HyperTexting: Open Web as a Social Media-Like Feed
Original: A new app, HyperTexting, turns the open web into a scrollable social media-like feed
Why This Matters
HyperTexting signals renewed interest in decentralized, RSS-powered alternatives to algorithm-driven social media platforms.
A new iOS app called HyperTexting, built by 20-year tech veteran Caleb Hailey, transforms the open web into a scrollable, algorithm-free feed. Users can follow websites, blogs, and newsletters and read their content in a familiar social media format powered by RSS.
HyperTexting, newly launched for iOS, reimagines web browsing by presenting content from personal websites, news outlets, blogs, and newsletters in a scrollable feed similar to Facebook or X. The app is built by Caleb Hailey, a 20-year tech industry veteran who was motivated by dissatisfaction with algorithmic social media feeds and the decline of X as a discovery platform. Hailey cited X's shift away from reverse-chronological timelines and the deranking of external links as key frustrations. After uninstalling social apps during the COVID era, he returned to RSS reader NetNewsWire and began developing tools to simplify personal web publishing from an iPhone. HyperTexting combines those efforts: it uses RSS under the hood but wraps it in a modern social media UI complete with follow buttons, profiles, and scrollable posts. The app also aims to make publishing to a personal website as easy as sending a text message. Hailey's broader vision is to revive the early internet ideal of individual domain ownership and open publishing, without algorithmic curation or centralized platform control.