What is Wikitribune Social?
Wikitribune social, also known as WT social is a Social medium owned by Wikipedia’s founder. It was announced by Jimmy Wales (co founder of Wikipedia). Finally, Most awaited WT.social was launched in October 2019. WT social is often referred to as an alternative to Facebook and Twitter by many authors. However its algorithm and core features are different from those of of Facebook and Twitter. Let’s review this new microblogging website in detail.
Story of WT Social
The founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales took a new initiative to create a new social platform named as “WT.Social” (Wikitribune Social). WT.Social was launched on October 2019 and it looks like a combination of Wikipedia (Editing nature of Wikipedia) with Social Media. Jimmy Wales designed WT.Social to be a social media network. He launched WT.Social as a rival of Twitter and Facebook. Because there are many fake news circulated on Twitter and Facebook, so he wants to give authentic news to the audience.
Unique Features of WT Social
- WT.Social provides evidence based news with related links and clear sources.
- Users of WT Social are able to edit and flag ambiguous links.
- WT.Social allows users to share links to news websites with other users in sub wikis.
Similarly, WT Social also believes in citation and sources like its parent Wikipedia. Personally, i like this feature, along with the Talk page inherited from Wikipedia. I have signed up already, if you do too, feel free to connect with using this link : Ahmad Affan at WT Social
Comparison of WT Social with Twitter & Facebook
- Algorithms of Twitter and Facebook ensure that posts with most likes and comments will be shown on the top of the feed. But on the other hand in WT.Social allow newest links at the first.
- Almost everything on the platform is editable, which is not common in other social media platforms.
- Lack of functionality of social interaction with friends as compared to other media platforms.
- Other social media platforms provide easy and direct search but WT.Social won’t structure these services in a similar way.
Review of WT Social a.ka. Wikitribune
Need improvements in architecture. Jimmy Wales and his team members must work on the architect side.
Users are not bothering this website due to lack of functionality with friends. They must increase the functionality of the medium.
As everything on the platform is editable, so they need to restrict users somehow. Users can ban authentic news easily.
Objectives of the platform are not clear yet, so they should work on it.
Interface is not user friendly because it’s not enough giving proper information to the users, so they should work on the interface first.
Need to increase the quality of the content if they want to compete with top ranked social media networks.
People do not use social Media Networks because of how they work. They use different platforms because of content, people, interests and communities they like about. People use facebook to interact with their friends and community. People use twitter because they want to see what their friends, community and favorite politicians are doing. So this can be a favorite news based platform with fresh content for those who want to stay updated with world news.
is WT Social Paid or Free?
In Wikitribune app You will find an option to select your subscription plan in settings. You can stop payments to wikitribune by simply cancelling your subscription.
Conclusion
Idea of creating this platform is great but due to many reasons they can’t achieve their basic goals and popularity. So they need to work hard and efficiently on this platform.
