 |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| Happy Thursday. It's the first day of December, and 24 days until Christmas. It's Brett Molina gathering your weekly tech news while figuring out how we zipped through 2022 so quickly. |
| By now you've heard about the chaos happening at Twitter. But what's going on with some of the apps touted as alternatives to the social media platform? |
| Advertisers are reportedly fleeing Twitter. Apparently, so are some users, preferring to start over on new services such as Mastodon and Hive. |
| Over the last couple weeks, I signed up for both Mastodon and Hive to see what the fuss is about. Some thoughts: |
| Mastodon. Good but confusing at first. You start by signing up and choosing a server. There are lots of them, so choosing one isn't easy (I chose Mastodon.social). Then you can start posting updates just like Twitter. Don't worry, if there's someone you like to follow who is on another server, you can still get their updates. |
| I recommend using a third-party app rather than the Mastodon app which reminds me of early Twitter, when the official smartphone app struggled to gain traction compared to more user-friendly, third-party apps like Tweetbot. |
| I love Metatext, because you have three timelines of "toots" (Mastodon's equivalent to tweets): a home feed for people you follow, a local feed for the other people in your server and a "federated" timeline featuring every single person on Mastodon. |
| Bonus points: Mastodon is a super cool name. |
| Hive. Joining Hive is much simpler. Start an account, find others to follow, then start firing off updates. It's very similar to Twitter but has elements of other apps like Ask.fm where you can ask people questions. You can also feature two songs on your profile like MySpace (no, you don't have to rank your top eight friends). |
| Hive feels more visual than Mastodon. A Discover tab highlights trends, specific content that might appeal to you and anything new. |
| Here's the big question: will either of these apps replace Twitter? It depends. |
| Twitter might not have the audience of Facebook or TikTok, but it has enough influential users to have impact, especially during a live event. Can Mastodon or Hive replicate that in some form? |
What else happened in tech? |
| Elon Musk vs. Apple. First, Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, picked a fight with Apple chief Tim Cook, upset over a perceived lack of advertising by Apple and an alleged threat the tech giant would remove Twitter from the App Store. But now the pair appears to have made up. |
| Did you check out your Spotify Wrapped? It's available now. And thanks to my kids, I'm a really big Harry Styles fan. |
| Are Facebook job ads discriminatory? Company accused of bias against women, older workers. |
Thursday tech tip |
| The holiday shopping season is here. And although inflation is doing its best Scrooge impression, there are some tips you can follow to save some money on those big holiday gifts. |
One more thing |
| I enjoy Taco Bell, so it pains me to know that I failed to stop by a location and try the Enchirito before it went away again. At least we still have the Mexican Pizza. |
| Thanks for reading! See you next week. |
| Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23. |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment