Where social apps are going: from feeds to places

Every big social app of the last fifteen years is, underneath, the same machine: a ranked feed of content from people you mostly don't know, tuned to keep you looking. It worked. It also produced a generation that is more connected and more lonely than any before it, and a growing number of people who say they want off.

The interesting thing isn't that people are tired of feeds. It's what they're reaching for instead. Group chats. Run clubs. Supper clubs. Pickup games organized in a Discord. The common thread is that they all end with people in the same physical place.

The feed solved the wrong problem

The feed's job was to answer "what should I look at?" It got extremely good at it. But that was never the question people asked a social network to answer. The original promise was closer to "who do I know, who could I know, and how do I stay in touch?"

Ranking by engagement quietly replaced the second question with the first. Once the feed is the product, the people on it become content, and the people around you, the ones you could actually meet for a drink, are the least engaging content of all. They don't post much. They don't perform. They're just there.

Places are the new graph

For a decade the industry's core asset was the social graph: who follows whom. It's a strong signal for content. It's a weak signal for real life, because most of the people who matter to your week aren't in it yet.

The graph that predicts real life is the one made of places. The gym you go to at 7. The coffee shop on the way. The venue where you saw three shows this year. The people who share those places with you are far more likely to become friends, collaborators or something else than a stranger the algorithm found on the other side of the country.

Building on that graph changes what the app is for. It stops being a place you go to watch and starts being a layer on top of where you already are.

What we think the next era looks like

Local by default. The first screen is about your city, your neighborhood, your block, not a global feed.

Presence over performance. You don't need to post to exist. Being somewhere counts.

A way back to a moment. If you crossed paths with someone and both of you want to follow up, the app should make that possible without a name or a number.

Open-ended. Not a dating app, not a networking app, not a friend-finding app. People don't sort their lives into those boxes, and the best nights out don't either.

Real privacy. Where you are is the most sensitive thing about you. Presence has to be something you control, and the people around you should never be reduced to a data point.

Where Misd fits

This is the bet we made with Misd. Moments find the people you crossed paths with. The feed shows you locals and communities around you, not the whole internet. Karma and your local leaderboard reward being out in the world rather than being loud in it. And it's for anyone looking to meet someone, whatever that means for them.

We don't think feeds are going away. We think they'll stop being the center. The center is going back to where it always was: the room you're standing in.