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I can’t remember the last time I logged into any social media app and felt happier afterward.  Frankly, I’m not sure it’s a solvable problem, but I have enjoyed my time touring the invite-only app Somewhere Good. Developed by the team behind Ethel’s Club—a work and social club for people of color that recently evolved into a wellness platform—... See more

The team is thinking about how to solve some of social media’s most insidious problems at scale. A large topic is ensuring that ideas have proper attribution. “Black culture has influenced so much of internet culture, and yet that citation is often erased,” Hansteen-Izora says. “So how can we design citation and [an] archive in this space that actu... See more

Just about every component inside Somewhere Good offers a remarkably different experience than the social media apps you’ve tried before.

By design, the interface—coupled with the nature of voice memos—causes you to slow down and listen to other people as they unpack their thoughts as mini monologues. It’s an experience that works at a beta scale, consisting of a small, curated group of testers. And to scale it up will naturally invite more problems

“We specifically designed the experience to move against hierarchy in many different ways. There are no likes, no followers. It isn’t an infinite scroll. There are no profiles, so there’s no way to see those types of statistics,” says head of design Annika Hansteen-Izora. “What does it look like if you have a social media app that isn’t working wit... See more