For context: I'm someone that enjoys reading blogs, even more than watching TikTok videos, or YouTube videos. I write for fun on Medium, and on Substack.
The problem I'm trying to solve is the decreased popularity of blogs from readers, and writers, especially in younger generations.
I'm building a platform that has the social capabilities of Twitter, the recommendation engine of TikTok, and the goal of Medium/Substack.
The platform would let you create a TEXT newsletter which would notify your followers when you post a blog, and we would split advertisement revenue with writers (ad revenue model still unsure about, maybe we'll switch to monthly plan instead, still figuring out the costs).
The goal of this platform is to make it a pleasant experience for both readers, and writers. We'll do this by ensuring that readers are receiving content they want to see (recommendation engine). The content goes to you, not the other way around. For writers we're going to ensure that they're compensated properly for their hard work, and are given a great metrics dashboard to see exactly how much they're growing, what demographic, what region, etc. The platform would also offer AI assistance, and collaborations with other writers. Writers could use AI to help them finish their story, or help them come up with a story.
I'll be making a follow up post showcasing the design of the platform. Who would want to use something like this?
The problem you describe is not a problem. Think about drastically narrowing the scope. Find a couple users in some extremely underserved niché and study them instead of the developers here. Solve problems that come out from what they tell you/what you see.
You know what sufficiently works for serving up new and interesting content? This site. And the community drives this, not “recommendation engines”.
And if there was a real problem to be solved here, there are plenty of people who would try to monetize it and automate it.
I guess my central point is that OP wants to go into typical Red Sea territory.
It's people posting things as a form of self-advertising. Some who actually put "blogger" on a resume. Many post tutorials to come up on a search on their chosen skill (or a search for their name). The tutorials are generally poorly well thought out and shallow. Like a lot of people post overcomplicated architectures, with the reasoning being "some famous guy or company used it".
So posting an article with these networks get you associated with that crap. I would like to see something with a proper quality filter. This isn't easy, I understand, which is why the big blogging platforms don't do it. I'm not looking for TikTok-style catchy/addictive recommendations; I'd like to see something the quality level of Steam.
I'm also iffy on AI-guided writing. I love AI-based writing and I pay for GitHub Copilot, but as a platform, that just encourages people to churn out low quality articles.
> the purpose of Medium
No thanks, Medium and Substack are already bad enough.
The idea of newsletters is stupid. I need to open them in email, which is not where I read news. We solved this problem ages ago, it's called RSS. Provide good full-content RSS feeds.
If you must persist with newsletters, don't put a full screen flyover nagging me to sign up for the author's newsletter as soon as I've visited the page. How am I supposed to know if I want the newsletter when I haven't had a chance to evaluate the content? At most, put a static non-JS signup box at the end of the post.
The idea of paid blogging is ridiculous. Web hosting is free these days. Nobody is writing blog posts for 40 hours a week and making a full-time income from it. There is no cost to blogging, so there should be no charge. Paid blogging is a non-business model.
There is also an attempt to "legitimise" bloggers with these sites. "I'm a professional blogger, follow me on Medium". No, you're just another person in tech like me. Your blog is no more or less important than mine. At best you're writing things you hope are useful. At worst, you've devolved into a "content creator" making "content" for the sake of it (or for subscriber begging) like so many vapid YouTubers.
These sites seem to imply their content is somehow "premium" or better than the rest of the internet. It isn't. There are many (free) blogs which are way better than every Medium or Substack. I see many poor quality posts on these sites which reduce the overall value of the site. The quality control necessary to make the site curated would negate the appeal of the platform.
I feel if someone has something worth saying, they'll probably spend the minimal effort setting up their own blog to say it, and build a legitimate subscriber base from quality, not from some paid or implied quality by having their blog on a certain domain.
The issue here is that you have to maintain server by yourself and it adds a lot of friction to the process.
You can own all your data, host on your own domain with custom design, but still have the convenience to focus on writing and not maintaining stuff.
There are ton of innovation happening like bearblog or write.as and I find these type of projects super exiting.
I'd question the ads and Medium business model following, but subscriptions and tipping from a credit pot you can buy would be a refreshing change.
Privacy aware, fast loading, nicely styled, yeah I can see that being appealing.
Most of Twitter et al just feel like wading through treacle atm.
I am working on a demo of content-based filtering for RSS feeds, look up my profile and contact me about it!