July 3, 2020

Social media platform dedicated to goals and progress

Why can't any of the currently existing social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, fulfill my requirements? They simply show too much, do too much, and try to engage too much.

Social media platform dedicated to goals and progress

Have you ever wanted to improve on something or strive to better yourself but you're not sure in what aspect or way and you search up what other people are doing to get inspiration? Have you ever been curious as to the learning path some people took to get at the skill level or expertise that they currently are at? I've definitely had a lot of moments like these and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I was designing a custom solution to conveniently track and record my progress in different goals (I wrote more about my recommended progress philosophy here). It was going to be a personal app that would allow me to add weekly focus/tasks under different categories of goals to work on and as the weeks go by that history will be logged for the purpose of giving someone else a path to follow. I then started to wonder "what if you can see your friends doing the same thing?" I felt like that can be very inspiring.

Imagine a group of friends who are getting into running. If any one of them is curious as to the weekly progress everyone made or what they are up to, or what specific routines they are doing to get better, it can somewhat be a hassle. You might have to do a weekly check up, maybe through texting or some kind of messenger app but it would be nice to just have a clear view of what everyone felt like sharing each week on what they did to progress their goals.

Strava is an app that I've used before where cyclists and runners can highlight routes on a map for others to see and challenge each other. A user can get a birds eye view to see who has ridden which segments on the map, recorded time, fastest speeds, etc. A user is also able to track and record all of the segments they rode and their times for others to view as well. It is a great example of what I'm thinking of except that the social media platform I want to establish isn't solely focused on outdoor running/cycling but can be used to make progress for any goal.

Why can't any of the currently existing social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, fulfill my requirements? They simply show too much, do too much, and try to engage too much. I don't want a nonstop feed of random information, no matter how well the algorithm predicted that I would like it. I just want laid out information on how my friends shared their progress on improving themselves. I want to see how renowned experts advanced their knowledge in some way or what specific concepts my jiu-jitsu friends are focusing on. Most social media platforms are designed to waste time but this one that I have in mind is designed to make people get off it once they get on, because they see all the people making progress on their goals and not wasting time on social media.

This is just the rough draft on the idea I would like to make happen. I will formulate it as an engineering proposal in my next post.