Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey isn't just coding new social apps like Bitchat and Sun Day. He also invested $10 million to fund experimental open source projects and other tools that could ultimately change the social media landscape.
These efforts were poured through an online group called “AndotherTuff” that formed in May, and the team includes Dorsey. Twitter's first employee, Evan Henshaw-Plath. Calle is the creator of the e-cash platform Cashu. Alex Gleason, former engineering head of Truth Social. Jeff Gardner, the fourth employee of the intercom.
Image credits: and other things
The group originally met through collaborations on Nostr, an open “non-political” social networking protocol that has received much of Dorsey's attention since Twitter resigned from the sale to Elon Musk and the board of social network Bluesky. However, the team will also experiment with protocols that drive distributed apps such as ActivityPub, as well as other tools such as CashU.
Image credit: Cashu
In recent years, Dorsey has been more critical of how social media platforms have evolved, saying that Twitter could never have been a company, and that Bluesky appears to be repeating the mistakes he and others have made on Twitter.
As a result, the “AndotherTuff” team is determined not to build a company, but instead operates like a “community of hackers,” explains Henshaw-Plath. Together, they create technology that includes a variety of experiments, such as new consumer social apps and developer tools and libraries, allowing others to build their own apps.
For example, the team is behind an app called Shakespeare. This is adorable like an app building platform, but especially for building Nostr based social apps with AI support.
Image credit: Shakespeare
The group is also behind Heynow, a voice note app built on Nostr. Cash Wallet; Private Messenger White Noise; Social Community + Chorus based on Nostr has already been released by Dorsey.
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The development of AI-based coding has enabled this type of experiment, and Henshaw-Plath has helped technologies like Ruby On Rails, Django, and JSON to promote fuel for previous versions of Web, called Web 2.0.
In connection with these efforts, Henshaw Plus sat down with Dorsey for his new podcast, the debut episode of Revolution.social. (The handle for X's Henshaw-Plath is @Rabble.)
Dorsey lives in Costa Rica and Henshawplus lives in New Zealand, so the two met at a Swiss hackathon for chat. In the nearly hour-long episode, Dorsey delves into Twitter history and his philosophy of the philosophy that social media didn't work and how it was fixed.
“It took me a long time to make this happen… I really didn’t put that into words until I went back to CEO and came back for the second time. [Twitter] Dorsey points out that Twitter had mercy to advertisers. Musk says despite Twitter being called X, Musk is even threatening that Musk is driving AD boycotts that promoted AD boycotts through Ad Boycotts.
Dorsey understands catering to advertisers is the right thing for business and Twitter stock prices, but that was “the wrong thing for the internet.”
“They can remove money – your money – and your income will be completely reduced,” Dorsey says of the power of advertisers. “that's why [Twitter] What was an open protocol was that if it was a truly open project, you could build a business on it, and you could build a very healthy business on it. ”
Dorsey ultimately funded efforts to build an open protocol within Twitter, and was spun to become Blueski later. However, Dorsey believes Bluesky faces the same challenges as traditional social media because of its structure. Like other startups, it is funded by VCS. Already, it had to succumb to the government's demands and face the challenges of moderation, he points out.
“I think [Bluesky CEO] J. [Graber] It's amazing. Dorsey told Henshawplus. “But the structure is something I disagree with. I want to push the energy out in a different direction. That's something I see in Nostr,” he says.
In a later episode, Henshaw-Plath interviews others who have insight into how social media and technology have evolved, including journalists such as Kara Swisher and Taylor Lorenz. Former Twitter trust and safety Yoel Ross. Substack co-founder Chris Best; Medium CEO Tony Stabbin; Cory Doctorow (produced the term “enshittification” to describe many of the current states of the Web). And René Diresta, a well-known misinformation researcher.
The AndotherStuff team is also working on the social media Bill of Rights. It spells out what social media platforms need to offer in areas like privacy, security, interoperability, transparency, identity, self-governance, portability, and more.
They believe this will help platforms, including Bluesky and others, to hold users accountable despite external pressure.
Dorsey's initial investment is running a new nonprofit organization and is working on some of the first iOS apps. Meanwhile, others have contributed time to build Android versions, developer tools, and various social media experiments.
Henshaw Plus is working on more.
“There are times when we're not ready to talk about it yet, but it's going to be very exciting,” he teases.