a chore honestly.
Twitter: I like Twitter but it took me a few years to get it. I follow a mix of shitposting anime avatars and more serious accounts which I should prune this weekend come to think of it. I've slowly transitioned over time from one of those shitposting accounts to just using my actual name and photo. It's good fun but only if you don't take it seriously.
Reddit: It's great for searching for specific communities ie: /r/thatpeelingfeeling or /r/depthdub but I don't use it too often unless I'm interesting in something in particular
Instagram: I post rarely. I'll sometimes post a photo of a meal if I'm with friends and jokingly say "Look at me, being a big millenial piece of shit" jokingly, haha.
RSS: I use Newsblur daily and it's super nice.
Blog: I sometimes write things but my site is more of an excuse to write code.
Snapchat: It's popular but I could care less. It feels like a chore honestly.
I don’t use any of the “social networks”. Instead I frequent topic specific forums that are targeted towards things I’m interested in: advrider.com for motorcycle discussion, photrio.com and pentaxforums.com for photography and darkroom relegated info, gearslutz.com for synthesizer and music recording discussion.
Subreddits: /r/Ireland /r/DevelEire /r/europe /r/swift+programming+webdev+unixporn+linuxmasterrace+etc (Still a reddit addict after years)
Twitter/Product Hunt (Really don't like twitter, gradually moving on)
Slack (Dislike it because of system footprint it imposes)
YouTube/Google+/GSuite
Have disliked Facebook since 2006.
Twitter/Product Hunt (Really don't like twitter, gradually moving on)
Slack (Dislike it because of system footprint it imposes)
YouTube/Google+/GSuite
Have disliked Facebook since 2006.
Subreddits: AskHistorians, SpaceX, NeutralPolitics, and a number of others.
Twitter: I follow a number of intellectuals I respect and hope to be linked to interesting articles and papers.
Facebook: I check for event invites as part of my daily routine but avoid reading my feed.
Newsblur: Following lots of blogs and some Tumblrs.
Blog: I don't post enough.
Twitter: I follow a number of intellectuals I respect and hope to be linked to interesting articles and papers.
Facebook: I check for event invites as part of my daily routine but avoid reading my feed.
Newsblur: Following lots of blogs and some Tumblrs.
Blog: I don't post enough.
Frequently (daily, or a couple times per day)
- reddit/imgur (news, jokes, tech stuff, etc)
- instagram (for the pics... though slowly losing interest due to the ads)
- twitter (news, fake-news, and tech stuff)
- HN (news)
- telegram (various programming channels)
Regularly (once or twice a week) - linkedin - ello
Infrequently (once every week or two or three or...) - facebook (I hate it, but all my friends/family are there) - google+ (photography groups) - vimeo
Practically never (once a year... maybe) - pinterest - flickr (really just to remind myself it's still there) - tumblr
Regularly (once or twice a week) - linkedin - ello
Infrequently (once every week or two or three or...) - facebook (I hate it, but all my friends/family are there) - google+ (photography groups) - vimeo
Practically never (once a year... maybe) - pinterest - flickr (really just to remind myself it's still there) - tumblr
Sublevel. The design is pretty good, but it's a little lacking on features which may or may not be a good thing.
https://sublevel.net
https://sublevel.net
IRC! It's the best system I've tried to get "social" interactions.
It's fast, text-based and the channel I'm on is populated by cool guys doing original pieces of programming (a weblink for the curious: https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.rizon.net?channels=#/g/dpt).
It's fast, text-based and the channel I'm on is populated by cool guys doing original pieces of programming (a weblink for the curious: https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.rizon.net?channels=#/g/dpt).
Mostly Medium, and increasingly Linkedin. Both mostly for writing & reading blog posts.
A little bit of Twitter & Pinterest, the former for typically just for sharing my content (but I have very few followers), the latter for ideas/collections (and for work, of course).
From time to time "I" like things on Facebook, typically when my wife gets my phone and likes her posts :)
A little bit of Twitter & Pinterest, the former for typically just for sharing my content (but I have very few followers), the latter for ideas/collections (and for work, of course).
From time to time "I" like things on Facebook, typically when my wife gets my phone and likes her posts :)
Reddit but looking for an alternative, I can't seem to amalgamate the information I want to read even though I've painstakingly organised everything into multireddits in the past.
IG, PH, FB, Twitter, Indiehackers, Growthhackers, Pocket, Slack Groups, and Feedly.
ATM I'm trying to consolidate everything on Feedly and Pocket (as a read-later) but it isn't easy.
IG, PH, FB, Twitter, Indiehackers, Growthhackers, Pocket, Slack Groups, and Feedly.
ATM I'm trying to consolidate everything on Feedly and Pocket (as a read-later) but it isn't easy.
https://hubski.com thoughtful conversations
I use Marco Polo to stay in touch with family. Both my wife's family and my own discovered it a couple of months ago and it's a great immediate way to stay in touch with each others daily lives.
I use reddit to follow a very small number of specialized topics and very occasionally post.
that's it.
I use reddit to follow a very small number of specialized topics and very occasionally post.
that's it.
Mastodon for general musings, art-posting and feed-scrolling
Reddit for more topic-specific stuff (mechanical keyboards, D&D etc)
SMS for person-to-person chat
I have a blog for whenever I feel like writing a blog post, or showcasing software stuff I'm working on
Reddit for more topic-specific stuff (mechanical keyboards, D&D etc)
SMS for person-to-person chat
I have a blog for whenever I feel like writing a blog post, or showcasing software stuff I'm working on
Twitter: sadly, the UI that keeps showing me people's favorites instead of just their retweets is killing my enjoyment. I really wish they would quit screwing around with someone that should be so simple.
This was really bugging me until I realised that sorting the people I follow into lists basically reverts my feeds into a standard chronological timeline again. Minus Twitter's "screwing around", the site is actually useable. Might take a bit of work if you follow a lot of people, but it's totally been worth it for me at least.
I wish I could see the feed without any retweets at all. Just new tweets.
I don't use social media. I have a Google+ account to share photos (and nothing else) with my family, but the bugs make that harder and harder, so I'll have to abandon it. (Any suggestions?)
Share directly from the Photos app or photos.google.com - don't go to plus.google.com, it's dead (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/how-mark-zuckerberg-...).
Google photos is extremely buggy too, and doesn't work the way I want it to work. It's almost impossible to upload a large number of photos from a desktop machine. It inevitably dies during the upload, then I have to figure out which pictures exactly didn't upload. And then I get duplicate pictures in the album, albeit not always.
Also, the phone app is extremely adamant that I upload ALL my photos to Google, which I don't want to do. If you only want to selectively upload stuff, the interface really gets in your way.
Google photos is extremely annoying because it requires me to give names to albums, while Google+ is perfectly happy with untitled posts. You can share without creating a new album... but only from your phone, not from your desktop, and if you do it from your phone you very quickly lose the reference to the untitled "album". Nor to mention that you don't have a chronological view of what you shared with whom.
Google+ had a very good permission model, Google photos lacks this, AFAICT. Also, I use a paid Google Apps account, and very often people with free Gmail accounts can't see the photos I share with them. I couldn't determine what causes this, or how to fix it. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not.
Minor gripe, but I strongly dislike the reverse chronological view used by the phone app.
With Google+, the people I shared photos with received an e-mail notification (albeit not always... again, another frustrating bug). With Google photos they get a push notification on their phone, which they dislike (perfectly understandable, IMO). Also, they could just click on the link in the e-mail and see the pictures in their browser, Google photos requires an app to be installed.
I could go on and on.
Even if Google photos would not be so spectacularly dysfunctional, I would still prefer to move away from Google services as much as it's possible.
I'd rather just use a simple, paid service where I could upload pictures (in original quality, with full EXIF data) either from the desktop or from a mobile device, and where I could share untitled posts (albums) with people who'd get the notification via e-mail and access them via the browser (or some app, but the browser must always work). The albums should be downloadable as zip files (in original quality and with full EXIF data) by the people I shared them with.
I tried SmugMug, and it kind of works, except that it doesn't support a "naked" custom domain, so example.com doesn't work, but www.example.com and pics.example.com work. This might seem like a minor gripe, but I want to do it right if I do it at all.
I am very tempted to write something myself.
Also, the phone app is extremely adamant that I upload ALL my photos to Google, which I don't want to do. If you only want to selectively upload stuff, the interface really gets in your way.
Google photos is extremely annoying because it requires me to give names to albums, while Google+ is perfectly happy with untitled posts. You can share without creating a new album... but only from your phone, not from your desktop, and if you do it from your phone you very quickly lose the reference to the untitled "album". Nor to mention that you don't have a chronological view of what you shared with whom.
Google+ had a very good permission model, Google photos lacks this, AFAICT. Also, I use a paid Google Apps account, and very often people with free Gmail accounts can't see the photos I share with them. I couldn't determine what causes this, or how to fix it. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not.
Minor gripe, but I strongly dislike the reverse chronological view used by the phone app.
With Google+, the people I shared photos with received an e-mail notification (albeit not always... again, another frustrating bug). With Google photos they get a push notification on their phone, which they dislike (perfectly understandable, IMO). Also, they could just click on the link in the e-mail and see the pictures in their browser, Google photos requires an app to be installed.
I could go on and on.
Even if Google photos would not be so spectacularly dysfunctional, I would still prefer to move away from Google services as much as it's possible.
I'd rather just use a simple, paid service where I could upload pictures (in original quality, with full EXIF data) either from the desktop or from a mobile device, and where I could share untitled posts (albums) with people who'd get the notification via e-mail and access them via the browser (or some app, but the browser must always work). The albums should be downloadable as zip files (in original quality and with full EXIF data) by the people I shared them with.
I tried SmugMug, and it kind of works, except that it doesn't support a "naked" custom domain, so example.com doesn't work, but www.example.com and pics.example.com work. This might seem like a minor gripe, but I want to do it right if I do it at all.
I am very tempted to write something myself.
I use google photos to share with family without ever touching Google+. I have a shared "family" album with everyone invited to it. Any time I have new photos to share, I add them to that album and everyone gets a notification to check it out. Also, my significant other and I have our entire photo libraries shared with each other.
Thanks, see my parallel reply to coatmatter.
Twitter ( for the most current news on my echo chamber ) and Linkedin.
Instagram for business. The rest is not needed in my life.
Facebook Messenger: To chat with friends
Facebook Groups: To exchange with my industry
Twitter: To exchange with my industry
Reddit: Fun
Stomt: Feedback to Companies and to track favours. I use it like a social todo list.
Mostly tech related subreddits. Like r/programming.
I have flipboard app on my phone. I have a feed for science and tech.
Twitter to follow some professionals like John Carmack.
Youtube/Google+
I have flipboard app on my phone. I have a feed for science and tech.
Twitter to follow some professionals like John Carmack.
Youtube/Google+
I use https://ello.co/ and HN. Dropped reddit, FB last year.
Does Keybase count? It allows me to update various contact methods and allows strangers to contact me in a verifiable manner.
Use as in actively, participating & creating content: nothing.
Use as in glansing over, stalking & timewasting: everything.
Use as in glansing over, stalking & timewasting: everything.
- Twitter is my main venue
- Slack for work
- Reddit, more for information finding
- Facebook and Instagram periodically, maybe once a week at most
- Slack for work
- Reddit, more for information finding
- Facebook and Instagram periodically, maybe once a week at most
Freenode IRC, for the past decade.
All the ones that I'm forced to do because my friends tell me its a good idea.
Snapzu!
http://snapzu.com
http://snapzu.com
Mastodon
Mastodon.social, freepo.st, and forums (does that even count?)
What? HN is a social media actually!
I use Twitter and ProductHunt.
I use Twitter and ProductHunt.
Does github count?
Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Reddit, and Google.
Strava, Reddit
Strava is easily my favourite social network (if one could even call it that). It's non-addicting and the more I use it, the better I feel and more productive I am. I've never ever seen an argument on it either. Its positive flow-on effects are superb.
The heat map "revelations" earlier this year was slightly fascinating but made me wonder how many of those writing or commenting about it have actually ever used Strava.
Disclosure: I don't "race" using Strava and use "common sense" to avoid taking risks, etc - the riskiest thing to health for most people these days are sedentary activities.
The heat map "revelations" earlier this year was slightly fascinating but made me wonder how many of those writing or commenting about it have actually ever used Strava.
Disclosure: I don't "race" using Strava and use "common sense" to avoid taking risks, etc - the riskiest thing to health for most people these days are sedentary activities.
Instagram, Twitter, Medium, YouTube.
MeWe, Reddit, G+
Reddit, dev.to
[deleted]
I flip between Reddit, HN, and instagram. Currently losing interest in IG since I feel like I see lots of repeated content.
Where else are you visiting?