lyra_comms

Decentralised social networks are a bad idea. Communication tools need to be inclusive and open to everyone, especially laypeople. Decentralised tools and blockchain turn off non-techies, and are overkill for the social networking problem.

It has to do, as you mentioned, with the amount of text.

Whatever land you're wrapped up in, I hope everything is awesome there, too.

We did research the name in advance and we're happy with it; we're not concerned that another company shares it.

Lyra values language and aims to be an effective tool for large conversations; we're not worried about large amounts of text. We especially don't want to patronise users by hiding or folding up messages which they have taken time to write.

This page provides a concise summary: https://www.hellolyra.com/about?page=how-lyra-works

We bow only to the Hypnotoad.

Thanks, this is excellent feedback.

- It's OK to have a small learning curve; we think users will be OK with the menu symbol.

- We've thought extensively about whether to show content to non-logged-in users. This isn't really Lyra's use case. You can see it as closer to email than social media. Our goal is not to categorise "content". The very term "content" makes us itch. We don't aim to provide searchable communities or hashtags, as these are easy avenues for harassment, abuse and targeting vulnerable communities.

- Most of Lyra's existing use cases look like this: start converstion (with existing contacts, or invite them otherwise). Have conversation, usually private, with contacts.

- The tour can be removed with a single click, it was actually a requested feature and has received positive feedback.

- The general design is constantly evolving and it will improve as we have access to more funding.

- We offer a growing number of customisable themes (left menu); the look and feel of a platform should be in the user's control. Style is very subjective; some like basic, some like glitz. If you have any suggestions for a theme you would like, we will be happy to set it up for you.

There's no need to apologise for good, constructive feedback!

We approach a completely different use case to Livejournal: hierarchical conversations rather than broadcast blogging.

Exactly! We agree that email and newsgroups do not have the most useful or accessible UI, and aim to offer a much better design. Needless to say, our design is constantly improving.

Thanks, we will add a page about the team.

We have been thinking carefully about whether to include a public conversation feed. Public communications are not Lyra's central use case, and as most conversations are private at the moment, such a feed would be quite sparse.

As a nonprofit which is not funded by advertising, it is not our main goal to support viewers without an account. There is no charge to sign up.

A quest to remain "more interesting" leads to constantly changing platforms, dark patterns, and intrusive notifications. A useful and effective platform enables communication in a reliable and stable way.

Thanks for your comments; we are very open to any more specific or detailed feedback on improving the platform.

These aren't developments that should be encouraged. The political influence of targeted advertising on social media has encouraged and enabled several nationalist movements. We believe that the lack of an open communication platform makes accessing and discussing complex ideas, whether ethical or political, much harder.

Yes, we did! Self-promotion in a relevant context (in a discussion of a worsening problem which affects many) is a very different undertaking than paid, off-topic advertising.

Thanks for the advice, we've been staying under the radar on HN recently but we honestly feel really strongly about this. We're a nonprofit, have been sinking lots of cash into this project, and are not in it for personal gain :)

As a nonprofit, we operate on grants and revenue alone, not investment.

We'd love to hear some specific feedback on what you think could be improved about our UI :)

We also think we're not doing too badly compared to Reddit and Hacker News!

I know it's hard to see it this way when one is into tech, but many of my non-tech friends (artists, philosophers, retail...) would balk at this.

We believe using a communication tool needs to be as easy as entering a URL and logging in - friendly, familiar, no new terminology.

One of our team members used to do this job; luckily, she managed to do it with deep learning, so didn't have to spend too much time looking at unpleasant images.

This experience is one of the main drivers that pushes our team to develop an open, nonprofit conversation platform on which harrassment is difficult by design.

www.hellolyra.com/introduction

It's absolutely hearbreaking to see the independence, critical thinking and self-determination that Western society has been building up since the Enlightenment, weakening under the forces of big data and targeted advertising.

Communication should be open, profit should not be involved in discourse, and advertising should not corrode conversation.

Viva la revolucion!

www.hellolyra.com/introduction

An open conversation service needs to be open to all, not just people with tech skills; we need to prevent large numbers of people feeling locked out of discourse, or left behind.

Also, many of the distributed/federated services we've looked at have rapidly devolved into niche communities often centred around sexual content. These two reasons lead us to think that a centralised service is more open and approachable.

Our team (mostly cognitive scientists and engineers) is nostalgic about the past of online communication and concerned about its future. Our platform, Lyra, provides support for effective conversations rather than social networking and advertising. You can read our history of online convesation - and more about our approach - here: www.hellolyra.com/introduction

Exactly!

As cognitive psychologists, this is what we are trying to fight with Lyra: a nonprofit conversation service which respects attention.

www.hellolyra.com/introduction

This is what we are trying to rectify with Lyra, a conversation and debate service which respects the user's attention. Our team is led by a cognitive neuroscientist working on attention, and we're a nonprofit. You can read more about our approach at https://hellolyra.com/introduction .

This is what we are trying to rectify with Lyra, a conversation and debate service which respects the user's attention. Our team is led by a cognitive neuroscientist working on attention, and we're a nonprofit. You can read more about our approach at https://hellolyra.com/introduction .

You don't converse just to exchange news or learn. People converse to tell stories, to laugh, to discuss, to exchange points of view, to convince, to refute, to pass time, to plan, to reminisce... Lyra is like a blank sheet of paper. It doesn't tell you what to talk about. That's up to you.

Lyra isn't designed with any particular context in mind. We aim to allow the full expressive power of language, not imposing any ethos, topic or atmosphere. Lyra is a communication tool, not an opinionated social space.

There is plenty of research showing that the patterns and atmosphere a platform promotes can have huge effects on conversation and discourse.

This is what we're doing with Lyra (www.hellolyra.com): using a respect for language and cognitive load to create an open, sensible conversation platform.

Twitter wasn't designed to enable good conversations - it was designed for rapid, viral growth thanks to a gimmick which limits message length and sensible, nuanced interaction.

Have a look at Lyra - it's a nonprofit conversation service designed with respect for language and attention.

www.hellolyra.com

We believe the web needs a conversation platform that's open, respects language and discourse, and is free from the influence of advertising revenue.