A new iOS app called HyperTexting is reimagining how people browse the internet by turning the open web into a scrollable, social media-style feed. The app also makes it easier for users to update their personal websites, allowing them to publish content as simply as sending a text message.
Created by Herd Works founder and 20-year tech industry veteran Caleb Hailey, HyperTexting is designed to bring back the early vision of the internet, where individuals owned their own websites instead of relying on centralized social media platforms.
“Somewhere along the way, social media came, and it was easier to make a page and post to your page than it was a website,” Hailey explained. “And the rest is history.”
The app lets users follow people, personal websites, blogs, newsletters, podcasts, and news outlets with a single tap. Their latest articles, essays, and multimedia posts are then displayed in a familiar scrollable feed without using recommendation algorithms.
Hailey said the idea for HyperTexting came after seeing changes to Twitter over the years. “[Twitter] used to be a good place to discover things and share things, before they were chasing growth, and no longer reverse chron,” he said. He also noted that “links got deranked,” making the platform less useful for discovering content.
During the COVID period, Hailey stepped away from social media and returned to RSS readers for news. That experience inspired him to combine RSS with a modern interface that feels familiar to everyday users. “It’s trying to combine that publishing and subscribing experience, and really, it’s almost like a viewer to the discourse that already happens in the open web,” he said.
HyperTexting supports websites built on platforms such as WordPress, Ghost, Hugo, and HyperTemplates. Users can publish posts on their own websites, which are then linked to related content and appear in the feeds of others following the same site.
The app also includes an Explore section for discovering trending content across the web and an optional Safari extension that lets users quickly follow websites while browsing.
Currently available as a free download for iOS, HyperTexting may introduce premium features or a single sponsored post per day in the future to support its business model.
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