With Musk’s dramatic takeover of Twitter and the chaos that has ensued since, there’s a lot of discussion revolving around alternatives to the platform. Some celebrities have even deactivated their accounts following the acquisition, even as Musk has time and again asserted that the platform is now more active than it’s ever been. Defectors have taken to Mastodon, but the various technicalities involved in the sign-up process can keep users off. That’s where Hive Social comes in with its easy-to-understand, pretty interface that screams, “I’m built for everyone.” The platform saw a huge upsurge in users recently, with its Twitter account announcing it crossed 1 million “besties” yesterday. And if you’re wondering what the fuss is about, we’ve got you covered. What is Hive Social Hive Social was founded in 2019 by then-22-year-old Kassandra Pop and is a Gen-Z focused social app that combines the best elements of a number of social platforms into one. The profile page has plenty of similarities with Twitter’s profile page. The main home page looks like a blend between Twitter and Instagram. It has even picked MySpace’s auto-play profile songs features for a real blast from the past – although the feature doesn’t seem to be available in India right now. While the app has got a timeline-based layout, this is not the sole way of exploring your interests. At the right of the home tab on the bottom navigation bar, you’ll find a search icon, which functions plenty like Reddit’s recently-added Discover Tab. Using Hive’s explore page, you can discover new content across topics like cars, pets, science, tech, and gaming. Or if you’ve got something more specific in mind, you can simply input your query as a hashtag into the search bar atop to get results in an Instagram-like carousel layout. What makes the app better (or worse) is the fact that its home page doesn’t sort posts using any personalised algorithm. Instead, it sorts them chronologically, potentially making the platform less addictive. So far, it appears the app’s got zero ads. Hive users also ‘follow’ one another on the platform, as opposed to Facebook’s friending implementation. While the Hive’s image-focused discover page can lead users to believe it’s meant to mimic Instagram, you’ll note that its “new post” page is almost identical to Twitter. Image are optional. You can post text-only stuff if you like and there’s no character limit. How to become a Hive “bestie” Since Hive is a mobile-only social platform right now, you can’t sign up from your desktop and will instead have to use its iOS/Android app. The process is as simple as it can get: 1. Download the Hive Social app from the App Store if you are an iPhone users or Play Store if you are an Android user 2. Open the app and you’ll see a “Create an Account” button 3. Tap that to either “Sign up with Email” or “Sign up with Google” 4. After you’ve entered your details you’ll be asked to select your interests – these interests will show up on the discover tab 5. And done. You can now browse the app and find people to follow as you like
