Tools for Online Speech

Practical steps towards a better internet.

Jacob O'Bryant

I'm a software inventor-entrepreneur. I'm interested in tools for online speech—software that helps good ideas to spread and makes the internet a better place for individuals and society. I've built a few things myself:

Yakread, a reading app for newsletters and RSS feeds. It has an algorithmically curated feed that helps to prevent inbox overload.
The Sample, a newsletter discovery tool that's driven over 50,000 new subscriptions for participating newsletters.
Platypub, the publishing platform that I've used to create this website 🙂.
Biff, a web framework that all these apps are built with.

I discuss my work and ideas in a weekly newsletter. You can reach me at hello@tfos.co or chat with me on Discord.

Featured

You can help unbundle social media

Big Social Media is dying, and from their ashes we can begin anew. Here are a few simple, practical suggestions for anyone who wants to be part of the movement.

How to rebuild social media on top of RSS

We should look for ways to make reading, publishing, and community services all play nicely together. I'm calling this model "the unbundled web," and I think RSS should be the primary method of interop.

Introducing Yakread: a simple reader app for the unbundled web

My largest personal motivation for building Yakread is that I wanted to spend more time reading long-form content. I wanted the same effortless experience of scrolling through Twitter, but with more meat.

We need better tools for online speech

We can improve the information environment by thoughtfully designing, building, and distributing better tools for online speech.

Recent

The world's finest onboarding flow

I actually did some user-facing work on Yakread last week. There's a three-step onboarding flow now.

Into the shell I go

I'm more attracted to using the newsletter mainly to develop ideas than as a marketing tool. It's freeing to write in this way, with no thought for traffic or subscriber growth.

Stuff I read that maybe you'd like too

Instead of sharing reading recommendations most weeks after the main post, I’m going to dedicate an entire post to recommendations whenever I feel like I have enough good stuff to share.

Help me sponsor your newsletter

I've created a free directory of newsletters that sell self-serve ads. You should join.

How to beat social media's network effects

Social media should be unbundled into its constituent parts, in order to foster competition. But how do we overcome the gravitational pull of network effects?

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