HyperTexting app turns the open web into a scrollable social media feed

A new app called HyperTexting is now available for iOS, designed to make web browsing as simple as scrolling through a social media feed. It also aims to simplify updating a personal website, making it as easy as sending a text message. The app was built by Caleb Hailey, a 20-year tech veteran who recalls the early promise of the internet when everyone owned their own domain.

Hailey was inspired after seeing Twitter lose its way, shifting from reverse chronological order to algorithmic timelines and deranking links. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he experienced “doom scrolling” and uninstalled all social apps from his phone. He turned to an RSS reader, NetNewsWire, to keep up with news. This led him to work on a passion project—making it easier to post to the web via a static website generator for iPhone. Eventually, he realized these ideas could be combined into a familiar interface that solves the problem of why RSS never gained mainstream traction.

HyperTexting uses RSS under the hood but does not promote it in marketing. It combines publishing and subscribing into one app, acting as a viewer for discourse already happening on the open web. Users can follow people, websites, news outlets, blogs, and newsletters, and scroll through their content in a feed similar to social media. The app includes features like ad-free reading, podcast listening, and the ability to add your own website—such as a WordPress blog, Ghost newsletter, or site built with Hugo or HyperTemplates. Posts from the user’s site appear in the feed of followers.

An “Explore” section highlights trending content across the web, similar to a rudimentary version of Nuzzel. An optional Safari extension lets users add websites to follow as they browse. Hailey’s company, Herd Works, offers HyperTexting as a free download. Future revenue may come from premium subscriptions or a single sponsored post per day. Hailey believes the greatest decentralized social network already exists—the World Wide Web—and hopes HyperTexting encourages people to use it.