TweetScape
I’ve spent the last month focused on getting a new job. And after an intense interview process, I officially start on April 11th! I am joining the Roote Team to build Tweetscape with Nicholas Chiang.
Tweetscape began as a passion project of Shingai Thorton. Shingai is extremely online and uses twitter to stay up to date on web3, politics, and other interests. However, he is not happy with twitter’s default feed. He’s become a master of twitter lists, but is still limited - there isn’t enough control for power users. Along with Shingai, there are many other twitter power users, like Zvi Mowshowitz, who are looking for better tools to find the best info from the best sources at the right time.
Power users are looking for better tools, even those with simple features like sorting and filtering their feeds… that is where Tweetscape comes in. Tweetscape will empower twitter power users with more control over their information environments.
Needless to say, Tweetscape and other Roote projects will begin to have a huge influence on the writing I do here.
I’ll start sharing that influence by sharing two ideas that came up during my work trial and could end up being an important part of the future Tweetscape vision.
Edges as First Class Citizens
My view of twitter has changed dramatically over the last two years. I’ve transformed from a passive consumer to an active player of the twitter game looking for better ways to participate. Most people don’t (or won’t?) see twitter as a game, but I’m slowly becoming more convinced that’s the best way to think about it.
The twitter game is most fun when you spend your time looking for connections. It makes your consumption active instead of passive. Plus, it makes it easier to share because you don’t always need to create something new. Instead, you can connect the dots between other ideas/essays/tweets/threads that already exist and explain why the connection is interesting.
Those connections are edges (like the purple arrows below).
A great example of an edge is a multi-quote tweet. A multi-quote is the same as a quote tweet, except you can link to multiple tweets at once. That linking is the edge. That edge tweet may not even need a caption - just pointing out there is a connection could be an interesting creation in and of itself.
What are you best finds in the edge finding game?
Questions to keep in mind
Here are some questions I want to keep in mind while building Tweetscape:
what would a tool for edging finding look like?
how can people discover the edge finding game faster than I did?
how can we make it easier for people to make and share their own ideas?
Do you have any ideas, or better questions I should keep in mind? DM me!
My thinking on this will become more clear as I go and I intend to share more thoughts, visuals, and explanations as we build and think more about this.
Curation Platform
Like I mentioned earlier, power users like Shingai have become masters of twitter lists. Mastering twitter lists takes a lot of time. Shingai spent 1-2 weeks worth of time building and curating the lists he uses. That time is worth it to him because of how valuable his information environment is. Other people recognize the importance, but are not willing to put the same amount of effort into building their own information ecosystem.
What if Tweetscape could make it easier for people to keep up with and benefit from all the curation work that power users like Shingai do? On top of giving power users better curation tools, could we make it easy for them to share their curated feeds (on a daily/weekly basis?) that others can view instead of the default?
There are plenty of users out there spending a lot of time creating an optimal feed. Tweetscape could be a platform to increase the impact of all that work by allowing others to benefit from it.
Tech Stack
At the end of my last post, I wanted to share my experience and opinions about hotwire. I will still do that, but I am going to wait until I’ve spent the next few weeks learning remix, which is the frontend framework we’ve decided to use for Tweetscape. Remix is the stack that Chiang used to build his prototype and it has some pretty impressive features. I’m excited to spend time learning a new stack and it will allow me to have more well rounded opinions when I eventually share more detailed thoughts about hotwire.
Also, you can see the current Tweetscape prototype here (no promises on reliability for the next few weeks).
See you next time
I hope you share a bit of the excitement I have for this new project.
I also ask that if you’ve been keeping up with me so far, don’t be afraid to reach out to talk about what ideas have resonated most or if you think you’d like to use a tool like Tweetscape.
Lastly, I’m looking for more writing friends like Sam Stone to hold me accountable for posting here. An important part of Tweetscape development will be a clear vision shared with many people, and the best way I can make that happen is by writing and sharing ideas as much as possible. Reach out if you want to push each other!