What is Hive Social and can it become a serious Twitter challenger?

Ever since Elon Musk raked in $44 billion through Twitter’s front door and started making big changes, desperate users have been looking for an alternative platform to post their intellectual douche thoughts. The two contenders at the moment seem to be Mastodon and Hive Social.

While both currently have low registered users (one million each compared to Twitter’s 300 million), could they eventually grow into something that gives Musk sleepless nights?

What is Hive Social?

Beehive social is a social media app that looks like a mix between Twitter and Instagram and is currently only available for Android and iOS devices. Presumably the desktop version is in the works. The Android app is apparently in beta, which explains the number of issues users are experiencing with it. But since things are moving fast now with the Twitter meltdown, it makes sense to release the Android app as soon as possible.

So what gives both Twitter and Instagram vibes? Looking at the next two screens, the left screen is your profile where your posts are. The one on the right is the Discover tab, a page ripped straight from Instagram’s playbook. So rather than just being a Twitter clone, Hive seems to be taking a bit out of Instagram as well.

Just like on Twitter, you can create a profile, post content, and like other people’s posts. You can also share other people’s posts on your own profile. This feature has no name, but it would make sense to call it something like re-hives. Coming up with a verb to challenge “tweet” and “retweet” just seems like a good idea.

There is currently no direct messaging feature. The closest thing to Hive Social is the ability to post questions to someone’s profile. But of course the questions are visible to everyone, so there is no possibility of private conversations. We can only assume that direct messaging (or some version of it) is in the works.

There doesn’t seem to be any indication of a character limit when posting your thoughts on Hive like there is on Twitter. At least there was nothing to see when I left a test message. However, you can mark certain messages as NSFW (Not Safe for Work) and specify who can reply to you.

When you post, you can include text, images (including GIFs), and video. There’s no option of image filters though, so they haven’t gone full Instagram on us. You can also post polls.

Hive also has an interesting feature called Profile music, which clearly brings back memories of MySpace. As we will see later in the article, Hive uses profile music slots to monetize the platform. While it’s good that they’ve found a way to monetize the company, some users may be put off by profiles that automatically play music.

Overall, Hive Social seems very slick and well-designed, and you can tell a lot of thought has gone into the user experience. It’s also much more stable than Mastodon, although you can still see Hive Social going through some bugs and growing pains. Some things need to be touched more than once before they work, and image uploads don’t always work right away. The app also tends to slow down at times, especially when you launch it. This is to be expected as the app is apparently still in beta, but we hope all bugs are fixed soon.

Despite Hive claiming to have a million registered users, it doesn’t seem like there’s really much activity going on right now. That’s probably the biggest problem with Hive right now. Sure, some posts will be published, liked, and shared, but there’s not much in the way of a real conversation. Eventually, this will likely increase as more users sign up and connect with friends on the platform.

One of the reasons for the lack of interactions may be that there is no way to find out if your contacts are on Hive. Since Hive only has a million registered users so far, chances are your contacts aren’t there yet. But there’s no way Hive can scan your phone’s contacts app and tell you if there’s anyone you know. You can search by name, but scanning your contacts is simpler, easier, and something most other social networks can do.

Read more: The best Twitter alternatives

Speaking of search, the search results on Hive are a bit haphazard right now. The results are not separated into separate categories. Twitter breaks down the results into people, photos, and videos, while Hive Social sticks to the basics.

So the best way to find interesting people to follow right now is to tap on hashtags and go through the Discover/Trending tab to view your interests. You can then find messages people have left and go to their profiles from there.

As mentioned earlier, there are several stability issues in Hive’s Android app, as well as several bugs that make the overall experience less than ideal. For example, my colleague, Rita, has reported that if you allow media in the app, you will run into problems such as not being able to set your display image. To fix the problem, you need to remove the permission and re-grant permissions from Android’s App Info permission manager. However, the Android app is apparently still in beta, so this bug may already be on Hive’s radar. It’s still inconvenient if you’re currently trying to lure Android users to the platform. There is no such bug in the iOS app.

Finally, the terms of service and privacy policy are very vague, and there is none two-factor authentication. So security and the potential to get hacked is clearly a concern.

The thing to keep in mind is that all platforms take a while to really get going. Unless you are a well-known brand like Google or Apple, it will always take time to get off the ground. However, Hive is off to a good start considering that it has accumulated a lot of users in a short period of time, but there’s no telling what the future holds for it.

It’s worth pointing out that Hive Social isn’t a new app. According to their website, they reached 300,000 users in February 2021. They were number one on the Apple App Store and featured in Teen Vogue magazine. So Hive isn’t something that came up suddenly when Elon Musk announced his intention to buy Twitter and everyone went to the door.

But the Twitter soap opera is certainly what is driving more and more people to places like Hive. The Twitter exiles are looking for a new home because they don’t like what is being done to the old place. They look for alternatives and Hive seems like a good place to hang out.

It’s clear that Elon Musk, who currently has a million users, doesn’t care about places like Hive. But if Hive can scale up its infrastructure, squash the bugs, and introduce more features to make the platform easier to use, who knows? Rome was not built in a day. Neither does Twitter. Everything is possible.

The good thing about Hive is that there is no personalization algorithm and there are no ads. You get a chronological feed and the platform seems to make money by unlocking slots on their profile to showcase their favorite music. A second slot costs 99 cents and the next ones are $1.99. There is also no character posting limit like there is on Twitter.

Hive Social also lets you edit your posts, something Twitter users have been waiting for for years. When they finally got it, they found out they had to pay $8 a month for the privilege. Hive Social makes that free from the start. Hive created something that delayed Twitter for years.

One thing is certain: Hive is a lot more user-friendly than Mastodon. Hive tries to mimic Twitter as much as possible. Mastodon, on the other hand, confuses people with “picking a server.” Who has time for that? Out of Mastodon and Hive, I’d pick Hive as a new home for former Twitter users. It just feels nice.

If you feel like getting into Hive and pedaling a bit, click on one of the links below and download the app to your Android or iOS device.

Once you’re in the app, sign up with your email address and follow the onboarding screens. You must select at least five interests to get started. You will then be invited to connect to either one Spotify or Apple Music for your profile music. You can enable the ability for people to ask you questions on your profile, and of course you can edit your profile to add images and links. However, the Android app does have that image upload bug, so you may run into some issues at this point.

However, I’m not entirely sure why people need to add their zodiac sign to their profile.