Solving Social Media’s ‘Local Paradox’ (SSIR)

Barriers to entry : One way to avoid creating a platform crushed by questions about how to deal with bad actors is to raise the cost of entry. Barriers to entry may take the form of geographic localization, interest segmentation, high cost of discovery, or strong gatekeeping.

We’ve found in our experiments with Smalltown that high quality participation on small social networks requires significant “social scaffolding.” Much of this scaffolding looks similar to what a local reporter or community organizer does. Connecting with people, asking questions, surfacing issues, building trust, and organizing. You can’t just buil... See more