Some resources: - TikTok’s publishing on neural-network based recommendation engines: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2402.17152 - Meta’s: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.07663 - DeepFM: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.04247
finding your third place
This idea has been in the back of my head - and discussions with friends for the past year
Background
Third places are getting less and less common, from the common use of mobile phones, shrinking internal social worlds of people and the constant connectivity that social media gives us. but first off, what are third places? Third places are places where you hangout with your friends, where you go on dates with your loved one, where you be part of a community and where you build long-term fulfilling connections.
The biggest gap in solving this issue that I find the market consists of three things: where you go, who you go with, and what you do. At the core, these are we find that differentiates just another place and a special third place. There isn’t a reliable way right now to find this - since we’re all stuck on our phones. Social media hosts influencer content that suggests where you go, new AI-based place discovery apps build suggestions and profiles on your map history, and event discovery apps suggest on your event activity. There isn’t a reliable place to store all these, but ultimately all these apps are striving on the same goal: building and maintaining human connections.
The Vision (or maybe lack thereof)
I suppose it’s simple, but delusional: a single discovery app for what’s not but close to familiar. These include restaurants, parks, classes, and events where we can all get together. The vision to become a familiar app to find familiar places that you’ve never been to with familiar friends that aren’t yet friends doing familiar activities - not a new place or new friends altogether.
How We’re Actually Building This
We all know what’s wrong with most apps today - they want you glued to your screen. More clicks, more scrolling, more ad revenue. We’re trying to build something that wants you to close the app and go outside.
The difference is in what we’re optimizing for. Instagram wants you to see more content. Google Maps wants you to find any place. Event apps want you to buy more tickets. We want you to find your place - the coffee shop where you become a regular, the board game cafe where you meet the same friendly faces every Thursday, the climbing gym where you stop being a stranger.