Let me start out with the good, I love MeWe.  Of all the alternative social media platforms I have tried it is the most feature filled and most respecting of your right to privacy.  In fact they have a “Privacy Bill of Rights” and pledge to always do so.  Some coming over from FaceBook say it is hard to figure out, I find this amusing as the interface is 90% identical to FaceBook with a few cool additional features.

The big thing to be aware of on MeWe is posts are divided into your Contacts Feed, Groups Feed and Pages Feed.  On the main interface you see all three when you log in combined like FaceBook.  From there on the Desktop version you can select Groups or Pages at the top to see only those.  On the mobile app you will see “Feed All” at the top and can sort there to Contacts, Groups or Pages.

From there it is really intuitive and the best part is you see all the people, communities and brands you follow, not the ones an algorithm decides you should see.  I really like this, I mean if I follow you I want to see your stuff, that is why I connected with you.

Overall MeWe is very powerful.  You have chats as well that can be between individuals, multiple individuals or associated with a group.  The group chat is really cool because it sort of combines facebook groups and telegram chats in one location.  There are also Stories which work just like the facebook version of that feature and the ability to schedule events.  Groups can be public, by approval or totally private.

The platform is 99.9% censorship free and honestly it feels like 100%.  The founder does say they don’t allow things that are illegal or actual hate speech (note they clearly ignore SJW micro aggressions or general butt hurt complaints) but I have yet to see anything get censored at all in anyway.   Due to this, I do see some racist crap on occasion or some stuff that is what we’d call “adult”.  Anything I don’t care for I just block like a grown ass man.

That seems to be MeWe’s view on this.  Admins run your groups, ban the stuff you don’t want.  Individuals choose who you follow, don’t ask us to manage your life for you.  We gave you a block feature, use it or don’t but don’t bitch to us because someone posted a tit pic.  Freedom means being responsible for yourself folks.  Plus honestly let me see who the racists are, so I know who they are and can disassociate from them.  This really isn’t hard people.

Lot’s to love on MeWe and I would love it if you would join us there, you can find me at this link.  I do want to say some things I think they could do better though, and I even asked real MeWe users what they wanted from MeWe.  So here we go.

1. Live Video – I have been saying this since day one and continue to hope they will add it.  Given the powerful group features and contact relationships, MeWe would be ideal to stream live to in a insiders only way.  If not that at least allow us to embed from other services like Youtube.
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   That way people can stay on MeWe and listen to or watch our streams at the same time.  Yes I can link to a YouTube video on MeWe but I can’t embed it.  When I asked real MeWe users for suggestions live video was the number one response I got.
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2. Remove the Stupid One Minute Limit from MeWe Camera – MeWe has an independent app only for Apple Devices called MeWe Camera.  It allows you to video and have the front and back camera on at the same time.  So you appear in a small window and the front appears in full view.  Again this app is independent and you can get it in the app store.  You can then share to MeWe or any site and you can save to your camera roll.  When I found this I was really excited.
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   I thought it would be GREAT for my property walk videos.  It worked great but limits me to one minute videos (think Tick Tock) but why?  Seriously MeWe set your video limits to whatever you want on your site but WTF would you tell me how much space I can use on my own device?  Why?  It is just stupid, I love you but I am sorry this is dumb.
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   Again this is a stand alone app but I am sure MeWe made it to promote their brand and it is otherwise genius.  But take away the stupid limit, I would use this thing like crazy for so many things.  It is powerful, intuitive and it works.  You want to charge me for a pro version in the words of Elvis “do it” but don’t set a pointless limit for no reason on an otherwise amazing app.  Bluntly whoever made this decision should be smacked a few times with something like a large frozen fish!  Yes I am serious, I suggest a salmon or perhaps a king mackerel.
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3. Give Brands/Influencers Something Public Facing – MeWe defaults to privacy, you literally can’t see anything inside MeWe until you have an account.  Given the potential for Section 230 to fall this may be a good move beyond privacy.  But as a brand I want to be seen.  I think a compromise would be some sort of public landing page.  Give me a place to pitch a visitor about joining and following me.
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   Say a place to put a welcome video and text, a place to list groups I have founded or am part of, etc.  Something, may be not my posts but at least a way to say hey, join me.  I want to be clear I will totally pay for this feature.  So would most serious brands and influencers. Let me put it another way MeWe.  We are professional marketers, give us a MeWe branded landing page and let us help you close the deal in bringing in new members.  Help me, help you, help me.
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4. A Market Place – Facebook Marketplace has become a major income source for some people, for some their primary one.  I would love to see MeWe do this too.  I also understand why they may not want to do so.  Soon as you provide a specific platform you become responsible for it (ask Ross Ulbright about that).  MeWe does not want to censor or take down content except in extreme cases.
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   So what do they do if you list something completely illegal in a marketplace?  See.  You should know many groups are already buy/sell/trade/barter oriented.  Perhaps a compromise would be providing group owners an option to buy (cheap say 12 bucks a year) a upgrade to have better tools to run them with, along with a TOS saying that said group owner is responsible for the content of what is sold on that board.  By charging they continue to build the Freemium model and the relationship is one that is different than a free platform from a legal stance.
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   The entire area is gray, may be it is best left as it is and we just need to be more creative in such groups?  But all I can think of here is why not both?  You could have a “no illegal items” market and let groups carry on in the gray market at the same time, right?  All in this was the second most requested feature by real MeWe users.
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5. Hashtags in Comments – MeWe is hashtag friendly.  Great but hashtags don’t work in comments.  This is really limiting and kind of pointless as a limitation.  Why would you do this?  Some stuff in this article would take a lot of work and expense.  This one should be really fast and easy.
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   Again, MeWe, why?  Just why?  In fact hashtags used to work in the comments until you turned it off.  Seriously but WTF?  Just turn it back on already.  This was the third most common suggestion from real MeWe users.
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   Let me say a handful of folks said they could not care less about hashtags and found them to be for 14 year olds.  Given GenX (now in or near our 50s) created the entire concept of hashtags about 32 years ago and has been using them ever since, I find this amusing.  In any event features like this should be taken to the side of those who want them, as they are not invasive to those that choose to not use them.  Just gonna say hashtag hatred was a new one on me.
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6. Add a Saved Posts or Read Later Feature – Only two people suggested this in various posts I made asking for suggestions but I think it is ONLY because most didn’t think of it.  Often I see interesting things I don’t have time to read at the moment and don’t want to share until I vet them.
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   A save for later type feature would be great along with the ability to hash tag them as well and see them both in a tag cloud and chronologically.  Simple, all the tech is likely already there for most of it.  It would be useful and hence likely valued by users.
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7. Some Upgrades to How Chat Works – I’ll combine a few here.  First I think just because I say a new contact can chat with me does not mean that person should be able to create a chat with 80 other people I don’t know and start a mass chat I don’t want shit to do with.  Not sure how to deal with this but perhaps you can’t add a contact to a multi chat until they have chatted individually with you first?  At least when you leave how about “do not allow chat organizer to add me to future chats” and save me looking that person up and doing it manually.
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   Next up it would be nice to have a sort chat feature.  Like I said all groups have a chat, this is not the mass chat issue mentioned above.  We also have chats between individuals and groups of individuals.  It would be nice to be able to sort chats, so you see your person to person chats and group chats separately.  I should add here when you join a group you can turn off the chat for it if you don’t want that feature.
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8. MeWe’s Gifs Suck – Tons of folks weighed in on this. People love using gifs to respond in comments and the funnier and more creative the better.  MeWe pulls from gfycat when you select to use a gif.  The verdict is in, they suck, really bad, pick another source or be different and let folks choose a variety of sources, vs. just one.
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   Anyway this one is easy.  You picked the shittiest source, please switch to like giffy or literally anything else.  I am back once again to suggesting the “frozen fish punishment” for the person that chose this crappy source of gifs.
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9. Add Crypto Tipping – And not some convoluted stupid way that is such a pain in the ass no one can figure out how to do it without being a propeller head or having all day to do so.  I mean like Odysee/LBRY does.  You sign up, you have a wallet, you can deposit and withdraw form it.  Other users can tip you and it just works.
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   Pick a crypto and do it.  Info exchange is modern capital.  As the MeWe brand is privacy a privacy coin would be ideal.  I will add I would pay the airfare in either direction to get some members of the MeWe Team and the Pirate Chain (ARRR) team into the same room for a day or two.

There is more but that is enough for now, may be the MeWe team will take just one or two of these and do something with them.  You know what would be even better, unleash the power of open source and develop a “plugin” system similar to WordPress.  Lots of features could be added to any platform by empowering this.  If you want to limit access to groups, pages or paying members fine.  Pros know coding is expensive, we love plugins because it spreads costs and makes it cheap for individuals.

I can add features to this blog for free or often 10-50 bucks that would cost me thousands to have individually custom coded.

In the end I love MeWe and hope more of you join me there.  I am writing an article like this because I want to see them get this all pinned down before patience wears out and someone else does it.  There are plenty of other social media platforms that are more open source and built on things like block chain.  Some that do the crypto tipping etc.  None are simply seamless in the way they function like MeWe is.  MeWe has grown to almost 12 million users in 2020, they are clearly where the momentum is.  They are built on privacy and your right to own your data.

That said the future of alternative information exchange is going to be wrapped into the ability to conduct commerce and do so privately.  Get the crypto integration done MeWe and you will be the dominant platform very quickly when it comes to people looking for alternatives.  Or ignore it and sooner or later someone else will get it right.  It is only a matter of time and time is on MeWe’s side at the moment, but only for a short while in my view.