Twitter’s new CEO and proprietor Elon Musk is rattling the cage at his social community and ruffling lots of feathers each inside and outdoors of the corporate. However whereas some within the tech world describe that form of chaos as a rubbish hearth, others see it as one thing very completely different: a possibility.
Years-old federated social networks, legacy social platforms which have their very own points and a cacophony of pre-existing fringe efforts are all rising as potential options to Twitter. And in that vein, so are fully new concepts.
One in all these is being hatched by Gabor Cselle, a repeat founder who desires to construct what he described to me as “a brand new Twitter.”
In true Valley hustle model, Gabor remains to be honing in on small particulars like a reputation and what, precisely, all this can entail. He’s doing that in real time, with a multi-tabbed Google Doc that you could view.
However as a primary step to gathering curiosity for his New Twitter, Gabor has put together a sign-up list for folks to register their curiosity as he works away. (Notice: The identify on the sign-up web page, T2, seems to be an abbreviation for Twitter 2, however Gabor says that is only a placeholder identify.)
Now you could be asking your self, why take note of this? Isn’t Gabor getting somewhat forward of himself right here? He doesn’t have a reputation, or perhaps a product, but.
Nicely, sure. Gabor is in that sense simply one among tons of of thousands and thousands of founders out on the earth noodling on concepts. However there are some things that set him and his alt-Twitter effort aside.
For starters, he’s a repeat founder who offered his first firm, the YC-based mobile email startup reMail, to Google. His second firm, the native advertising startup Namo Media, he offered to Twitter itself.
He’s labored on merchandise at these two titans between and after these acquisitions, and that have — he centered on Timeline, new-user onboarding and logged-out experiences at Twitter; and on many, many various shopper concepts as director at Space 120, Google’s in-house incubator venture — has given him a style of what’s attention-grabbing, and what’s not. And in addition what works, and what doesn’t.
Gabor left Google in July 2022 and has since been tweeting out his every day journey to determine what to do subsequent. (Day 106, for instance, was spent at Disrupt, the place he got here to see Paul Davison, one other hustler, speak concerning the highlights of Clubhouse and the low lights of Spotlight.) Gabor’s public chronicle has been giving him some Twitter-style viral momentum and a spotlight and, naturally, perception into dialog about Twitter itself.
He tells me that Elon’s initial mobilization to purchase Twitter led to an enormous whir of curiosity amongst his pals and contacts, who chattered in downcast tones about how the entire place would collapse.
Then, Musk did buy it. After which, the layoffs hit — a tipping level for Gabor.
“I had been serious about a brand new Twitter for some time,” he mentioned. “However after a number of pals of mine nonetheless on the firm have been laid off final week, I believed to myself, ‘That is the factor I’ve been serious about for therefore lengthy! Possibly that is the time.’”
Gabor is lengthy on big-picture concepts in the meanwhile.
“I need to construct the following public sq. for dialogue. I would like it to be pleasant and enjoyable, rewarding and useful, and protected from harassment,” he tells me. “We’ve had 15-20 years of content material moderation expertise on the web now, and so let’s construct that in.”
He’s additionally an enormous fan of Andrew Chen’s Cold Start idea. For his personal chilly begin, Gabor is focusing first on coalescing a vital mass of individuals — a group to hit the bottom operating when “T2” launches. Based on the Google Doc, that is presently set to be September 2023, a date Gabor tells me he would possibly attempt to transfer up.
He’s even had some investor curiosity, which he has been constructing by way of iMessage. That inbox features a former Twitter-exec-turned-investor who he won’t identify, who has already texted asking how a lot cash Gabor want to must get this new hen off the bottom.
And he’s had loads of unsolicited recommendation. Twitter is nice for that.
“Somebody requested final week, why doesn’t somebody simply begin a brand new Twitter? It could solely take three days and $50 million,” he mentioned. “That’s what obtained me first to ask what a roadmap would possibly appear like. I believe for me it wouldn’t be a three-day construct, however it additionally doesn’t take $50 million.”
This brings up many different questions… not least why he thinks he can construct what Twitter has by no means managed to construct itself, or why but extra centralized social media walled gardens have any future in any respect given all the issues we’ve seen within the ones now we have at present.
For now, his hunch is what he has: Creating one thing from scratch will likely be simpler than making an attempt to repair one thing that’s already massive and in operation, and that it positively gained’t be so simple as simply bringing collectively what he calls “the perfect folks,” but in addition not unattainable.
“I believe proper now I’m seeing this empty house,” he mentioned, “and I need to be in that house.”
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