Show HN: Seven39, a social media app that is only open for 3 hours every evening

Oversharing in natural social networks is penalized heavily, and for good reason - with too much noise and little signal, people get overwhelmed, fear missing out, and cannot agree on anything. Communication becomes a detriment and a chore to the social group. The social group expects everyone to think before they speak, not just blabber endlessly, which is healthy.

Also, replacing the "Like" button/signal with a "Thanks" signal would be good because it'd be better to build a social network based on what people find helpful rather than on what people approve of. I think this was originally Jack Dorsey's idea, not my own.

- You can write and edit one post at a time.

- This post, in whatever form it has then, gets published at 8 in the morning.

- You can only see posts for today. All old content gets deleted.

- No comments or feedback is possible.

- Only symmetric relationships are possible: you can add someone, but they won't see your posts and you won't see their posts until they add you back.

- All "friend" discovery is out of band. There are no recommendations, no boosting/retweeting, nothing.

This is obviously not a mass medium, but its reductionism gives it some interesting properties that have made me consider what a good social network would be. One post a day is a fantastic idea.

(I don't know if they intend for it to be named in public, so I'll refrain.)

For example, in your typical gaming clan Discord server, a tenement building's WhatsApp/email group, or a small town's quarterly town hall meeting. It only takes a handful of people in such social groups for the group to serve its purpose.

Indeed, TheFacebook easily reached its critical mass when it was limited to Harvard College. Hacker News would work just as well with 500 monthly readers as it does with 5,000,000+ currently.

Whales, celebrity influencers (whether from out-of-network or homegrown celebrities), and other such things are only needed to compete with the social media giants today. But if you don't wish to compete and want to serve a small community, then this is not a problem.

That was Fotolog at the beginning of the century.

onepostwonder.com

It's been running for over a decade, although the community has always been small.

It's currently invite-only, similar to how LiveJournal used to be, but drop tommybgoode@gmail.com a line and mention this post if you'd like to give it a try and I'll send you an invite, which will include invites to give others you'd like to hang out with.

I know people that have used it for years

I forgot the name but its an app that sends you a notification at a random time each day, and it gives you 1 minute of use. If you miss it, you miss it.

In that 1 minute you can take a photo where you are right then, and can use the rest of the minute to browse someone else’s series of photos. Just the 1 person you were connected to that day.

It just shows how people are living.

In real life. I know its changed someone’s trajectory. All of their pictures were in an office cubicle and it pushed them to pursue other things sooner. Retirement in their case, to pursue drum circles and new age things because this was always fulfilling for them, they just kept delaying it beyond the rationality to delay it.

After 3 years of doing this, they send you a book of your memories.

No timelines or “algorithm” aside from whatever selects the person you get to see.

I've mentioned it before, but my wife posts about our life there. People can follow you, but there is no feedback aside from you seeing how many people read your post and how many followers you have. There are no recommendations; you have to organically check out the people who read your article to see if you like their writing (if they have any), or add people from an out of band source. Content is as ephemeral as you make it. It's very common for people to only leave a post up for a day or two, but it's up to the author.

If you are interested it's called ameba (www.ameba.co.jp). It's not the only one like this, just the one my wife uses.

In fact, on the topic of posting less, I know first-hand that the introduction of the ephemeral “story” format in conventional social media was done precisely in order to reduce friction in getting people to post more.

This is a huge problem. If you want to cultivate a large audience, every social network I'm aware of encourages you to post intensively. I've moved to new social networks and ended up unfollowing people I liked because they Would Not Shut Up, deeming it more important to build a following than maintain normal communication.

I wonder how many micro communities like this exist, mostly under the radar.