#create your own social network app

[mobileappdevelopmentcompanyinuk]

How to Build a Social Media Application in 2023

In the modern digital era, it is rare to encounter an individual who isn’t engaged on social media platforms. These applications have revolutionized how we communicate, transforming various aspects of media, culture, education, politics, and business. Social networking sites seem endless, from YouTube and Facebook to Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and TikTok.

Recent statistics from a reputed mobile app development company in the UK indicate that approximately 4.89 billion individuals are active on social media accounts worldwide as of 2023, representing a 6.5% growth compared to the previous year. Moreover, it is projected that this number will reach around six billion by 2027, reflecting the continuous expansion and influence of social media on a global scale.

Is it the right time to launch your social media app in Manchester? If yes, you should know to get started.

But before that, let us take a sneak peek at the different varieties of apps currently thriving in the market.

Different Types of Social Media Applications

When thinking about social media applications by hiring a Social Media App Development Company, the usual ones that come to mind are Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. However, various categories of platforms fall into this realm:

Social Network Apps: These apps, such as Facebook and Instagram, are designed to connect people and provide a platform for sharing thoughts, experiences, and images. Over time, they have evolved into valuable marketing tools for large and small companies.

Media Sharing Networks: These platforms facilitate sharing various media types, including videos, photos, and GIFs. Examples of media-sharing networks include YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok. They encourage user-generated content, allowing creators to make, upload, edit, curate, and share content.

Social Review Networks: Apps in this category provides social proof about products and services, allowing users to find company information without wasting time and money.

Community and Discussion Forums: While discussion forums may have lost some popularity with the rise of social networks, they remain relevant to many communities. Platforms like Reddit and Quora enable people to connect on specific topics, share unique experiences, and find communities with similar interests.

Bookmarking and Content Curation Networks: Bookmarking sites help users organize resources and websites by tagging and categorizing links. Pinterest is an example of a platform that serves as both a bookmarking site and a marketing tool for promoting businesses, blogs, YouTube channels, and other creative works.

Blogging and Publishing Platforms: Distinct from content management systems like Wix or WordPress, blogging and publishing platforms enable users to create profiles and share posts on various topics without the need to build a website or pay hosting fees.

Interest-based Networks: These social media apps focus on specific topics or hobbies, catering to the interests of particular user groups. For instance, Goodreads allows users to share their thoughts about books and create recommendation lists.

Anonymous Social Networks: Anonymous social sites enable users to ask questions or share stories without revealing their identities. These platforms are viral among teenagers who want to discuss controversial topics anonymously.

Microblogging: Microblogging platforms like Plurk or Twitter allow users to share short entries within a maximum character limit, such as 280 characters. Users are encouraged to engage in discussions, comment, and retweet posts. This feature attracts business owners who can promote their products and services engagingly and concisely.

How to Develop a Social Media App?

Once you have opted for the type to create your own social network app, it is time to get started…

Step 1: Define the Target Audience

The initial step in creating a successful social media app is understanding the environment, defining a specific niche, and identifying the target audience. While the development stage is crucial, it is equally important to understand the app’s purpose clearly and its intended users.

Here are some essential steps to consider before diving into social network app development:

Market research

Finding a niche

Defining the target audience

While the answer may seem straightforward, it requires deeper consideration. Understanding your target audience’s needs and preferences will enable you to create detailed project specifications.

Step 2: Choose the Revenue Model

Revenue generation is critical to consider when developing a social media app. Here are some monetization strategies you can adopt:

Advertisements

Freemium model

In-app purchases

Selecting the most suitable revenue model will depend on factors such as your target audience, app features, and market trends.

Step 3: Develop a USP and Strategy

Merely knowing how to create a social media app is just the beginning. Copying an existing app will not lead to success. To stand out and increase the chances of success, developing a unique set of features and a compelling Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is crucial.

Conduct a SWOT analysis

Prepare Business Model Canvas

Step 4: Choose the Right Features

The social network app development approach varies depending on the specific case, as there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Here are some basic features to consider when building a social media app:

User profile

Social authorization

Content uploading

Posts Creation

Feed

Notifications

Search tab

User interaction

In-app messaging

Account Analytics

Consider incorporating these features while customizing them to align with your app’s unique goals and target audience.

Step 5: Choose Social Media App Development Company in Manchester

To bring your idea of a social media app to life, you’ll likely need assistance from experts who know how to develop such apps. Hiring professionals with expertise in social media app development can be the most efficient and cost-effective option in the long run.

Working with an experienced IT outsourcing team ensures minimal redoing and unexpected delays and eliminates scalability and customization issues. You can create your dream app without micromanaging every step of the development process.

Step 6: Select the Technology Stack

Understanding the underlying technology is essential when creating a social media app. The technology stack required for social network app development depends on your target platform.

Android:

Programming language: Kotlin, Java

Integrated Development Environment (IDE): Android Studio

Software Development Kit (SDK): Android SDK

Notifications: Google Cloud Messaging

Geolocation: Google Map API

AR filters: ML Kit

iOS:

Programming language: Swift, Objective-C

IDE: Xcode

SDK: Cocoa Touch

Notifications: Apple Push Notifications

Geolocation: MapKit

AR filters: ARCore

Step 7: Promote Your Social Media Application

After launching your social media app, the work is far from over. App promotion is crucial to attract users and increase visibility. Here are several strategies you can employ:

App Store Optimization

Organic User Acquisition

Paid ads

Influencer marketing

Partnership promotions

Wrapping Up!

Social media has transformed into a vital channel through which billions of individuals access information about the world. What initially served as a platform for connection has evolved into something of great importance today. Consequently, social media holds a prominent position in present-day society and boasts an extensive user base, making it one of the largest markets available. If you are considering entering this market and developing a social media app, there is no more opportunity to seize.

Article Resource - https://zimblecode.com/how-to-build-a-social-media-application-in-2023/

[oshinsimblr]

hey friends! i was unable to post all of my early access content bc i'm sick. but i was able to post this video, which in my honest opinion are the major features in this 'romance' pack.

IS IT WORTH $40?

DEPENDS ON HOW BADLY YOU NEED THESE FEATURES TBH.

this review is brought to you by the ea creator network. all of my opinions are my own. i must disclose this per FTC guidelines #ad.

*i do not cover everything in the pack, only the things that stood out for me lol. i'm sorry i'm not used to doing full reviews up here

the attraction system is helpful and expands dating (which is great, but we've had mods that could do this for some time: pick your poison). the romantic satisfaction is the star here. i love being able to create one sided relationships and actually take care of our romantic relationships with sims. this is a valuable feature for me!

cupid's corner is a nice "hey i don't need this mod" anymore type of feature. prior to this i was using lumpinou's meet & mingle which allowed me to meet with sims (platonic and romantic). i dislike that you can not write custom bio's for your sims. i love the way the app functions, i love saving sims and adding them to our rel. panel - and getting to know them through the phone first. i wish we could've defined our sims favorite music/foods/color etc.

i'll admit it, i'm a sucker for dynamics. family dynamics from the sims 4 growing together are so good (minus the fact that everyone wants to be f*cking jokesters after one joke lol). but i love them! they really do impact my sims relationships. the different romance dynamics are interesting. for example: a strained romance dynamic makes it VERY hard for your sims to communicate. it's like your sims will randomly hug each other, but then 5 secs later they're upset. they want to love each other so badly but they can't lol.

now onto random things that excited me. you can go to cupid's couples counseling. i did not know we'd actually be able to answer questions. these sims had a strained romance dynamic and it was so bad - the therapist suggested we come back. but when i tried to schedule it again, they were booked and i had to wait to schedule another appt. which is great, because in the meantime your sims are going downhill fast and you have to keep the peace until then (if you choose).

there are new pop ups and invites. there's even one for a reality dating show lol. you can turn these off in game settings. (if you're wondering, mr. landgrabb never showed up at the motel he wanted to meet at. he stood my sim up. don't judge me, i thought there was simoleons involved).

new crafted dates are cool. you can choose whatever you want to do on them. there's new social interactions based on the activities you choose. you can also invite other sims to these (double dates woohoo!) you can also create crafted hangouts. i like these, i got this cute picture as a reward after a succesful crafted hangout. if you're familiar with mws weddings, it's the same idea. except this works well and isn't as glitchy lol..

another random feature i never needed, but now i find it useful. you can create your own relationship label that will appear in the rel. panel

it's unfair how gorgeous this world is... because there's nothing to do. this is all set dressing.

you can declare your love here.. at the wall of love.

you can buy flowers or edible sweet treats at this shop in the background.

you can get local food here. there are 3 new dishes and spicy hot chocolate. now, i'm not mexican (the world is inspired by mexico) BUT 3 new foods isn't cutting it for me. technically only 2, because one is a vegan option. no pozole, enchiladas, guacamole, tamales?? i'm a foodie, so i take full offense to that.

you can woohoo or sleep at the motel.

you can travel.

go fishing or enjoy a swim.

sit here and chat.

view this for a moodlet.

travel again.

check in a penthouse.

there's a nightclub, gym and lounge. but you get the idea.. there's nothing culturally unique about this world which makes me sad. no festivals? i'd love seeing a mariachi band play at the lounge. something. otherwise, keep the world and add more features right? i would've loved table proposals (sims 2 anyone?). or frisky couch makeouts. so many missed opportunities here.

there's more i could say but i feel like this post should be a little helpful in deciding wether this is a pack you need right now, or wait for a sale! i personally love having a complete colection, so i've always wanted every expansion. though i recieve the pack for free, i owe you my honesty and i want to start doing blog/written content because it's easier to process my thoughts through the excitment. i will enjoy this pack, i do like it, and only time will tell as i integrate it with my current gameplay. i hope this was helpful!

* if you remember, use my code OSHINSIMS at checkout if you decide to purchase this pack. that way, at least i get a % of your purchase and EA doesn't get all your coins 😉

thank you! just keeping simming, always stay wavy, peace x

[marilearnsmandarin]

These are the apps and links I currently have on my phone to study Chinese:

SuperChinese: my main study resource. There are currently 7 levels, level 7 (still incomplete, they are still slowly adding lessons to it) being HSK 5 stuff. Each lesson has vocabulary, grammar and a short dialogue where those are used in context (I love context). It has a few free lessons in the lower levels but after that you have to buy a subscription. There are many sales though. When I was a beginner I used HelloChinese instead, which has more free content, and switched to SuperChinese when I finished all the free content there. It also has social network features and chat rooms I don't use.

TofuLearn is like a flashcard app with many pre-made decks (you can also create your own on their website and import decks from Anki) and the option to practice writing hanzi. Anki didn't work for me, but I find Tofu very helpful. Practicing writing helps me with character recognition, and it also helps me remember the tones thanks to the audio in the pre-made HSK decks.

Dot is a reading app with new texts being added every day. It used to be completely free, which actually seemed too good to be true, and then they put practically everything behind a paywall and very strict limits for free users. After a couple of months they made it a little less restricted though - we still can't choose the articles but we can read as many as we want as long as we do the vocabulary exercises after each article (plus, during the Spring Festival, they made all articles available for free for 3 days and we could save the ones we were interested in to read later). It follows the new, not-yet-implemented (and harder) HSK levels, so you should start one or two levels below yours and if the texts are too easy move up.

Google Translator: not the best but helpful when I need to translate whole sentences, plus I can point my camera or open an image and it translates writing.

Pleco: best Chinese to English dictionary.

Stroke Order: not an app but a website, does what it says in the tin: shows stroke order for a specific character.

YouGlish: also a website, you can put a word or phrase and it shows videos where people say that word/phrase. Very cool.

Todaii is a graded news app that has only two levels: easy and hard. I'm around level HSK4 and the "easy" level is quite hard though (but I admit reading is my nemesis).

I also use YouTube and Spotify a lot.

[probablyasocialecologist]

When you look at Instagram or Facebook, I want you to try and think of them less as social networks, and more as a form of anthropological experiment. Every single thing you see on either platform is built or selected to make you spend more time on the app and see more things that Meta wants you to see, be they ads, sponsored content, or suggested groups that you can interact with, thus increasing the amount of your “time spent” on the app, and increasing the amount of “meaningful interactions” you have with content. I also want you to realize that anything bad that you see on the platform is a symptom of Mark Zuckerberg’s unwillingness to rate-limit or sufficiently moderate the platform. Logically-speaking, one would think that Meta would want you to have a high-quality Facebook experience, pruning content that might be incendiary, spammy, scammy or unhelpful, or at the very least, comes primarily from those within your own network, but when your only concern is growth, content moderation is more of an emergency measure.  And to be clear, this is part of Meta’s cultural DNA. In an interview with journalist Jeff Horwitz in his book Broken Code, Facebook’s former VP of Ads and Partnerships Brian Bolland said that “building things is way more fun than making things secure and safe…[and] until there’s a regulatory or press fire, you don’t deal with it.”  Horwitz also cites that Meta engineers’ greatest frustration was that the company “perpetually [needed] something to fail — often fucking spectacularly — to drive interest in fixing it.” Horwitz’s book describes Meta’s approach to moderation as “having a light touch,” considering it “a moral virtue” and that the company “wasn’t failing to supervise what users did — it was neutral.” As I’ve briefly explained, the logic here is that the more stuff there is on Facebook or Instagram, the more likely you are to run into something you’ll interact with, even if said interaction is genuinely bad. Horwitz notes that in April 2016, Meta analyzed Facebook’s most successful political groups, finding that a third of them “routinely featured content that was racist and conspiracy-minded,” with their growth heavily-driven by Facebook’s “Groups You Should Join” and “Discover” features, algorithmic tools that Facebook used to recommend content. The researcher in question added that “sixty-four percent of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools.” When the researcher took their concerns to Facebook’s “Protect and Care” team, they were told that there was nothing the team could do as “the accounts creating the content were real people, and Facebook intentionally had no rules mandating truth, balance or good faith.” Meta, at its core, is a rot economy empire, entirely engineered to grow metrics and revenue at the expense of anything else. In practice, this means allowing almost any activity that might “grow” the platform, even if it means groups that balloon by tens or hundreds of thousands of people a day, or allowing people to friend 50 or more people in a single day. It means allowing almost any content other than that which it’s legally required to police like mutilation and child pornography, even if the content it allows in makes the platform significantly worse.  As a result, Meta is kind of like an absentee parent, occasionally looking up from their phone and muttering “don’t do that” when something obviously awful happens, and even then they’re extremely hesitant to intervene. 

[femmefatalevibe]

Femme Fatale Playbook: How To Thrive In Your Single Era Without Losing Your Mind

For the "hopeless romantic" types or individuals who crave intimate romantic relationships, here are some tips to make the most of your singlehood while setting yourself up for a successful new partnership.

Leverage other outlets to satisfy your needs for emotional and sexual connection:

Invest in your friendships to get that emotional intimacy you crave. Platonic relationships can offer as much depth on an emotional and intellectual level as a romantic partner. Plus, you are more likely to have multiple friends vs. multiple partners, which allows you to engage in different types of conversations, learn about a diverse array of subjects, try out more activities, and appreciate different senses of humor/personalities along the way.

Embrace your single era to further explore your sexuality on your own terms. Try out different toys, entertain yourself with erotic novels, films, and podcasts, invest in hot lingerie or sensual perfumes/beauty and skin products, and educate yourself with books like Come As You Are, She Comes First, Yes Means Yes! and essays on female sexuality. The Quinn app is also a great example of ethical porn made by women, for women. Give yourself some alone time to get real with yourself about your likes, dislikes, fantasies, and hard nos. These self-love practices will allow you confidently and clearly ask for what you want once you find a lover you deem worthy of sharing these intimate experiences with you.

Take time for self-reflection and discover your "ideal type." Create a partner compatibility blueprint and non-negotiables checklist:

Being truly single provides you the time and space to truly get to know yourself. Give yourself the gift of introspection – consider your current lifestyle, interests, habits, values, daily routine, and any ways you plan on changing or evolving these aspects of your life over the next few years. Consider the qualities you like about yourself and those you admire in others (friends, family, coworkers, fellow students, mentors, etc.).

Complete a self-intake to reveal the qualities that would demonstrate compatibility in a partner. Clarify the personality traits, values, and lifestyle habits you look for in a partner. Then, consider your physical type and any other more surface-level qualities you look for in a partner (e.g. a certain level of education, upbringing, languages spoken, profession, morning or night person, any dietary or fitness habits, etc.) to construct your ideal type(s). While you may not ultimately end up with a partner that 100% fits into one of these personas, knowing what you're looking for helps you know what you don't and streamline your vetting process

Use this information to create a "non-negotiables" list to help you easily detect whether someone will be compatible with you from early conversations or, at the latest, after 1-2 dates. These qualities will be very personal due to our own beliefs, lifestyle, and goals – know if something like someone being a smoker, having certain family obligations, dietary restrictions, or having certain political/religious beliefs would be a dealbreaker for you.

Consider dating as a networking tool. Live your life and allow potential partners to enter your purview organically:

Do not make dating into a mission-based, isolated pursuit. Reframe dating as an organic evolution of your social life, leisure activities, and time used to explore your interests. Go out to bars, lounges, coffee shops, and parks. Join activities, social clubs, and interest-based meetup activities (book clubs, sports clubs like a tennis club, and art gallery memberships are great options as well). Take classes based on your interests – like a cooking class, language class, art class, writing class, coding class, etc. and be open to mingling. Having a shared interest is the first step to lifestyle compatibility with a partner.

Be open to accepting invitations to group dinners, hangouts, dinner parties, cocktail events/happy hours, beach days, etc. These social outings are a great way to connect with friends of friends that you probably wouldn't meet out in the wild but are more trustworthy (and are more likely to share compatible attitudes or lifestyle habits) due to your mutual connections.

[jullbnt]

Bonjour! I'm a big fan and your art inspires me so much. I'm currently learning French to communicate with my friends, do you happen to have any tips on learning another language? I'd love some advice. ^_^

Bonjour bonjour ! Thank you for gracing my inbox with such a cute little Time, I adore him 🤩

And I'm glad I can inspire you!!

About your question I don't really have unique advice on learning another language, I guess you're asking me because I happen to be French? ^^

I'd say find lessons to learn the basics first, and maybe use an app or something to learn vocabulary (I did that for Japanese a few years ago and quiz apps make things a lot easier and fun! I'm still a beginner though, I don't have enough time but I'd love to start again). There's an app called Anki that lets you create your own quiz cards to test yourself with, or you can download pre-made decks (search for "Anki French decks" and you'll find what you need). I've used Anki a lot for studying, I love it!

Once you're comfortable enough start having basic conversations with your friends, and you can also try watching the French version of a movie you know well (or I don't know... try playing a LoZ game in French for example haha). If you already know the dialogues it can help! Maybe you can also listen to French youtubers that share your interests? I'm sure you'll find lessons from native speakers on Youtube too :)

And then of course consume French media, read in French, listen to French music... That's how I learnt English for the most part, I didn't really try (and the language classes we get in French school are really unhelpful). But I guess it's much easier with English cause it's everywhere and very much needed to get involved in fandom stuff online.

(Also be careful about comments from French users on social networks, sadly a lot of us make a lot of spelling or grammar mistakes so don't trust everything you read... I don't see the same thing happening in the same proportions with English speakers, I guess French is hard for natives too).

And lastly, we're always pleased and impressed when a foreigner bothers to learn our language, even if it's just a few sentences, and you don't need to speak flawlessly to be understood! French can be hard but don't put too much pressure on yourself ^^

I'm not sure this was very helpful, but I tried haha. Good luck with your learning and I hope you'll enjoy speaking French!

Passe une belle journée :))

[thisisthiago]

WeHeartIt is dead.

It died in 2023, during a sunny June, though the process started taking place way before that date. It’s unclear, though, the reason why it started to happen. And, since I’m not a journalist, I might focus on why it meant so much to me for so long.

WeHeartIt, famous for embracing thousands of people around the idea of creating personal galleries and sharing them with friends, was born in 2008 from a Brazilian developer. He came up with the idea of creating a platform where people could save, share and, most importantly, heart images.

And didn't that work out? At its peak, the social network had 25 million monthly users and partnered with brands such as Teen Vogue to promote content and increase that reach. Of course, there was always Pinterest, but this wasn’t it. WeHeartIt was a hot mess of posting and hearting and expressing ourselves through the images we saved or the postcards we sent or even the collections we built. Of course, you could open Pinterest and organize your ideas, wishes, and... crochet templates, I guess? But at WeHeartIt, what looked like a mess would then become a gallery with layers of meanings and feelings, resembling the rings of trees. Our profiles, as rings of trees can tell us about a harsh winter or a particularly hot summer, would have layers composed of travel dreams, romantic ideas, or heartbreaking moments. It was safe and, as a 2018 article from Women’s Forum would point out, it was a mood booster.

Can you imagine such a lovely mess? "Dancing On My Own" was at the top of the parades (at least for hipsters worldwide), Tumblr was the next most favorite network, and Facebook wasn’t as cringe as it is now. In the middle of all that, WeHeartIt was thriving. Saving us from the boredom and helping us all to create a gallery where we could go back to see (and feel) all that was there to remember.

But then, things started to go somewhere out of the road, and we learned that good and new features don’t necessarily mean improvement. The app didn't have to try and be anything else. Of course, a design refreshment is always welcome, but some of the updates were simply needless or had no sense at all. All of that led to what we encounter today when we go into the platform website.

I won’t refer to all of the annoying-but-still-not-changing-the-core-of-the-app updates and features. I’m talking about ads, postcards, articles and yes, podcasts. Though all of these were meaningless and even annoying, they never interfered in my possibility of using the core functions of the app: managing my profile, visiting other people’s profiles, and hearting images.

Then, all of a sudden, WeHeartIt starts rolling out a message saying that the app will now focus on other features and so, they would do part with profiles and hearting. Yes, you read that correctly. The owners of the app decided that the main functions of the website should no longer be available, in order to redirect the main focus of the app to photo editing.

As I said in a rather harsh review of the latest version of the app in Apple’s App Store:

The so-called "photo editing" capabilities are laughable, barely a patch on dedicated apps in that domain. It's utterly disheartening that even a relic like the 1967 app surpasses WeHeartIt as a creative tool at this point. There appears to be an overwhelming lack of satisfaction with this so-called "upgrade."

Though scattered around the web, many of the platform users have shown their discomfort with the current state of the app. A quick search on Twitter, Reddit, App Store Reviews, and even Tumblr shows us. Even though some users still try to make some of the old features of the service work, it’s only a matter of time until the database is updated and we no longer have access to any image at all.

It’s sad that WeHeartIt is dying. The idea was great, and the execution worked for a while, but now it just looks as if the owners of the platform are looking for an excuse to shut it down permanently. We might as well just end up with a page like the former ffffound.

[old-school-butch]

do you have advice for normie, non queer gender critical lesbians about like dating in this insane age? I really struggle with not being bitter over being single, bc everyone my age is either pro trans or transitioning or nonbinary. And the ones who disagree aren’t on dating apps bc of said queer insanity. I don’t know where to meet fellow like minded lesbians my age. Or if I ever will find a wife someday atp.

You might have to undertake your own radpill project, anon, and create that radfem wife you've always dreamed of. A surprising number of lesbians have misgivings about the insanity around us, even if we aren't vocal about it. I suggest dating anyway and then discreetly screen women for their views (or even the potential to entertain critiques of those views). If you start gently, in person, in a way that can't be screen capped or used against you at some point, you can venture a starter-pack of mildly gender critical opinions and see if they pick up what you are putting down with a minimum of risk.

And don't make those questions too open-ended like 'what do you think of the new UK rulings on gender treatment' because that will trigger the programmed response to be as progressive as possible to deflect attack. You could instead begin with 'we all have unpopular opinions that aren't politically correct. For example, I think my non-binary friend has confused having a personality with having a gender and just wants attention. What about you - what thoughts would get you burned at the stake?' and once she ventures her own Forbidden Thought you've created a shared confidence that can grow once you've established some safety to do so. The trick of course is to make this a mutual conversation, for your own social safety.

You can also wait before prompting this discussion, anon, because true gender believers talk about gender basically non-stop. So if you make it to the second date and she hasn't said 'but of course for transwomen...' then that's a good sign. And remember, every woman you meet on a dating app had to wade past a hundred brave and stunning TIMs to find you - that's something you'll have in common from the outset at least.

Also, some people are social convenors who will collect and connect people, so there's a good chance that once you encounter a single rad lesbian you will also connect to a local network of radfems, and your dating pool will deepen. You could try anti-abortion rallies or fundraising events for breast cancer and other women's causes etc. The fastest way to meet women is, and always has been, through her friends.

[canmom]

since this seems to be my topic of obsession for today...

turns out Bluesky internally uses content-based addressing and IPFS. I don't have a lot of use for it since it's a Twitter clone, and I've never got on very well with Twitter. Bluesky hides most of that from the user - it looks just like any old web app backed by a central server. i need to look into this more, Bluesky is taking inspiration from IPFS but it's using its own protocol, and it is doing some good things. I think its protocols could be used for something more Tumblr-like.

there's a protocol called PubSub which sounds like it does a lot of what I want, or rather gives you the low-level framework to broadcast info across a decentralised network. you could build a social network on top of that. IPFS uses it as one way of handling mutable data, like 'my website just updated'.

there's an absolute plethora of ideas, protocols, and tools for decentralised file sharing, decentralised messaging, decentralised social networks. this broad idea space is very much the hot new thing at the moment. some of them seem like they're growing. a lot of them have glossy websites with animations and stock photos of smiling people. it's hard to know in advance what's worth paying attention to. the whole field is dense with acronyms and rather abstruse concepts. which unfortunately means the current audience tends to be limited to tech nerds (c'est moi) and crypto cultists (ce n'est pas moi. merde!).

Briar is a protocol I find personally very appealing. it's security-oriented, designed to be crazy resilient, creating a mesh network through whatever protocols are available. you use it for E2E-encrypted messaging, but also you can use it for threaded discussions and blogs. right now it's only available for phones but they're working on a desktop version. the primary use case seems to be like "you're at a protest and the gov shuts off the internet", but it would be a very sexy place to put your blog. that said, I expect it would not be very fast at all.

the major encryptable, decentralised Discord/IRC alternative is Matrix. I broadly like the look of it, but we have the same problem of inertia getting people to switch from Discord, and there's still some jank I encountered when I tried it.

there's a lot of cryptocurrency in this whole area. (not surprising since the underlying tech of crypto is also hash-based, and there's ideological overlap between crypto and torrent people, because 'decentralised').

notably, there's a companion project to IPFS, a complicated scheme called FileCoin which is designed to encourage people to host data for a certain period in return for FileCoin tokens. you get FileCoins for consistently holding onto the data, and you lose a stake of FileCoins if you delete it prematurely. these FileCoins can then be used mainly to pay other people to host data for you: you pay FileCoins to a host, and pay them again to fetch your data(!). or you can trade them for other cryptocurrencies.

I'll acknowledge it doesn't seem as intrinsically environmentally corrosive as proof-of-work crypto, or even as simply 'the rich get richer' as proof-of-stake crypto. it's not filling up HDDs with random crap either. though it does sound like it requires quite a bit of CPU work to be done in all the hashing for the 'sealing' process.

I'm still not entirely convinced of the benefit this scheme brings. crypto stuff has a tendency to go belly-up very abruptly when speculative bubbles pop, so I wouldn't be super excited to rely on FileCoin for archiving some valuable bit of data. of course any offsite backup carries risk, e.g. Dropbox could go bankrupt one day. but I'm way less convinced of the benefits of something like FileCoin than IPFS. I guess it remains to be seen if this takes off.

[mobileappdevelopmentcompanyinuk]

How to Build A Social Media App Like TikTok?

Do you know about the most downloaded application in the social world?

Surprisingly, it was TikTok with a count of 656 million downloads annually in 2021. The application has been in trend for three years, with over three billion TikTok downloads worldwide. This number is even more startling when you consider how quickly the number went from two to three billion.

The numbers quite sum up that the appeal of TikTok is undeniable. The platform’s user base includes users from all corners of the globe, spending hours interacting with the material. However, you need a top-notch development team if you plan to create your own social media app with a video hosting platform. So, do you want to learn how to create a platform for short videos similar to TikTok?

Well, this blog covers every aspect of developing a TikTok-like app, including the features that must be included, the technology needed, and the potential development costs to get started!

Do you know about TikTok App?

TikTok is a social network for sharing videos. Users of TikTok stream live events, produce short videos with lip sync, gags, memes, performances, and other material, add music, and share them with others all over the world. TikTok’s original concept was integrating music, video, and social media.

An individual user uses TikTok for more than 45 minutes daily. A few key factors explain why TikTok has gained popularity:

Brief video length: The initial time restriction for video content was simply 15 seconds. Given how little attention individuals have these days, that is incredibly helpful.

Young target market: Nearly fifty percent of users are under 25. This age group is more dependent on social media and smartphones.

Monetization: On live broadcasts, video makers may give away prizes, sell their commercials, and run contests.

Presence of celebrities: The younger generation’s favorite celebrities frequently have TikTok profiles where they post exclusive video material, launch challenges, and interact with followers.

Now that you know the prospects of owning a TikTok Clone app, it is time to start app development.

Develop a social media app like TikTok

Let us provide you with some key ideas to keep in mind when you develop your TikTok clone to assist you in making your app like TikTok a success.

Step 1: Conduct Market Research

If you want to construct any social media app, but are unsure where to start, start by analyzing your audience. You will then understand the market dynamics, competitors, marketing tactics, and trends to watch out for.

Try to offer concise answers to all of these questions since they can point you in the right way as you work toward creating an app similar to TikTok.

Step 2: Choose a Monetization Model

While social media app development cost is pretty high, it is crucial to choose a future business plan for one of the best TikTok alternatives once you’ve identified your target users. To assist you in creating an app similar to TikTok, consider the following revenue options:

In-app purchases

Advertisements

Cost per Click/ Mile/ Action

Fundraising

Step 3: Connect with your Audience

It’s time to get to know the users of your software. For instance, TikTok presently has users from over 150 nations who speak over 75 other languages. To cover such a broad audience at the beginning of your app development, though, is a bit unrealistic.

We advise starting with that group of folks after segregating your target audience. For instance, TikTok began by only being available in China before reaching a wider audience.

Step 4: Work on the Design

The user interface of the program is what draws and hooks people. How new customers are enrolled is one of the elements that determine how popular the app will become. TikTok’s viewers won’t be distracted by its simple UX/UI. It makes it simple to sign up, complete the required profile information, and get started.

It is recommended to use the same golden rule while developing the UI/UX of your application. For the simple promotion of their work, you may also incorporate features like an unlimited playback feed and user profiles integrated with other social media.

Step 5: Hire a professional development team

Without a group of qualified professionals, creating an app is virtually difficult. Hire professionals that are knowledgeable about market strategies and have a clear understanding of the user’s journey. They are excellent at putting the finest design principles into practice and will ensure the success of your application.

To create an app like TikTok, a qualified team must consist of the following:

Front-end Developer

Back-end Developers

UI/UX Designer

QA Engineer

Depending on your time and financial constraints, you may either engage an internal team of developers or outsource the development team. Since social media app like TikTok does not require the retention of full-time personnel, we advise you to outsource it to save time and money.

Step 6: Work on the MVP

A minimal viable product (MVP) is a product’s initial, fully operational iteration. It enables numerous entrepreneurs to test the concept, get feedback from actual customers, and ascertain whether their project aligns with the market’s demands.

MVP prevents business owners from spending their whole startup money on a product that may never reach the market and won’t be known to users. Instead, if you have a minimum viable product, you can test your idea faster, cheaper, and with less risk.

Step 7: Release the App

You should create your app in advance as part of a dynamic marketing strategy so that your target market is aware of it. Using a standard advertising strategy or engaging a marketing expert is a good idea. Running sponsored advertisements, working with bloggers and social media influencers, advertising your social media app through Google Play and Apple Store, etc., are a few typical strategies to advertise your mobile app.

Once your mobile app is available on the market, you can start collecting user reviews. By doing this, you can produce the most remarkable final product to meet the demands of your intended market. Additionally, this survey might show you where you fall short and what needs to be changed.

Read Also – Planning To Build A Social Media App In 2022?

Wrapping Up!

Due to the industry’s level of competitiveness and saturation, creating a social networking app may be challenging. However, you can ensure your app has the sustainability to maintain a competitive advantage by emphasizing content and attracting devoted users.

Developing, adapting, and adhering to your project’s roadmap can be difficult. Even it might not be easy to describe the project’s goals and functional and non-functional needs. Therefore, it is advised to work with a skilled and trustworthy app development company that can help you put everything together in a complex program like TikTok.

Article Resource - https://zimblecode.com/how-to-build-a-social-media-app-like-tiktok/

[mariacallous]

Like a venomous puss moth emerging from its hard cocoon, the social network formerly known as Twitter has fully metamorphosed into X.com.

Various elements of Twitter had already embraced the rebranding, and the company has been using X.com links since early April. But now the domain has flipped over entirely, marking the end of a tumultuous transition period—and erasing the last vestiges of the bird app.

“We are letting you know that we are changing our URL, but your privacy and data protection settings remain the same,” reads a message at the bottom of the X login and home pages.

The switchover has been a long time coming. X owner Elon Musk announced the shift from Twitter to X last July, a few months after he officially acquired the company. But the billionaire has for decades harbored a dream of creating an “everything app” by that name, and Twitter is his vessel.

“The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140-character messages going back and forth—like birds tweeting—but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video,” Musk wrote on the newly redubbed X last summer. “In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird.”

Twitter under Musk has indeed added video and voice calls to its roster of features. It has also replatformed conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones, fostered a welcoming environment for porn spam accounts, made an absolute hash out of verification, introduced a monetization system that encourages rampant engagement farming, gutted its trust and safety team, allowed a surge in hate speech on the platform, designated NPR as “US state-affiliated media,” removed news headlines entirely and then reintroduced them in a weird spot, kneecapped a bunch of fun bots and third-party apps by introducing wildly expensive API changes while giving blue-check verification to AI-generated chum, pivoted to video, introduced an AI model that will help you do crimes, and overseen a decline in usage of more than 20 percent in the US, according to app analytics firm SensorTower.

The “entire financial world” part remains a work in progress.

A sentimentalist may bemoan the death of Twitter, which for all its faults always had a capacity to delight and surprise. But remember that this transformation was inevitable. Musk first owned X.com in 1999, when he cofounded an online bank by that name; it would eventually merge with a competitor and become PayPal. He bought X.com back from PayPal in 2017, tweeting that it had “great sentimental value.” And he has seen Twitter as an opportunity to create X on Earth since before the acquisition was even completed, according to Musk biographer Walter Isaacson.

“In the days leading up to his takeover of Twitter at the end of October 2022, Musk’s moods fluctuated wildly,” Isaacson wrote in Elon Musk. “He said that he would turn it into the combination of financial platform and social network he had envisioned 24 years earlier for X.com, and he added that he planned to rebrand it with that name, which he loved.”

To put an even finer point on it, Musk’s tweet today announcing that “all core systems are now on X.com” featured the logo of the company he founded 25 years ago.

While X may never become the everything app of Musk’s dreams, it’s undeniably and indelibly a different place than the one he bought. Which in some ways makes this final transition all the more palatable. Whatever Elon Musk’s platform has become, it’s certainly not Twitter. Call it whatever you want.

[rata2ouillegame]

RATA2OUILLE: THE PERFECT DISH (Info Post + Download)

You’re probably wondering, “what the hell?” Honestly so am I, as not even I can fully process what I’ve done. Rata2ouille: The Perfect Dish (AKA Funny Ratgame) is a satirical, freeware indie platformer, social simulation, full length role-playing hybrid game. Following the events of Ratatouille for Wii and its sequel Ratatouille PSP, a new adventure unfolds after a series of events leads to the protagonist discovering a mysterious world known as the Food Network. Partnering up with an odd naked mole rat named Twinkles, the protagonist forms the Rodent Risers, braving the Food Network to find the mythical Perfect Ingredients and defeat the brutally evil rat Knox. Along the way, the player will have to develop Companion Syncs with both coworkers and customers, craft and obtain Persona to wield in combat, manage their restaurant, cook food that will assist them on their journey, and more.

itch.io page: Click Here

Google Drive: Download Link

Archive.org: Download Link

Please feel free to upload and share with your friends wherever you feel like if they have trouble with either of these links!!!

Unravel a grandiose conspiracy involving the amnesiac Twinkles, the evil rat Knox, the mysterious Food Network, the labyrinthine Hyperstream, fast food delivery apps, and an impending visit from the food critic Guy Fieri that could make-or-break your restaurant!

Fight intense battles with Shadows that you can also wield as Persona. Use them to best your enemies and rivals, like Ratatoing!

Form various Companion Syncs to deepen your bond with important figures in your life to unlock skills and gameplay perks!

Date various cute boyfriends! Only one girlfriend included.

Over 100 characters from various different media properties appear as customers in your restaurant, including... Sans Undertale, Peter Griffin, Yu Narukami, Kazuma Kiryu, Joseph Joestar, Bayonetta, and many, many, many more!

Customize your hero! Set pronouns and unlock over thirty unique costumes that appear both in cutscenes and gameplay!

Obtain all seven of the legendary Chaos Emeralds by succeeding in target breaking minigames hidden throughout the Food Network!

Difficulty adjustments and options, such as the “Skip Battles” pog item that can be equipped to skip all battles and focus purely on the story! Perfect for players that do not care for combat.

Create your own “My Food Network” where you can set your own favorite song to play, choose your color palette, create a food exhibit, and set posters that can be unlocked using points earned from in-game achievements!

Super cool players that 100% the game can view a Secret Ending that plays upon clearing the epilogue or talking to a certain friend in My Food Network...

This game is in no way, shape, or form an actual Disney, Pixar, or Atlus product. It is an independently developed satirical game. It is parody and no profit is being made from it.

Check out more down below for a little Q&A

Q: Is this really a full length Persona style RPG? A: Yes. I’m sorry, I don’t know why. It’s about 60 Hours long.

Q: How long did this take to make? A: About two and a half years, though I took many breaks from working on it due to being a full time college student (after some gap years) and having other projects I’ve been working on.

Q: Who made this? What kind of person makes this? Can you tell us about yourself because I need to know what’s wrong with you??? A: I’m very sorry to tell you that a very hot goth artsy nonbinary femboy made this game. I hope that makes the game more intimidatingly powerful.

Q: If this is a heavily Persona inspired game will it be re-released with a single new dungeon in a few years with a new marketable character tacked on? A: Buddy if enough people find this funny and enjoy playing it, you know it! That and if enough people would like to help me add full blown voice acting in a re-release, which would be one of my major focuses for an enhanced version.

Q: Why did you make this? A: I was really bored during the pandemic. Originally this was a small crude gag game I was making years and years and years ago that I scrapped, but I completely revamped it into something much more elaborate and surreal as a little distraction to keep me busy while quarantining. It sort-of functioned as a low stakes testing ground for less facetious games I plan on releasing in the near future. There’s also an underlying commentary on how obnoxious and outlandish unnecessary sequels to self-contained and subdued stories are, which can be seen in how ridiculously unhinged the game is with constantly recontextualizing various minute-details of the original movie and retconning things as if it was all deep foreshadowing.

Q: Why are you acting like Ratatouille is some kind of game series? A: In the past, in the really early beginnings of making this game, I had this whole elaborate ARG thing I would often joke about with friends where I would insist the movie was just a really bad faithless adaption of a video game series developed by Platinum Games and published by Atlus. There were jokes about the name “Remy” being a “dumb movie adaption thing” and that Ratatouille is in fact the proper name. The implication was that the “Disney movie adaption” was so bad it killed off the game series until this sequel came out well over a decade later due to “vocal fan support.” This eventually died down a bit, but some of the ironic ARG stuff has lingered. One part of the ARG was originally going to be that there were two people working on this game instead of one and that they’d have a messy public falling out on the game’s tumblr blog, but this was scrapped because it felt too explosive lol.

Q: What do you mean by this being a sequel to Ratatouille for Wii and Ratatouille PSP? Aren’t those the same game? A:  While the Ratatouille tie-in game on most consoles was just a movie adaption, the PSP version was one of those weird tie-in games that takes place after the movie. I never beat the game but the plot entails Chef Skinner stealing all the recipe cards from the new restaurant around the time of their grand opening, and Rem- Ratatouille having to retrieve them. This is recited as some sort of major, melodramatic event in Rata2ouille. Ratatouille PSP has a lot of scrapped side-characters from the movie appear (such as rats named Celine, Dodo, Twitchy all of whom were meant to appear in the movie and were in the official art book) in addition to very odd new characters such as Teen Rat, who is seemingly a Sonic the Hedgehog pastiche that challenges Remy to races. These game-exclusive characters are all treated as if they’re established characters from the movie that we should know and recognize so when I discovered they exist halfway through development, I retroactively added a bunch of them into this game and treated them exactly the same here. I did a lot of deep diving into the production of the movie and its tie-in material while making this game and referenced a lot of niche stuff -- in order to be as bizarre as possible, I also needed to be as “authentic” as possible.

[coochiequeens]

It sounded promising until I got to the "— we use the term women+ — (is) self selecting. If you feel that you belong in a feminine space, we want you to feel welcome here" But I shared it for anyone wants to give it a try.

Tana Hoffman, founder of ILLA, a women+ networking app to encourage participation in the outdoors, spoke at an "activation" event in Park City on Wednesday. Katie Hatzfeld/Park Record

Park City women with a passion for the outdoors gathered at the Stio on Main Street on Wednesday evening to learn about ILLA, a company that connects women based on their interests.

“I just want to say, thank you guys for coming out,” said Tana Hoffman, the founder of ILLA, who drove down from her home in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

Fifteen women gathered around as she explained how ILLA’s app works.

“You create a profile and you can find other skiers, snowboarders, bikers, mountain bikers, climbers, surfers, whatever you love to do, depending on your area,” she said.

Based on your profile, members receive notifications when, for example, another person pings for a ski partner on a coming day. Those available or interested are thrown into a group chat to plan their own adventure. It’s a cross between a friendship dating app and a Facebook group. 

This “activation” event on Wednesday was a chance for people to learn about ILLA, connect face-to-face, find some ski or boarding buddies for the winter and develop their own women-centric community.

Hoffman had attendees raise their hands to identify fellow skiers or boarders, and then encouraged each other to connect — like an in-person ILLA group chat. She passed out cards with information about how to create a profile.

Sarah Kodric, winner of the night’s $75 Stio gift card prize, came looking to find friends and fellow Epic Pass-holding snowboarders in the Park City area. After moving from her home in Slovenia to Utah with her boyfriend in June, she was eager to find some women to hang out with. 

Madison Blackley, a Park City born-and-raised professional snowboarder, popped in after boarding at Woodward’s monthly women’s night. She talked to the group about her passion for encouraging adult women towards sports they love.

Madison Blackley, a professional snowboarder and Parkite, spoke at the ILLA event about upcoming snowboarding camps for women in the area.Katie Hatzfeld/Park Record

“I coach for women’s camps called Beyond the Bounds. We run women’s adult snowboard camps,” said Blackley. “(These camps are for) anyone, a beginner, never been in the park, if you’re trying to keep up with your boyfriend, if that’s your goal, whatever your goal is.” 

One girl called out, “It’s for him to keep up with us!” The group laughed.

This was the attitude for many of the women who attended. And for ILLA’s creator, that’s the whole goal.

The New Hampshire native said she’d always been involved in the outdoor industry but struggled in the male-dominated world. 

“Most of the ski shops I was in, surf shops I was in, I was always kind of the little sister,” said Hoffman. 

Hoffman said gaining confidence as a woman in the outdoors was not easy, a challenge shared by many of the women she met, and she found herself drawn toward women-first communities.

Over the years, Hoffman began connecting other female outdoor-enthusiasts with each other through social media or group chats. But as one person, she could only do so much. What if there was an app for that? 

With this mission, Hoffman founded ILLA in February 2022. 

“ILLA was a way of, how do we scale this beyond myself, beyond me doing group text messages and group Instagram introductions,” she said.

Currently there are about 1,000 users from all across the country, she said, but certain areas have more concentration than others.

“We find that wherever you think of as a mountain hub, we tend to see more. So like the Tahoes and Missoula and Bozeman, … areas that you think of as being inherently attractive to the outdoor industry,” said Hoffman.

Park City is one of those places, and Hoffman said she hopes events like Wednesday’s will bring more women onto the platform.

“The women focus — we use the term women+ — (is) self selecting. If you feel that you belong in a feminine space, we want you to feel welcome here,” said Hoffman. “ILLA is very much a choose-your-own adventure. We’re the tool, not the enforcer.” 

Still in early stages, the platform is a web app, but plans to launch in the app store by the end of December or early 2024.

Right now, anyone can join ILLA at illawomen.com, and updates will be announced to members as they come.

News

[southernsolarpunk]

Heyyyyy y’all

I haven’t seen much on here about the tik tok ban (understandable, most people here don’t like tik tok) but this ban doesn’t JUST affect tik tok. This is bill that is written so BROADLY that they can essentially censor social media.

Oh and it gets worse. Facebook has been basically paying republicans to spread misinformation about the app, and have cut their own reels fund. (Because they are getting rid of their biggest competitor) this is, at worst, a ban on free speech and at best attempting to create a monopoly on social media.

Oh, and that congress hearing? It’s currently happening, and congress has no idea what they’re talking about. “Can tik tok access the home Wi-Fi network?” Was a question asked during the hearing. Representatives are being paid by meta to pull this shit, and they’re exposing themselves as unfit to judge fairly on internet regulations.

I strongly suggest y’all keep this on your radar, because it doesn’t just affect tik tok.

[toptrendingforexbrokers]

Venmo vs Cash App vs Zelle: Are Mobile Payment Apps Safe?

Venmo

Venmo, owned by PayPal, is widely used for peer-to-peer payments. The app allows users to send and receive money quickly, but its social feed feature, which publicly displays transactions, can be a privacy concern. However, Venmo has robust security measures in place, including encryption, multifactor authentication (MFA), and fraud detection systems. Users are encouraged to set their transactions to private and regularly monitor their account for unauthorized activity.

Cash App

Cash App, developed by Square, is another popular choice for sending and receiving money. It offers additional features like investing in stocks and Bitcoin. Cash App employs encryption and MFA to protect user data. However, it has faced criticism for its limited customer support, which can be problematic if your account is compromised. Users should enable security features like PIN entry and Face ID to enhance protection.

Zelle

Zelle is integrated directly with many major banks, allowing users to send money quickly without needing to create a separate account. Since Zelle operates through your bank, it benefits from the financial institution’s security protocols, including encryption and fraud monitoring. However, Zelle doesn’t offer purchase protection, meaning you should only use it to send money to people you trust.

Safety Tips

Enable Security Features: Use MFA, PIN codes, and biometric authentication where available.

Be Cautious with Public Wi-Fi: Avoid sending money over unsecured networks.

Verify Recipients: Double-check the recipient’s details before sending funds to prevent sending money to the wrong person.

Monitor Accounts Regularly: Keep an eye on your transactions for any unauthorized activity.

In conclusion, Venmo, Cash App, and Zelle all offer secure payment methods, but they are not without risks. By following best practices and utilizing the security features provided, you can use these mobile payment apps safely and confidently.

[taylorswiftstylequestions]

hey Sarah and TSSers! happy holidays!

could i dump a lil of my recent thoughts in hopes of some encouraging words from this community?

i am a proud single girlie and have been my whole entire 25-year-old life (like literally zero romance at all). a relationship has never been something i craved enough for me to go after it, and also i have been hit on a total of 2 times ever (none of which became anything), so i have no experience in even flirting.

the very few times in my life that i even thought about dating, i always ended up making no effort and just having a “live your own life with your own interests and hobbies and the right person will find you” (i still like to believe this is true, a la 1989 era independent Tay)

however, this holiday season is the first time for real that i’ve felt like maybe a relationship could be something good to me. it peaked my interest. i don’t know if it’s because of quarter-life crisis thoughts that i’ll “end up alone” or the fact that some of my friends have gotten engaged lately and i have never held hands romantically (sigh lol)

anyway, any tips for me? i don’t want to have dating apps (sorry, feels like too much atm) and i already took the “live your life and see what happens” approach where i genuinely didn’t care about love, but i feel like if i want to try a relationship or even just have some flirting energy in my life, it’ll have to include some effort… but how? help

Hi friend! Big huge feels this holiday - which isn't surprising to me given the cuffing season of it all (my feed around this time of year in December is usually filled with engagement and pregnancy announcements - tis the damn season).

I'll start off by saying that 25 is so young. So young. SO. YOUNG. Not having any romantic experience or interest at that age is normal and you are so beyond fine. So happy for your friends who are engaged (it's an exciting time in one's life!) but you are also perfectly normal for never having entertained romantic notions up to now.

That said, now that your feelings are shifting ... how indeed does one proceed? I'd so love to crowdsource hot tips from this v generous community of wonderful humans because I genuinely don't even know how you meet people romantically nowadays if not with the help of an app and also if the social circles and hobbies you partake in now aren't creating opportunities for you.

My only thought is perhaps openly talking about wanting to start getting out there with your friends and your network of people and speaking comfortably about being ready will be a cue to your friends (and the universe) to make some recommendations and nudges your way of people who you might hit it off with. I think that's the next step above the "see what happens" approach which is when you start saying "this is what I want to happen". You have to start saying it and 'manifesting' it.

Best of luck my sweet friend and of course you will have TSSers here with some tips to help you on your journey!