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If you're tired of the standard social media experience, try Reddit. While it's not considered one of the major social media platforms, its users will tell you, in a long-form essay, that Reddit is an excellent tool to discuss everything from news and entertainment to conspiracy theories and DIY home projects.
9 best social apps in 2024
It's time to venture outside of the usual social apps with these hand-picked Android releases
Social media has become a necessity in today's society for several reasons. It's a great way to keep in touch with loved ones on your favorite Android tablet or smartphone, no matter where they may be. It's also a great way to meet new people, find people with similar interests, and start a group. It has even become a key tool for businesses and organizations to reach a larger audience to market products and services more effectively.
Clubhouse is now open to everyone, or you can just keep ignoring it, which is also a solid option
But at least you have the choice now
Clubhouse has been on Android for nearly three months, but the required invite system made it difficult for most users to actually test out one of the most popular new social networks since TikTok. Since its initial unveiling, countless clones inspired by the app have arrived on the scene, from companies like Facebook, Twitter, and even Spotify. If you've spent this year waiting for Clubhouse to open its doors to the public, you're in luck. As of today, you'll no longer need an invite to sign up for the app.
It's annoying the way that pretty much every single social network will eventually try to become every other social network. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, NextDoor, even those that are ostensibly about something else, like TikTok and LinkedIn: once a feature shows up on one, it'll show up on the rest. The latest box on the checklist is "reactions," that collection of little emoji thingies that you can use to reply to a post if you don't feel like using real words.
All major social networks are financed by advertising and thus free to users who trade access to their data for cat videos and sometimes questionable news content. Wikipedia co-founder and internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales wants to change that. He is currently rolling out his donation-based "news focused social network" WT.Social to people interested in high-quality journalism and productive discussions.
Twitter has always been a little more... unregulated than other social networks, but it's gotten a bit more toxic in the last year or two. The company has today announced some tools that could make it more tolerable. Twitter will proactively tackle abusive behavior even when it's not reported, and the app will gain some new tools to make it easier to sweep unpleasant tweets under the virtual rug.
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Have you ever summoned a ride on Lyft and thought, "I wish I could connect with my driver on a deeper level?" If so, get excited because Lyft Profiles is an upcoming feature to the app to allow you and your driver to get to know one another better. If that isn't such an exciting thought, well, it might not be too bad. For as questionable of an idea it may be, nobody will be forced into divulging conversation starters just to use the service.
Google's developers took a couple of weeks off for the holidays – or from my perspective, they gave me a couple of weeks to rest – but now they're back and it's time for the app updates to resume. Naturally, it's time to breathe life back into the teardowns, and we're back with a big one. Google Search v4.1 began rolling out to users yesterday, and we've already seen quite a few little adjustments and improvements. After plenty of digging, a stack of additional changes have surfaced, including one that is already live, and several more just waiting for some finishing touches.
We see new email clients enter the Play Store all the time, so what sets Ark Mail apart? This app's claim to fame is its ability to pull up the social profiles of anyone who sends you an email. This process currently requires users to hop out of their email app, do a web search, and filter through results that may or may not show the correct person. Ark Mail brings this entire process in-app, and it boasts that it will pull up precisely the right contact.