Early this morning, I saw an announcement post from @ecency. The platform introduced new upgrades to their web app that re-introduced the deck feature. In addition to that, the team also released a new micro blogging feature called "waves".
I have been a heavy Leothreads user since the launch in 2022. I was excited to test out the new Ecency service that was released to compare the likability, features and interoperability. I tested out the features.
I will come back to the features later. First, let me share what my initial reaction to the news was
I did not like the idea.
The very first thought of having yet another micro blogging platform on Hive was uneasy for me.
I already used d.buzz and figured they are not easy to use with their current limitations. I am a fan of their User Interface but I do not like the way the micro blogging is implemented.
With “waves” I assumed the users will be divided into two different camps. We have a limited pool of users and having many micro blogging platforms could hinder the development.
I sat on with the same idea for a while and I figured I was wrong. I will tell you why
Leothreads is clocking 1.2 K users so far. That is the best number that the platform posted after the weekend battle. I am not sure about what the total MAU for Ecency is but it cannot be more than 10K.
The long-term vision of Leothreads is to bring in more than 5K new users and generate higher engagements. There is no way Leothreads will get that many new users if they do not tap on users from outside of existing Hive front ends. Hoarding on existing users is never the solution to this classic problem Hive faced since the inception.
However, this internal competition in building the best microblogging platform is good in terms of development as Leothreads needs to be on its toes to rolling out features and fixing existing bugs. It is also confirming the approach Leofinance took on how to approach short form content. Ecency took the same multi comments container approach to implement the new “waves”.
I still had doubts and I asked Khal to clarify. He shared his views on the @cryptomaniacs show in the afternoon.
TLDR, Khal thinks there is a scaling issue “waves” has not yet thought about. The UI is a front-end cosmetic and the team still needs to think how to scale the background infrastructure if there are many more users i.e., more than 10K.
What are the cool features on “waves”?
Despite the acuall discussion around the infrastructure, there are a couple of cool features I found on “waves” that should be brought to leo threads.
Auto- refresh
I think this is a really cool feature and is a soul of microblogging. Ecency implements this really well on the deck UI. There is no issue in indexing micro blogs from D Buzz and Leo threads. If you sit idle on the screen for few mins, the UI automatically notifies you if there is a new content.
I would like this to be brought over.
Notifications
The notification center is the biggest advantage Ecency has over leo threads UI. All the sorting and filtering feature we want on leo UI is implemented on waves. But all these functionalities are on the ecency front ends. Leo UI’s notification is getting better but is not up to the mark yet.
Would I use Ecency waves?
I would not use it exclusively. The deck feature is the just the home page revamp. The UI implementation is sleek but it has not changed anything when it comes to treating the comments. Clicking on waves will take you to the comment feature of ecency UI.
Leothreads on the other hand is a microblogging UI on its own right. That’s the prime feature. I would rather use twitter like Leothreads over tweet deck like ecency deck feature.
Did you try ecency waves? What do you think?