It's better than email because:

• Private messages are end-to-end encrypted, always.
• You have to follow somebody to get messages from them, so you won't get spammed.
• Your mail can be public broadcasts or private, and you'll only see replies by people you follow.
• The datastructure is a global mesh of append-only logs, which can support new types of data (not just "mail").
• Users are not bound to one server/host (what we call "pubs") and do not have to trust the servers.
• It's very easy to setup and maintain your own pub.

It's better than twitter and facebook because:

• Private messages are end-to-end encrypted, always.
• The software runs on your device, so there's nobody tracking your browsing.
• The application-code is FOSS, so you're free to fork or write new applications without a gatekeeper setting terms.
• Data is saved to your disk, and so the application works offline.
• You can sync directly with friends over the wifi.

In order to gossip outside your local network, you'll need to connect to a Pub.

You can find an invite to an available pub at the Pub servers registry.

Get an invite, then in patchwork: click "+ Join Pub" and paste the invite code.

This will cause you to follow the Pub and vise versa. If you haven't synchronized to this social network yet, prepare to wait a few minutes while your local server synchronizes.

See patchwork/releases

With node (>= 4) and npm (>= 2) installed:

$ git clone https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork
$ cd patchwork
$ npm install
$ npm start

On Linux you'll need some more dependencies. On Debian:

sudo apt-get install libxext-dev libxtst-dev libxkbfile-dev g++ m4 automake libtool

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