Parler Offers A Refugee From The Censoring Of Twitter. Is This Enough?

I've been around software all of my life. I've been a software designer and programmer since the mid 1980's. You could say I'm very fluent with software programs.

Before I get started on this article I want you to realize that how one writes an article is based upon a specific objective. When writing an article on Parler, for example, it could take many different positions, most which would be very positive and some that people would consider negative. The high majority of articles written on anything are based upon a specific position.

You should know, I'm not your typical user. That's because I'm a software designer and have a much deeper understanding of software programs and how they should be designed.

Also, you should know all topics are subjective. Others may not agree with me at all and then others will completely relate with me. I'm good with it being subjective because we're all individuals and we're all allowed our opinions and views to things. I love opposing views and that we can have a discussion about our views. It's one of those things that makes America the great country that is because there's a lot of countries that do not allow this... you must accept the governments views only!

That's bad. America is good.

Parler is allowing us all to once again have opposing views, something Twitter and Facebook apparently aren't interested in anymore. Twitter and Facebook are more like "government ran" social media and who the hell would be interested in that?!

Let's move on...

Parler Has The Right Idea...

First, let me say, the idea of having a platform that won't kick people off or censor posts like what Twitter does is refreshing. I, like many, love this concept behind Parler.

Many of us are extremely frustrated with Twitter and Big Tech's censoring of information, controlling the flow of information and deciding to be an editor who puts warnings on posts with links to opposing views. But they only do this to one side (conservatives) and not on tweets by the liberal left to show the conservatives views.

Nobody wants any of this! If someone from the other side doesn't agree they can comment on the post and create a dialogue with others. But none of us want the platform itself to intervene like what we've watched Twitter and Facebook do.

Does The Parler Platform Give Users What They're Looking For?

Is Parler enough? Does Parler fill the needs of the Twitter market place and how their users use Twitter? Does Parler give their users the functionality and design that will make it a viable replacement to Twitter?

These are subjective questions. For one person the answer could be "hell yes" and for another person the answer could be "not at all", and of course there will be the people in between.

It's subjective based upon how a person would expect a platform like this to function.

Keep in mind that I'm considered a power user, meaning, I'm very fluent with many software programs along with being a software designer so I have much higher expectation than the majority of people who would use Parler. As just a casual user you may not agree with me, and that's perfectly fine.

The experience with Parler is very different between their smart phone app and website from a PC. In my opinion, the app is far better. It's far more stable and easier to use than their website version.

I'm aware most people will use it from their smart phone. That's not true with me. I prefer the website version because it's far easier and faster to copy and paste URL into Parley's and to include an image in a Parley. This is not something unique with Parler, but is how I feel about all social media platforms. This is why I spend more time on social media platforms from my PC over my smart phone.

Because of the very distinct differences between the smart phone app and the website for PC's, a review of Parler needs to be broke down by their Website versus the phone app. While the program is the same, the functionality has distinct differences.

Like I stated above, I find the phone app version far more stable and easier to use. In fact, I have very little to say negatively about using Parler from the phone app. Just one thing... There have been numerous times I've clicked on a web page from my smart phone to read it and it opens up in a Parler window and then goes away not allowing me to read it from within Parler.

From the image above taken from my smart phone you'll see the icon in the upper right corner with the red line under it (I added the red line). This allows you to open the article up in a browser. So when an article won't stay in the Parler window, I back arrow back to Parler, click on the article again and then immediately click on that Up Arrow to open the article in a browser.

Problem solved. 

With the website version of Parler articles automatically open up in a new browser tab.

User Engagement Is Very Important

Take away the User Engagement piece and people won't be as engaged with Parler. The key is thinking how people will use Parler and how they would want to share information they found on Parler.

For example, can you share a Parley?

Excitedly, yes.

They have a share icon where you can copy that specific Parley URL to send it in an email, post it in another social media platform or place it on a web page. This is awesome! 

Here's what it looks like when someone who doesn't have Parler clicks on the Parley URL...

You can even see the comments on this Parley without having a Parler account. Love it!

Then to see more Parley's they offer a button, "See More At Parler" where the viewer of this Parley can create their own Parler account.

So far, nicely done!

They even provide a Embed Snippet to share the Parley on a web page. Again, nicely done.

User engagement and functionality of the application is critical to its success so kudo's to Parler for offering the Share option.

But that's still not enough if you want to replace an existing world-class software program like Twitter.

Comments In Parler (Ran from PC in Browser)

One thing I initially found really frustrating with Parler is when I click on Comments. 

In Parler it Expands or Opens up the comments below that Parley so I have to scroll through them all to get to the next Parley.

However, what I found is if I just click on the Comments icon again it closes the comments, and then I can move on to the next Parley. Perfect!

In a nutshell, I can click on comments, create a comment and then click the comments icon to close the comments. Or I can scroll through the other comments. Either way, it's all handled very smoothly and easily, once I figured this out.

The mobile app, on the other hand, handles comments fine and allows me to open up that Parley in another window where I can easily jump back to my feed.

Both the mobile app and PC browser version allow an easy way of creating comments, reading comments and closing the comments to continue scrolling through Parler.

Keeping People On Parler So They Don't Run Back To Twitter 

Just solving the problem of censorship is NOT enough, especially if the software application doesn't give the user additional advantages over the competing system, Twitter in this case. If it has less features than it's primary competitor and less functionality you've left yourself wide open to lose your users back to the competitor. (I speak from experience here.)

All Twitter has to do is remove the obstacle which is pushing people to Parler by ending their practice of censoring tweets and Parler could find a lot of their people running back to Twitter. Parler has to offer more than just being an alternative to Twitter. And if their primary marketing strategy is being an alternative to the censoring of Twitter, this is something Twitter could easily resolve.

They've got to take this communication platform to a new level. You do this by breaking the software program down to every single element of it, and then you look at how you can improve every single element of it.

In their purest form Parler and Twitter are communication applications to share information with people so the question is, are you accomplishing this?

If sharing information is the key:

• Are users able to share it in all of the ways they want to?
• Can they find the information they're looking for?
• Can they run a filter to find other articles on the same topic?
• Can they find other users in the same category to follow them also? This is actually a really good idea. Have users choose what category their user account is associated to. Currently it's primarily political. I find Parler is missing out on businesses using Parler to communicate with their clients which is a HUGE miss/fail for Parler.
• Can they use it for business to communicate with their users and prospects?
• Can users market to people who have an interest in what you sell on this platform?

And the list goes on and on.

The point is being very focused and very clear on what it is you're offering users. I think Parler is still trying to figure this out, but once they do and then start getting very focused on this, look out because you'll then see Parler start making huge strides with very focused enhancements to their platform to give us users exactly what we need and are looking for in a platform like this based upon how we want to use Parler.

There's just bluntly a lot that goes into the design and then writing of a software program as I am already very much aware of.

Reduce All Support Issues

Along with this it's building the system to solve for common problems. You do not want a software program that's a support team nightmare!

If users are having problems and are constantly needing to contact support, that's bad.

If you have consistent support issues like what I'm facing with Parler (it took 9 days to be able to get logged back into Parler), fix it so it's no longer a support nightmare for both Parler and the user, especially when it's an issue that stops someone from creating a Parler account in order to use the platform!

It Needs To Be Easy To Use, And Offer Training Where It's Not

On top of all of this, you want it to be very easy and user friendly. This includes everything from creating an account to using Parler. It should all be common-sense and easy. If not, people won't use it.

If there are areas that aren't common-sense, then have easy to access training to show how to use that area. Make it brain-dead easy for users.

If there are known areas of confusion you need to provide one-click training to show how to use that part or feature of the system. 

Easy to use, easy to find training, user engagement elements and not being a support nightmare is foundational to any system.

I found very little help on using Parler and the numerous features in Parler and have been forced to figure it out from trial and error. Not a good move on Parler's part.

I Created A Test Parler Account

A few months ago I created a Parler account. I was curious about it. This is a pretty normal thing, to be curious about something. I used my personal email address and it required my cell phone number.

I got about 75 people following me and I followed about the same.

Meanwhile I continued to use Twitter.

You Can Only Have 1 Parler Account, But Nobody Tells You This!

On Twitter I have 4 Twitter accounts. Why?

Because I have one for me personally and I have 3 for different businesses I'm involved in.

With Parler I learned the hard way you can only have 1 Parler account, PERIOD!

Yesterday (11/13/20) I decided to add another Parler account for "Team Pro-America", and here's where my problems began.

You CANNOT use the same email address or phone number on more than 1 Parler account, period! And if you try, you'll face the wrath of Parler, and this can get really ugly!

I have no problem using a different email address. Each business I'm associated with has a different email address so that's not a problem.

But how many cell phones do they think we all own? And be very clear, it must be a cell phone. You cannot use a land line!

I sent a Support Feedback from within my Parler account. After 6 hours and no reply I took the next step and that was to delete my Parler Account to start all over again.

But, no, that's not how it works with Parler. Shame on me for thinking it did. Actually, shame on them for not telling me that's not how it works and the dangers of deleting an account for the purpose of creating a new one!

When you delete your account it doesn't purge your email address and cell phone number from their system, like any normal person would think it would. But I'm not even a normal person. I've been around a lot of software for a lot years and even design software and I figured for sure it would purge my email address and phone number from the system.

Nope, not at all.

I had no warning that the system wouldn't purge my cell phone number or email address after deleting my account. None. One could consider this a serious security risk of our information!

Heck, I wasn't ever told that I couldn't use the same cell phone number to create another Parler account. Shame on them for not informing people!

Now I can't even create a new Parler account or access my old one. Parler is now dead to me, nothing I can do to fix it. Instead I'm at their mercy to fix this problem, but they're in no rush to do that as I still sit here days later with no resolution.

I know, I know, did I send an email to their support department?

After spending about 45 min's on their website desperately searching for a way to contact them finally I found an email account for their support. Not where I "expected" to find it, but needless to say I did finally find it.

I sent them an email.

And this is where I sit.

No solution.

No way to log into my old account.

No way to create a new account.

To me, this is just a very badly designed software program.

It took 9 days for Parler to fix the problem so I could log in. That's 8 days too long. What if I hadn't been so persistent of sending their support department every day asking them to fix my account? How long would it have taken?

Do you know what's really ironic about this whole thing? On the Parler app you have an option to "Switch Accounts". I'm not sure if I should laugh or get mad. One thing for sure, it'll cause a lot of other to experience the hell I experienced for 9 days which is another reason why I'm going to leave this part of the article in place... to warn people about trying to create another account and of deleting their current Parler account like I did thinking the same thing I did to try and create a new Parler account!

When designing software you're also looking for the things which will stop the most support issues and solve them. You do things in your software program which will alleviate support issues.

In Conclusion...

I'm back up and running on Parler. In just the 9 days I had no access to Parler it appears they've made some additional enhancements to it like a Verification process to make sure you're a real person. It's inconvenient, but I have to say I like it. It does create creditability when considering who I'm going to follow.

I'm excited to see the journey that will follow as I now am back on Parler.