How FORUM works and why is it very different from other social networks?
Forum is a social network I have built with one simple goal in mind: Allow people to have a public and open conversation with the whole world on any subject they want. You can try it right away on android. But if you want to know more about it, here is how it works:
Post any content -picture, link or text- you want. Associate it with at least 3 tags then swipe up to send it into the network
Read and swipe other people’s cards (up to upvote, down to pass)
By tagging and swiping, we all contribute to rank the content each one of us produce.
This collaborative system allows you to search the best cards on any topic, according to the community.
For example, search for the tags [#Paris #restaurant #burger] or [#startup #advice #hiring] to find the best thoughts the community has posted around those subjects.
In the Forum, you cannot follow people, but you can follow [#tags] and define specific stacks of cards.
In addition to a common chronological stack of cards, you can define specific stack of cards. Set a stack [#philosophy], and you’ll see only cards that have been referenced under this tag. Set a stack [#photography #blacknwhite] and you’ll see only cards on this topic.
Comment any card you want. Each comment you post on a card, is a card by itself and can be reachable through tag research as well.
Maintain and follow a public conversation easily. When you have a dialogue with someone, you can display the cards in a chat layout.
The Forum project aims to unify within one experience 3 types of usages:
- a search engine based on a crowdsource ranking
- a social network
- a public messaging app
If you want to try the app, it is available on Android in a public bêta version.
If you want to know more about the vision and motivation that led me to create Forum, please read my previous article.
