Thoughts on a new social networking application
If I were to design a social network website from scratch, how would I do it? Which features would it have? What would make it attractive? Would it be just the same as Facebook, or would it resemble more Twitter? What kind of expressiveness would it have for its users? Which information would it allow you to share, and how?
I’ve been asking myself those questions a long time ago, without giving it any deep thoughts. However, I recently had an interesting idea about what I would want if I were to build a social network.
I would want something that’s more quiet. Less centered around immediacy. I’d want something that promotes deep thinking and ideas over self-promotion. I’d want something that doesn’t show the world “which member of the Beatles” you are, but that shares what’s inside your mind. My ideal social networking website doesn’t tag people in pictures but in articles. It lays the foundation upon which someone can share a story, his own story, as an open book of an ongoing tale. It has to be something that widen your creativity and allows you to interact not only with people you know, but also with people you share a common interest with. That social network wouldn’t require you to enter your personal information because nobody would care about who you are, but about what you are.
So I thought to myself, “hey, I should create that, as a side project or an experiment”. So that’s what I did, or at least what I’m doing right now. I have started working on it, finding ideas, prototyping and having fun coding something I like.
The thing is, I don’t want to do this alone. It would be very ironic to develop something social alone, wouldn’t it? Also, I feel like ideas can come from everywhere, and if you think Facebook or Twitter already did it all, then you’re wrong. The idea is not to create a new Facebook or a new Twitter, it’s to create something completely new, unique, with a completely different approach, mindset and motivations. This allows you to create a completely new set of rules, a whole new game.
I’m going to keep posting about that project I’m working on here. If you are interested in helping me, or if you want to find out more about what I’m doing, contact me. I’d be really interested in sharing thoughts and in hearing different points of view.
I’m going to publish some screenshots about the prototype I’m making, and explain to which degree the features I want to add can fullfil the “big picture” explained above.
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