Monday, June 29th, 2026 — Herd Works’ first flagship iPhone app, HyperTexting, is now available to download. HyperTexting is your newsfeed minus the ads, algorithms, and AI slop. It’s a tool for publishing and subscribing to multimedia feeds. This release marks the first step on our mission to make it easy to Make HyperText. Continue reading to learn more, or download HyperTexting on the App Storetoday.
The HyperTexting timeline, responses, profile pages, and media.
On September 5th, 2026 the Facebook News Feed will turn twenty years old. 🤯
What started out as a way to keep up with family and friends has evolved into a tool for staying up-to-date with almost any topic in the world.
Today most people get some or all of their news from social media.1
But there’s a problem.
Less than half of the content in our timelines comes from the feeds we follow.
First it was the ads, then the algorithms, and now the AI generated slop.
The “for you” feed feels less and less personal with each passing day.
This trend has been going on for so long that we’re running out of pejoratives to describe how they make us feel bad.
The world wide web is so much bigger than the handful of apps websites that make up social media.
Allow us to let you in on a little secret.
Facebook did not invent the news feed in 2006.
The original technologies behind modern internet feeds were invented in the 1990’s.
Those same technologies have been quietly growing in popularity ever since.
Today hundreds of millions of websites offer feeds, as often indicated by the subtle
icon.
In fact, most websites offer feeds using the exact same technology that powers podcasts – you follow or subscribe using a compatible app and get new content as soon as it is posted.
A New York Times feed contains headlines and links to articles on The New York Times.
A podcast feed contains “show notes” and links to MP3 audio files.
“Wherever you get your [feeds]” is a radical statement because it describes an internet that is not controlled by a handful of big tech companies.
It’s an internet where creators “have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience”, and consumers have choices.
The world wide web is so much bigger than the handful of apps websites that make up social media.
Our first goal with HyperTexting is to make finding & following website feeds as easy as podcasting.
We want to take back the timeline.
We believe the “for you” page should actually work for you, not the platform.
Publish and subscribe
The moment you experience your timeline full of posts from the feeds you follow, and nothing more – no ads, algorithms, or AI-generated slop – something clicks.
We hope HyperTexting will help you spend less time scrolling your social media timeline.
But you might still want to have an online presence.
A place where you can share things.
That’s why we’ve built HyperTexting from the ground up as a tool for publishing and subscribing to feeds.
It’s a feed reader and writer.
The HyperTemplates Composer opens in content mode (middle). Swipe left for content types, and swipe right to add attachments.
Making it easier to post online is exactly how we got stuck with these social media platforms in the first place.
Right when it seemed inevitable that every human would eventually have a website, MySpace came along and made it easier to create a web page (myspace.com/tom) than a web site, and the rest is history.
There was no need to purchase a domain – just pick a username and start posting!
Fast forward twenty years and we’re paying the price.
It’s easier than ever to create a website, and yet still not as easy as settling for social media.
Reversing that trend is the north star for HyperTexting.
Our mission statement is posting on your website should be easier than posting on social media.
Or more simply, our mission is to Make HyperText (dot com).
That’s why we built our own website generator, called HyperTemplates.
And that’s why we’re building it into HyperTexting, alongside support for updating WordPress, Ghost, and Hugo websites.
Coming Soon
Support for posting is coming soon via an invite-only TestFlight.
To sign up for the HyperTexting Composer Beta, download HyperTexting, add your profile, and then tap “Post”.
Join the HyperTexting Composer beta waitlist.
Thank you!
If you’ve managed to make it this far, thank you for reading!
We hope we’ve inspired you to escape the algorithm.
