Tag: Startup

Rethinking Social Media: The Gawker Platform Concept

Social media as we know it is broken. The endless scroll of shallow content, the amplification of outrage over insight, the way genuine discussion gets drowned out by noise – we’ve optimized for engagement at the expense of meaningful communication. But what if we started over with a fundamentally different approach?

Enter Gawker, a hypothetical social media platform built around three core principles: earned participation, substantial content, and AI-powered curation. It’s designed to foster the kind of deep, thoughtful discussions that made early internet forums magical while solving the signal-to-noise problems that plague modern platforms.

The Foundation: Earning Your Voice

The most radical aspect of Gawker is its probationary system for public posting. While anyone can immediately participate in private groups, earning the right to post publicly requires proving your ability to contribute meaningfully to conversations. This isn’t about gatekeeping for its own sake – it’s about ensuring that public discourse maintains a baseline of quality and good faith engagement.

The system recognizes that not all voices are equal when it comes to constructive discussion. Someone who consistently adds insight, asks thoughtful questions, and engages respectfully with opposing viewpoints has earned a different level of trust than someone who just joined yesterday. The probationary period serves as both a filter and a learning experience, helping users understand the platform’s culture before they can influence its public conversations.

Long-Form by Design

Instead of character limits and bite-sized updates, Gawker centers around full-page posts reminiscent of classic Usenet discussions. This format fundamentally changes how people communicate online – encouraging depth over brevity, substance over snark. When you have space to develop an idea properly, you’re more likely to think it through before hitting publish.

These posts live within threaded groups that can be either public or private, creating spaces for focused discussion around specific topics, interests, or communities. The threading system ensures conversations remain organized and followable, even as they branch into sub-discussions and develop over time.

The AI Advantage

Here’s where Gawker gets interesting: the entire platform is built around a powerful large language model that acts as its central nervous system. This AI doesn’t just moderate content – it actively curates, synthesizes, and surfaces the best discussions happening across the platform.

The LLM scans all incoming content in real-time, identifying genuinely insightful posts that might be buried deep within niche groups. It creates intelligent summaries of complex discussions, highlights key insights from multi-threaded conversations, and surfaces buzzworthy content to users who would find it relevant. Think of it as having a brilliant editor working 24/7 to find the most interesting ideas and debates across thousands of simultaneous conversations.

For content moderation, the AI understands context in ways that simple keyword filtering never could. It can distinguish between heated but productive debate and toxic pile-ons, detect subtle forms of harassment or manipulation, and identify coordinated inauthentic behavior before it spreads.

Solving the Discovery Problem

One challenge with any system that emphasizes depth and quality is discoverability. How do you prevent groups from becoming too insular? How do new users find interesting content while they’re still in probation?

Gawker’s answer is an AI-curated timeline that functions like a sophisticated news feed. Instead of showing you what your friends liked or what’s trending, it presents summaries and highlights from the most substantive discussions happening across the platform. The LLM identifies content based on genuine insight and novelty rather than just engagement metrics that can be gamed.

This creates a virtuous cycle: high-quality discussions get broader exposure, encouraging more thoughtful participation, which leads to even better discussions. The AI can also help match users with groups where their interests and expertise would be most valuable, facilitating natural community formation.

Transparency and Trust

The AI’s role would be both obvious and behind-the-scenes. Users would understand that machine intelligence is helping curate their experience and maintain platform health, but they wouldn’t be constantly reminded of it in ways that feel intrusive or manipulative. The goal is augmented human conversation, not AI-generated content.

This transparency builds trust in a way that current platforms’ opaque algorithms never could. When users understand how content is being surfaced and why certain posts are highlighted, they can engage more thoughtfully with the curation rather than feeling manipulated by it.

The Bigger Picture

Gawker represents a fundamental shift in thinking about social media. Instead of maximizing time-on-platform and engagement at any cost, it optimizes for meaningful discourse and genuine community. Instead of treating all users as interchangeable content generators, it recognizes that constructive online communities require some level of earned trust and demonstrated good faith.

The platform acknowledges that not all ideas deserve equal amplification – not through censorship, but through systems that naturally surface quality and substance. It recognizes that the best online discussions happen when participants have space to develop their thoughts and when those thoughts are curated by intelligence (both human and artificial) rather than just popularity metrics.

Is this just a daydream? Perhaps. But as we grapple with the consequences of current social media paradigms – from political polarization to mental health impacts to the general degradation of public discourse – it’s worth imagining what platforms built around different values might look like.

The technology to build something like Gawker exists today. The question is whether we’re ready to prioritize quality over quantity, depth over virality, and meaningful conversation over endless engagement. In a world drowning in information but starving for wisdom, maybe it’s time to try a different approach.

Gawker: Redefining Social Media for Thoughtful Communities

This is just a daydream — don’t take it too seriously.

In a world drowning in fleeting tweets and algorithm-driven echo chambers, there’s a hunger for something different—a platform that prioritizes depth, community, and quality over noise. Enter Gawker, a social media platform that reimagines online discourse by blending the soul of Usenet’s threaded discussions with modern AI innovation. Gawker isn’t just another app; it’s a movement to empower dreamers, thinkers, and creators to connect meaningfully. Here’s why Gawker is poised to disrupt the social media landscape—and why it’s an opportunity worth investing in.

The Vision: Quality Over Quantity

Gawker is built on a simple yet revolutionary idea: earning the right to speak publicly. Unlike platforms where anyone can post instantly, Gawker introduces a probationary onboarding process. New users start in private groups, where they can engage freely, build connections, and prove their commitment to meaningful dialogue. To post in public groups, users must earn their “stripes” by interacting with 100-word summaries of posts from groups they follow, displayed on a Twitter-like timeline. These interactions—likes, comments, shares—demonstrate engagement and ensure only thoughtful contributors shape public discourse.

This probation system isn’t about gatekeeping; it’s about fostering quality. By requiring users to engage before amplifying their voice, Gawker creates a culture of substance, reducing trolls, spam, and low-effort content. Imagine a platform where every public post feels like a well-crafted letter, not a knee-jerk rant.

Core Features: A Modern Take on Community

Gawker’s design draws inspiration from the threaded, community-driven discussions of Usenet, updated for today’s users:

  • Full-Page Posts: Every post is a canvas for ideas, encouraging depth and nuance over 280-character soundbites. Posts are threaded within groups, creating rich, organized conversations.
  • Public and Private Groups: Anyone can create a group, public or private, fostering communities around niche passions or exclusive circles. Private groups let users connect intimately from day one, while public groups are reserved for those who’ve earned their place.
  • Timeline with Summaries: A dynamic timeline showcases 100-word summaries of posts from followed groups, making it easy to discover and engage with content. This balance of accessibility and depth invites users into Gawker’s ecosystem without overwhelming them.
  • AI-Powered Experience: A powerful large language model (LLM) is woven into Gawker’s core. It generates post summaries, suggests groups based on user interests, assists with writing polished posts, and moderates content to maintain quality. The LLM acts as a guide, coach, and guardian, ensuring a seamless and engaging user experience.

Why Gawker Matters

Social media today is a paradox: it connects billions but often leaves us feeling disconnected. Platforms prioritize virality over value, amplifying outrage and misinformation. Gawker flips this model. By rewarding thoughtful participation and leveraging AI to enhance—not replace—human creativity, Gawker creates a space where ideas thrive. It’s a platform for the dreamers who want to discuss philosophy at 2 a.m., the hobbyists building niche communities, and the professionals sharing expertise without wading through noise.

The market is ripe for this shift. Studies show users are frustrated with toxic online environments—64% of Americans want social media to prioritize meaningful connections (Pew Research, 2024). Gawker’s probation system and AI-driven moderation address this pain point, offering a safer, smarter alternative. With 4.9 billion social media users globally (Statista, 2025), even a small slice of this market represents a massive opportunity.

The Business Potential

Gawker’s monetization strategy is flexible and scalable:

  • Freemium Model: Core features are free, with premium tiers (e.g., higher posting limits, advanced AI tools) driving revenue. Think SuperGrok’s subscription model, but tailored to Gawker’s unique features.
  • Targeted Advertising: With user consent, Gawker’s LLM can deliver hyper-relevant ads based on group interests, ensuring ads feel useful rather than intrusive.
  • Group Sponsorships: Brands or creators can sponsor niche groups, fostering authentic engagement with passionate communities.

The tech is feasible—built on scalable cloud infrastructure with an LLM optimized for real-time interaction. Early development could focus on a minimum viable product (MVP) with private groups and the timeline, iterating based on user feedback. With the right investment, Gawker could launch a beta within 12–18 months, capturing early adopters in tech-savvy and intellectual communities

Beyond the Noise: Introducing Gawker – A Vision for a Smarter Social Web

The promise of the social web was connection, community, and shared knowledge. The reality? Often, it’s a firehose of fleeting outrage, echo chambers, and a race to the bottom for attention. We scroll endlessly, engage superficially, and log off feeling more drained than enriched. Many of us yearn for spaces that blend the vibrancy of modern platforms with the depth of earlier online communities.

What if we could build a platform designed from the ground up to foster more thoughtful discourse, deeper engagement, and genuine collaboration?

Enter Gawker, a conceptual social media platform architected to do just that. It’s a bold reimagining of how we connect online, built on the principle that a more rewarding digital public square is not only possible but essential.

The Gawker Difference: Earning Your Voice, Building a Better Conversation

Gawker isn’t just another feed. It’s an ecosystem designed to cultivate quality through a unique blend of user progression, rich content formats, and intelligent design:

  1. The “Earn Your Stripes” Onboarding: Imagine a platform where shouting into the void isn’t the default. New Gawker users start by engaging with content in a familiar, timeline-style feed – offering comments on excerpts of richer discussions happening within specialized “Groups.” This isn’t just passive consumption; it’s an active proving ground. Based on the constructiveness and quality of these initial interactions, the platform itself invites users to “graduate,” unlocking the ability to create full posts and even collaboratively edit content within the Groups they join. This fosters a culture of learning and contribution from day one.
  2. Deep, Collaborative Content: Forget fleeting character limits. Gawker posts are envisioned as full-page discussions, reminiscent of Usenet, allowing for depth and nuance. The true innovation? Inline editing. Within a Group, a post can become a living document, collaboratively refined and expanded by its members, much like a public Google Doc. This transforms static posts into evolving knowledge bases.
  3. AI-Powered from the Ground Up: Gawker would be built with a powerful, integrated Large Language Model (LLM) at its core. This isn’t just a bolt-on feature; it’s fundamental to the user experience. The LLM would:
    • Intelligently assess timeline comments to help guide the “graduation” process.
    • Provide sophisticated, context-aware moderation to maintain community health.
    • Generate insightful summaries for the timeline, drawing users into deeper content.
    • Help highlight “buzzworthy” posts that are also thoughtful and constructive.
    • Potentially assist in the collaborative editing process, ensuring coherence and quality.
  4. A Dual Structure: Curated Flagships & Organic Communities: Gawker would feature Public and Private Groups. Anyone can eventually earn the right to create a Public Group, fostering diverse, niche communities. Alongside these, a paid professional editorial team would establish and maintain high-quality “flagship” Groups, especially for vital topics like breaking news, setting a standard for discourse and reliability.

Why Gawker, Why Now?

The hunger for more meaningful online interaction is palpable. Users are fatigued by toxicity and superficiality. Content creators are seeking platforms where their work can spark genuine discussion, not just fleeting reactions. Gawker offers a potential solution by:

  • Filtering for Quality: The “earn your stripes” model inherently selects for users willing to engage thoughtfully.
  • Encouraging Depth: The format and collaborative editing features promote substantial contributions.
  • Fostering True Community: Groups provide focused spaces for shared interests and collaborative projects.
  • Leveraging AI Ethically: Using advanced AI to support and enhance human interaction, not replace it, with a commitment to transparency and fairness.

The Invitation to Ponder

Gawker is more than just a feature list; it’s a philosophy. It’s about architecting a space where the design itself encourages better behavior and richer conversations. It’s about believing that we can build a social web that respects intellect, fosters collaboration, and leaves us feeling more connected and informed.

Imagine a platform where users are invested, content is rich and evolving, and discourse is driven by thoughtful contribution rather than algorithmic rage-bait. That’s the potential of Gawker.

The Pitch For My Vision of A Twitter Replacement

by Shelt Garner
@shetgarner

They key thing to remember is there is a window of opportunity for a startup to come up with a replacement for Twitter that embraces and extends its existing UX. I propose that a startup cherrypicks the best UX elements of Usenet so you give users what they don’t even realize what they want.

One issue is, instead of little banner ads, you could have very specific full-page ads woven into a thread on a subject where users could buy goods and services without going to a new Website. That’s where you would make your money and that’s what would make the whole thing worthwhile.

A use case would be that a user creates a very-specific Group devoted to, say their favorite TV show — maybe The Last of Us.

It would be one of many other similar Groups devoted to the show. But through data mining, you would know what people in that Group were interested in and you would place a full page ad in such a way that it would be unavoidable as people were going through the thread.

Remember, because the basic building block of this proposed service would be full page Posts with in-lining editing, that really expands what you could do with ads.

A Newspaper Suggestion For Mike Bloomberg

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here’s my Christmas gift for plutocrat Mike Bloomberg who apparently craves buying a major newspaper like The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal — I suggest he disrupt the newspaper business instead.

Why buy one newspaper for a few billion dollars when you could totally transform the way people get their news? What I would do is take the concept of Twitter –or, more specifically the my personal idea that involves cherrying picking the best elements of Usenet and fusing them with Twitter — and give the concept a paid editorial staff.

If I had a few billion dollars to play with, here’s what I would do — I would have a common brand domain name, but each major city across the country would have their own subdomain — nyc.domain.domain and so forth. If you used my idea of the Post being the central element of a new social media startup, that would give you all the space you needed to write a traditional length newspaper story. (I have written a lot about this idea on this blog, so if you’re really all that interested in the UX of my social media daydream just look under “startup” or maybe “Usenet.”)

Anyway, wanting to buy a major America newspaper — when none of them are for sale — seems like a fool’s errand. Now, obviously, if Bloomberg did as I suggested, the entire newspaper industry would fucking hate his guts because the plan would…work.

If you could transition the entire newspaper industry away from print with an app that allowed for long-form newspaper articles in the context of threaded discussions…well, you’ve built a better mouse trap.

‘Twitter Killer’ Use Case: Brands

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here is how I imagine brands might use my “Twitter Killer” on a practical basis. The key issue to remember is Brands, like everyone else, would have a far more feature rich experience to use than they would on Twitter.

Instead of just a 280 character tweet, they would have an entire webpage to work with — that would be threaded! So, say you were a Widget Company and you were releasing a new Widget. You could create new Groups devoted to different elements of this Widget.

And because you would have control over who could Post to each of these groups — they would, essentially be read-only to most people — you could all but eliminate trolls and other people who might attack your brand just because they could. They could still attack your Brand elsewhere, of course. Just not in your Groups.

What’s more, people could buy your Widget straight from a Post — with our Twitter Killer getting a cut, of course.

If you were a content provider, meanwhile, you could push content from your own site –original formatting included — into the Twitter Killer itself. Then authorized users could inline edit your content inside a Group that was threaded.

All that sounds pretty cool to me, at least. Too bad this is all just the ranting of a broke writer who should be working on one of six novels he wants to write before he crokes.

My Proposed Twitter Replacement Fixes An Existential Problem With Existing Social Media Platforms

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The key flaw in social media is it’s very “flat” in the sense that the different sides of your life are mashed together into one circle. There have been efforts to manage this in the past — most notably Google’s failed G+ with it’s “Circles” concept, but I’ve come up with a far more simple concept that fixes this problem once and for all.

The solution is what I call Groups. As part of the onboarding process for this proposed service, you create as amy public or personal groups as you like. Using a drag-and-drop feature, you put your Friends within different groups, depending on how you know them. Within these Groups, you would have Posts that were threaded, just like the good old days of Usenet.

Meanwhile, people you didn’t know could join different Public groups that you had created — this would be ideal if you were some sort of public content creator like a journalist or celebrity. You would be given the ability to restrict who could post in the group as necessary.

I guess what I’m trying to say is — I’ve come up with fixes for the existential flaws in the Usenet UX that caused it die in the first place. But all of this is a big lulz. No one cares and I’m wasting my time. I would be far better served to shut up and continue to throw all my energy in finishing my first novel.

Silicon Valley Is Embarrassing Itself — Of Course We Need An Adult Version Of Tik-Tok To Serve As A ‘Twitter Killer!’

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Silicon Valley, you are pathetic. Tik-Tok is proof of concept, all you need to tweak it a little bit so it can become a Twitter Killer. Why is this so difficult to see?

It’s so simple. So very simple. Now, I’m not saying you would have to do videos on such a service, but the current Twitter implementation of video is piss-poor.

There’s at least a $1 billion market for a native-video discussion service that is essentially Tik-Tok but for news. Why no one has done this, I don’t know. I guess it’s not sexxy.

Imagining A New ‘Video Gawker’ #startup

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

When I was in Seoul, there was this nebulous little group of creative-types who were doing Broad City-like videos with their phones 15 years ahead of their time. It just occurred to me that it would be cool if you did something like that today. Or, put another way, I think there’s both an audience and a marketplace for something of a micro-video version of Gawker.

If I lived in New York City (which I don’t) and if I had money (which I don’t) I would found a Website devoted to combining the best of The Daily Show and Broad City. Instead of fictional little adventures around New York City, I would find really funny young people to do field pieces about “real” street news.

These field pieces would be no more than two or three minutes long and would have a blog post associated with them that would flesh out the story for nerds who would actually like to, like, read and stuff. The trick is, of course, to find really funny young people who are so young that they aren’t already going the YouTube star route out of UCB.

Anyway, absolutely no one listens to me and I’m just letting off steam while I charge my batteries to get back to writing my novel.

Here’s the video where I gradually came up with this idea.

The Vision Thing — A #Startup Codenamed ‘Irredenta’

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Gab is this insane cesspool of hate frequented by alt-Right mouthbreathers. But it does fill a niche. And as, such, I suggest that there are a lot — a lot — of Twitter users who, if they were given a viable option would at least try it out.


I’m old enough to remember the TV show America Held Hostage, which would turn into Nightline. I’m saying we’re in a similar crisis and, as such, have a similar opportunity. But there’s more to the story than just that.

A lot of different things are happening right now and I suggest that a new app could address than all in one fell swoop. People want a viable option to Twitter. A growing number of people, given the opportunity, would be interested in an app that would help facilitate massive protests against the Trump Administration to end it once and for all. And, lastly, the online news business is suffering a historic contraction.

So, the app I propose, which goes under the codename Irredenta, would address all those issues. The app would be designed in such a way that you would, essentially, pay a core group of users to break news using it. But, get this, much like the Usenet of yore, you have inline editing of that content so the comments are actually inside full page posts using groups. Or, put another way, that’s what you work towards. That’s what you grow into.

The basic app would be a lot like Crooked Media’s Vote Save The People but with a news service of sorts attached to it. It really isn’t that hard to imagine. You just need just the basic vision and resources to pull it off.  I have the vision, I just don’t have anything else.

So, unless I get some traction on this, I’m probably going to shut up about it soon enough.