> Like, yes, it's workable and usable. It's okay. But the user experience is absolutely awful

Sure it needs a bit more love on the UI side but it's not that bad. The Twitter Website is btw. not that great, too.

> especially on mobile.

I use Twidere [1] for both Twitter and GS, works well.

[1] https://github.com/mariotaku/twidere

As another angle, the name 'GNU Social' has all the catchiness and sparkle of a corporate quarterly accounts report. I can't see non-techies getting excited by it.

As a fan of decentralized, distributed, and federated messaging protocols (such as but not limited to gnu social), I do agree that the name is not ideal for non-techies...But i guess it could be worse...bad examples off the top of my head:

  * Gnu Comrade-gram   
  
  * Gnu IMeer (like rocketeer, but also not coincidentally sounds like "I am here")  
  
  * Gnu FreeMess (as in "free messaging"...no not free in beer, but free as in liberty, because it allows for...doh, nevermind!)  
  
  * Gnu LibPost  
  
  * Gnu SocMe (short for social media)  
  

I'm sure there could be even worse names with more time. :-)

I'm working on something like that:

http://hackertribe.io

(have not launched yet)

It will be something like a mix of twitter and reddit, but open source, decentralized, and GNU Social compatible.

I currently use gnu social for social posts (only for private family instance for now as a personal beta). And also use matrix.org for IM/chat (also for private family beta). I'm very happy with both. But if you can get your platform to continue to speak "gnu social" AND speak "matrix.org" for chat, I think you would hit a really sweet spot for numerous HN-centric demographics...at least for HN-type users...then make software dead easy to install, and civilian users will follow.

I signed up for your newsletter...no pressure, but I (and many others!) really hope you succeed! :-)

Just subscribed to your newsletter. Impress me.

AndStatus [http://andstatus.org] is pretty lightweight, and is both a twitter and gnu social mobile client, rolled into one. While my usage is for my own, private (very small scale/family) gnu social server, so far its pretty good.