The back end of Hubzilla, the technology, is pretty impressive. Reminds me of the first time I set up an AFS cell and realized what a relief it is to have redundant failover and working SSO.
The user interface is a dog. It's terrible. You all know that. Reminds me of Blender before the 2.8 UI redesign. The mobile client is even worse.
Icons, names, layout.... terrible. This is why engineers should never do human design. Lol And, cloning Facebook! A site currently dying and on the top of uncool for teh kids.
But I'm sold on the software. It needs:
1. A new purpose. My recommendation: For Creators. A do everything app for the fediverse for creators to submit and manage work into various fediverse services.
2. Newspaper hub. A place for writers to collaborate while putting together a newspaper, often remotely. (Project based)
3. Better default settings. Much less busy UI. The ability to submit to all the fediverse services. Quick and dirty is to just run all the servers on one box then openid auth to every service all at once. Submit to each service with their APIs. Like to Mastodon through Mastodon.
4. Finally, a mobile client is necessary for consumption, but not for creation. Desktop and laptop UI is better for creatives. Hubzilla is not drawing mass audience anyway. It needs a niche within the fediverse that's original and suited to it. Not just another clone of something nobody wants anyway.
The name Nomad is particularly absurd to me. Because I get what it's supposed to mean. Your account migrates from server to server like a nomadic person. The thing is though, who wants to be a nomad? The word itself has a negative association to it. And that's offputting to the average user. This is branding 101.
And that name was chosen for software intended to connect people!
Compare it to the name "Facebook". Which is a great name! Not arguing Zuckerberg isn't an ass. Or that it isn't a global privacy violation. Or that it's anything but horrible for society. Just the name, that part is awesome. Why?
Everybody cares about the faces of people they love. And this is a "book" of "faces" of those people you love! Based on the name, it's immediately understandable what it is and what it does. Plus, the warm fuzzy from "face". You should feel at least neutral about a word for it to be worthy as a potential brand. Warm and fuzzy is better. Negative? Suicidal to a project.
