Andrew, love the idea, thank you for posting. I've been thinking about this same problem. I think social media platforms do a great job of allowing us to easily share context with others, but I agree that they aren't appropriate for more meaningful interactions.
However, I think we already have a good solution for more meaningful interactions: SMS texting and calling. Anecdata, but when I want to discuss relationship problems with friends, it's always by text message or phone call.
The problem with pure SMS texting and phone calls is that I lose all of that access to context that I would otherwise get on a platform. And that context is still important because it makes it much easier to reach out to people in the first place.
I'm wondering if there's a way we can still use SMS and phone calls as the medium of meaningful communication while also providing a mechanism to share context.
Honestly, I think plain old blogs might work well. Just like slow social, one post per week maximum. But why onboard people onto yet another platform when we've already solved the communication layer with texting and calling? Let's just use blogs to solve the context layer.
Authenticate users with their phone number. Allow users to subscribe to posts made by other phone numbers. One post per week max. Once a week, send a text alert to every phone number that is subscribed to others. The alert text should include a link to feed along with a list of the people who have posted in the past week.
Read posts on your feed and include buttons to text or call the poster. I think this might strike a nice balance of focusing on direct, personal interactions (no groups, no public messages!) but also allow a way to share context.
Would be interested to hear your thoughts on something like this. Either way, really love the idea of Slow Social and I'll certainly be giving it a try. Thanks again for the post, cheers :)
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Andrew, love the idea, thank you for posting. I've been thinking about this same problem. I think social media platforms do a great job of allowing us to easily share context with others, but I agree that they aren't appropriate for more meaningful interactions.
However, I think we already have a good solution for more meaningful interactions: SMS texting and calling. Anecdata, but when I want to discuss relationship problems with friends, it's always by text message or phone call.
The problem with pure SMS texting and phone calls is that I lose all of that access to context that I would otherwise get on a platform. And that context is still important because it makes it much easier to reach out to people in the first place.
I'm wondering if there's a way we can still use SMS and phone calls as the medium of meaningful communication while also providing a mechanism to share context.
Honestly, I think plain old blogs might work well. Just like slow social, one post per week maximum. But why onboard people onto yet another platform when we've already solved the communication layer with texting and calling? Let's just use blogs to solve the context layer.
Authenticate users with their phone number. Allow users to subscribe to posts made by other phone numbers. One post per week max. Once a week, send a text alert to every phone number that is subscribed to others. The alert text should include a link to feed along with a list of the people who have posted in the past week.
Read posts on your feed and include buttons to text or call the poster. I think this might strike a nice balance of focusing on direct, personal interactions (no groups, no public messages!) but also allow a way to share context.
Would be interested to hear your thoughts on something like this. Either way, really love the idea of Slow Social and I'll certainly be giving it a try. Thanks again for the post, cheers :)