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Review Minds.com

Francois CarpentierNov 26, 2018, 10:21:32 AM
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During spring 2017 I played with a social networking product called Minds.com. For those not familiar with Minds, it is an increasingly popular free product similar to Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. The following is my personal review of Minds. 

I love Minds ♥. Minds is my third favourite alternative to Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. There are a few challenges with Minds. But it is definitely still my third favourite. My first and second favourite social networking products are diaspora* at https://diasporafoundation.org and or Friendica at https://friendi.ca I'll write another blog about those.

For this review below I'll focus on Minds at https://www.minds.com

Strengths with Minds

  • Free
  • Code is owned and supported by a friendly community. Not owned by a corporation like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube ;) So Minds is more likely to be a People-Servant, instead of a Money-Servant.
  • Its source code is available publicly for reviews and contributions
  • For now Minds is centralized and not federated. But in the future it might be. My instinct tells me that in the future, the decentralized format is likely to be the most popular format. Again, Minds is my third favourite social networking. My first and second favourite social networking products are diaspora* at https://diasporafoundation.org and or Friendica at https://friendi.ca I'll write another blog about those.
  • Really free speech with Minds. Zero censorship. One of the co-founder Bill Ottman is a freedom of information activist.
  • Blogs, Channel, Groups, Videos
  • More secure because Minds software code is publicly available for review and contribution at https://www.minds.org
  • Monetizing options. Such as monthly support which allow users to financially support you monthly to see your monetized posts. Such as Blog posts or almost any other types of posts can be monetized by clicking the dollar icon in the status field before posting. Another option to monetize is the Ad Sharing program. Users can use real money to buy you Minds points.
  • For all monetizing options, users can pay you using cash, Bitcoin, credit cards, using https://stripe.com services. Bitcoin is my favourite.
  • Earn Minds points or exchange money for shares with other users. It's peer-to-peer advertising.
  • Global hacktivist collective "Anonymous" showed initial support for Minds. Read more at http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-competitor-mindscom-launches-with-help-from-anonymous-2015-6
  • The Blogs editor includes lots of features. For creating a Blog post Minds is easier and has more advanced feature than Facebook, Twitter, or Youtube.
  • After you posted your comments you can still edit them. That is joy right there. Twitter is not able to do that.
  • Free support at https://www.minds.com/groups/profile/100000000000000681/activity

Learn more about Minds

Challenges with Minds "Channel"

The Minds "Channel" is like the Facebook "Wall" or Diaspora* "Wall", or like your profile page with other tools. All content you post to your Minds Channel is public. If needed there is an handy "Mature" option. To blur those content for under age users. For the viewing permissions Facebook and Diaspora* are able to do more fined-grained permissions per user or per group of users. Put if you need all your Channel content to be public than Minds Channel is great.

Because all your content on your Channel is public that means any users is able to view and interact with your Channel content, vote up or down or comment. You are able to block other users from interacting with you. But you need to block them one by one. That might be challenging and time consuming if your need to block a large number of users. I found the Facebook and Diaspora* block method is much easier, you review for your approval your friend invite requests. After that if you approved, only your Facebook friends are able to view your Facebook "Wall" or Diaspora* "Wall". In other words, on your Minds Channel if you need to keep some content private from specific users you can not do that yet. As the permissions are not yet fine-grained per user.

Challenges with Minds "Block"

When you block other Minds users, using the Block feature located on their Channel page, it stops them from interacting with you, and they can not comment on your content. But it does not prevent those blocked users from viewing your Channel public content, or voting up or down your content. But you can not see their votes. 

Challenges with Minds "Groups"

Minds "Groups" are similar to Facebook "Groups" or Diaspora* "Groups". If you create a Minds Group. Anyone is able to join your Group. The Group administrator(s) is called "Admin"(s). Unfortunately the Group Admin(s) are not yet able to review for approval the requests to join that Group. 

The risk is that your Minds Group could easily become overrun by robot spammer, or users with immature behaviors such as trolls. For example they could post large amount of inappropriate content to monetize or bully other members. 

The Group Admin(s) are able to either block or permanently block those immature users. But you need to do that one by one, so that might be challenging and time consuming with large amount of immature users. 

Minds Group might be a good match if you enjoy letting your Group members be self-organized with filtering in or out other members. Speaking for myself, as Group Admin, I suggested to my Group members if they feel offended by another member, to express that to the other member. He/She might or not choose to take into consideration their feelings and potentially adapt her/his behaviors accordingly when appropriate. But if healthy two-way communications failed and the Group member still feel offended by the other member, I suggested for them to consider blocking that other member. As a result the other member would no longer be able to interact with them.

Challenges with Minds network

As you know Minds software is available in either decentralized or centralized options. Meaning its source code is available publicly for reviews and contributions. But is Minds software presently able to be both distributed and federated? I searched but I have not yet found a clear answer to that question. My instinct tells me the future is with those two combined network methods. Read more about the definition of distributed and federated networks at:

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_social_network
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_(information_technology)

Conclusion

Thanks to Minds code being community-owned, instead of corporate-owned, and Minds culture that encourages full and real freedom of speech, I feel that my public content is well protected from censorship interference. For this I love Minds way better than Facebook, Twitter, YouTube with their increasing censorship. I noticed that people have expressed an increasing need for community-owned software. So my instinct tells me that on the long term Minds' strategy is potentially a winning one. To the expense of corporate-owned software. By "community-owned" I mean that Minds software code is Free and Open Source.

For publishing my public content I prefer to post first to Minds. Instead of Facebook, Tweeter, YouTube. After I posted my public content to Minds, I'm able to quickly and easily share it or re-post it to Facebook, Tweeter, YouTube, or other tools. There are many ways to use Minds. For example if I need to promote a public product digital brand. Minds is best. Including both personal or business public digital brand.

For publishing my private content Minds is not yet my favourite. Maybe later when the viewing permissions are more fined-grained with various privacy settings. Such as Public, Friends, Friends except, Only me, Custom. For now I prefer posting my private content to Diaspora* https://diasporafoundation.org and or Friendica at https://friendi.ca
Both are able to do various privacy settings.

Of course my personal review is based on my personal needs. To each their own needs. So what I love with Minds or found challenging is likely to be different for you. I believe that diversity is a strength. 

Enjoy Minds :)

Francois

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Disclaimer: After I wrote this review, I financially invested in Minds

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Are you facing a challenge with censorship on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter? You might be interested in the censorship-free and community-owned code with Minds at https://www.minds.com/register;referrer=Francewhoa

Are you facing a challenge with censorship on Minds.com? You might be interested in the censorship-free and community-owned code, and really decentralized social media with diaspora* at https://diasporafoundation.org and or Friendica at https://friendi.ca
Both diaspora* and Friendica are really fully free from interference by investors.

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