Hello everyone! Today marks the one year anniversary of when [SpeakBits](https://www.speakbits.com) launched! I consider the official launch the day I made [the first post](https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/16qaq5o/i_want_to_introduce_speakbits_to_this_community/) on Reddit announcing the site. It’s been quite a year of very active development and a few stumbles trying to get the platform going. Overall, it’s been really fun, I’m happy to see some growing activity on the site, and really excited for the years that come. **New Development Update** There’s been quite a few changes in the last two months since my last update so I figure I should highlight them here. * **New Logo -** The site has operated without an official logo for most of the years so I figured it was time to finally have one! * **Domain pages -** The links that appear on submitted Link posts can be clicked to take you to a domain page that shows you a feed of all posts associated with that domain that have been posted to all groups on the site. They can also be reached by going to one of the domain urls, such as [https://www.speakbits.com/domain/engadget.com](https://www.speakbits.com/domain/engadget.com) * **Improved keyboard navigation -** I received feedback that the keyboard navigation was lacking so this has been drastically improved, including “Skip to main content” and “Skip to right sidebar” links. * **Onboarding screen for new users -** All new users now receive an onboarding screen to help emphasize settings that can be changed, such as feed density and light/dark mode, along with choosing which groups they want to join. This can be skipped if desired. * **Link post titles auto populate -** Valid links will now auto populate the title field in the post submission page * **Image Classification and Media Search -** A dedicated media search has been added to the search page that lets users search through images and videos uploaded to the site. All images and video thumbnails are run through a classification model to add extra context to allow contextual search. * **Combined Moderation Page -** Group moderators now get a dedicated “Moderator” page that combines all of the groups they are moderating into one place. Both posts and comments can be moderated from here and can be sorted by the usual options. Groups can also be filtered out to only view specific groups as well. Each post and comment will highlight if they have any reports and allow for viewing those reports. * **Username, Email, and Password can now be changed -** The user settings page now provides options for changing your username, email, and password. Usernames can be changed once every 6 months. * **Emails Optional -** Users can now be created without providing an email. An email can be provided in the settings page at any time. I received a few requests from reddit users about this one so hopefully this is a welcome change. * **Social Logins -** To continue the theme of providing users with options, users can now sign up with either Google Sign In or Apple Sign In if that is easier for them. Usernames are auto generated when choosing this option and can be changed immediately in the user settings. After 30 days, these users then fall under the 6 month change rule. **Year in Review** **Previous Updates** Like I said before, there has been a ton of development work done [since that first post](https://www.speakbits.com/post/welcome-to-speakbits) so I figured it would be worth listing out the new features here for anybody that might have missed the previous updates. On top of the following, there has been a ton of work fixing bugs and enhancing performance. **General** * Availability to install in the [Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.speakbits.www.twa\&pcampaignid=pcampaignidMKT-Other-global-all-co-prtnr-py-PartBadge-Mar2515-1), [App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/speakbits/id6468779204?itsct=apps_box_badge\&itscg=30200), and as a Progressive Web App * Three feed densities (Card, Comfortable, and Compact) * [RSS](https://www.speakbits.com/about/rss) and JSON feeds * [Fully documented API](https://api.speakbits.com/api-docs/) for any third party development * Push notifications on all platforms * New WYSIWYG editor with markdown view * Collapsible sidebar * Early bot detection mechanism to flag users that might be bots * NSFW (18+) Alerts **Profiles** * About section * Private saved posts and comments * Private upvotes and downvotes * Delete account * Delete all data * Direct image and video uploading to profile for shareable links **User Settings** * Block users from appearing in feed and search * Block groups from appearing in feeds and search * Allow hiding all NSFW content from feed and search * Allow changing default page that opens on load * Allow changing default sort for group feed and comments * Allow card feed to change from one column to three **Posts** * Multi image uploads and gallery view * Cross site tagging of users with “@” and groups with “g/” * Spoiler tags with “>||” * Crossposts * Inlined images and videos * Zoomable images * Poll post type * Auto generated article summaries **Comments** * Image and video support in comments **Groups** * Allowing restrictions on what users can post to groups * Banner images * About group pages * Public moderation logs * Multi-group collections, e.g. [https://www.speakbits.com/group/technology+news+fashion+sports](https://www.speakbits.com/group/technology+news+fashion+sports) * Wiki pages **Moderation** * Post/comment locking * Temporary bans from groups * User blocking * Automatic CSAM scanning and reporting * Required removal reasons * [Sortition moderation and appeal system](https://www.speakbits.com/post/dev-update-sortition-moderation) **Mistakes made and lessons learned** Early on, I made an assumption that initial users would want to have something to look at on the site to use it. I had some curated RSS feeds that would populate the first groups every day for the six months. These were explicitly labeled as a bot, in [both the username and a tag](https://www.speakbits.com/user/rss-bot), because transparency is a fundamental part of SpeakBits. It wasn’t until April that I received some feedback about how much users hated having these pop up all the time so I completely removed it. Looking back on how this year has gone, I can firmly say this was a critical mistake that really hampered the initial traction on the site. Removing the automated posts led to a drastic change in user activity and is one of the best changes I could have made. I’m hoping this next year can go much better while I continue to add more features and fixes to the site. Another mistake I feel I made early on was only having the development and production builds, which led to bugs making it through to users attempting to use the site when things would work through all my testing but fail for one reason or another in production. There have also been massive UI changes since launch that might have been a little jarring. [Here](https://media.speakbits.com/speakbits/profile/4f11210c-3c6f-4725-bc35-8e50586f37c6.webp) is a comparison pic that shows Today > Jan 2024 > Launch. I’ve since introduced a beta UI at [beta.speakbits.com](https://beta.speakbits.com) that receives new UI features before it makes it to the main site and apps so that there’s a bit more testing time with external users along with more time to get used to them. **Future** All in all, I’m hopeful for the future of SpeakBits and I really think it could be the place for a lot of people. More features and refinements are planned and coming in this next year so I hope everyone here checks it out and gives it a shot! As always, I’m happy to hear any feedback from anyone! This platform is nothing without its users and I’m interested in hearing how I can make this a platform that any of you will want to join and help grow.

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