Zehra Naqvi remembers the magical days of the early social web.
He grew up fangirling over One Direction and Marvel in the early 2010s. It was back when people posted photos of lattes using the Valencia filter on Instagram, and Twitter was still Twitter, a place where people gathered to exchange jokes and cultural analysis.
But now Instagram is full of influencers and Twitter is X, a digital town hall with a stark political divide.
“The platforms that won were the ones that kept people moving the most, not the ones that made them feel the most connected,” Naqvi told TechCrunch. “Now there is an abundance of content but a lack of joy.”
But this is starting to change. Naqvi is part of the new wave of social media: niche online communities that promote interest. This month, she announced the launch of her company, Lore— a site that helps fans keep up with their fans.
Users increasingly want to spend less time on generalized sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and instead participate in online communities tailored to their interests, he believes.
Natalie Dillon, a consumer investor at venture capital firm Maveron, says she’s starting to see an increasing number of founders create interest-first networks.
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“At its core, consumer behavior is driving the shift from performance to engagement,” Dillon told TechCrunch. “For the next generation, community isn’t a feature placed on top of a product. It’s the product.”
It offers examples such as Belian app that lets users share their favorite restaurants with friends, or Fizz, which connects people who go to the same college. Others include the astrology-bonding app Co-staror even Partialwhich allows people to connect with friends to schedule events.
These are the types of participatory apps Naqvi wants to create — something like the early social internet before it “broke and fizzled.”
“Niche spaces give people permission to be specific and show up as their whole selves without getting lost in the algorithm,” she said.
The previous generation of social media companies found success through “more,” he continued. more followers, more reach, more noise. But some founders and users are now coming to a different conclusion—maybe there isn’t a social media app that will become “the next big thing.” There will be quite a few.
Maybe that’s the point.
“What we’ve learned is that depth matters more than breadth,” Naqvi said.
Niche online communities are expanding
Of course, private groups like subreddits, Discord servers, and Facebook communities have always existed. At X, following many of the same accounts was also a way to enter a different online sphere: Think Tech Twitter or Black Twitter.
However, the algorithms of major websites curate content for users by giving a person more of what they think they want to see. Content creators are not innocent either, fueling and fueling trends, topics and conversations – anything that could spark fame and sustain their work.
“We’ve reached a saturation point,” Naqvi said. “Everyone is tired of doomscrolling and performance content.”
In other words, the days of big, mainstream sites like Facebook are over, according to Claire Wardle, an associate professor at Cornell University who studies modern information ecosystems.
Wardle said users are more concerned about how much time they spend online, content moderation, hyper-political spaces and the permanence of social media posts.
Of course, there are some glaring exceptions: Beijing-based TikTok, which has seen a huge surge in popularity in recent years, was briefly outlawed in the US as the government worried about the scale of its potential influence. Even Facebook Threads now has over 400 million active monthly users as of this month.
But all of these have their founding roots in what has already become the “last generation” of social media. Wardle, in particular, called TikTok a “broadcasting” type of site.
“For the rare few who love the limelight, this works,” Maya Watson, founder of the recently shut down social networking site Why?! he said. He is now working on another app secretly. “Most people didn’t sign up to be creators, we just wanted the community.”
Alphonzo Terrell’s social network Spill has seen great success focusing on community.
The Spill became a haven for Black X users who fled due to rising extremism. Terrell said Spill changed its design from simply feeding users content to matching them with communities they might be interested in.
For example, those who like to watch the WNBA can join a group specifically for it. Spill also features games like Spades — a staple in the Black community — and has partnered with Netflix, Amazon and Paramount to host co-viewing events called “Tea Parties,” where users can watch movies and sports together on the app.
“The next era of social media is not about the biggest following,” Terrell told TechCrunch. “It’s about depth; helping people find their people.”
Many black users also resorted to Blackskyfounded by Rudy Fraser. With Blacksky, it creates an open source network on the same protocol and distribution network as Bluesky.
Bluesky’s user base is currently approaching 40 millionaccording to an online user tracker created with the Bluesky API. Wardle called the social network representative of how online communities are looking for content more tailored to their political interests, given Bluesky’s left-leaning leanings.
But Blacksky takes it a step further.
It targets minorities and marginalized people and has an algorithm that can filter out racial harassment. Unlike X, where a user can block a racist and then see another, users on Blacksky can completely filter what they want from their timelines, providing a customized social experience.
“Sometimes you need a world stage. Sometimes you just want a cozy corner of close friends on the Internet where you can control who sees what,” Fraser told TechCrunch.
Users own their data and can decide to host such information on Blacksky instead of Bluesky, giving them control over who has access to their content.
People also vote on decisions together, Fraser said, such as what the community guidelines should be and whether non-black users should be allowed to post in the community.
“Until now, people have had to make a choice, unconsciously or otherwise, between resenting the fediverse or closed platforms where they have no control,” Fraser said. (fediverse is another open social network based on a different protocol, ActivityPub.)
“We’re showing with AT Protocol that you can have a great user experience, have a great time online again, and have real autonomy all the time,” Fraser said.
Investors are following other trends as well
Artificial intelligence plays a big role in creating more specialized social communities.
Austin Clements, managing partner at Slauson & Co., sees founders using AI to create apps that understand nuance so well that they go beyond niche social networks to customized experiences.
“Newer apps are inherently built for the niche itself, enabling them to build the tools and functionality most relevant to that niche,” he told TechCrunch. “In fact, newer apps usually lead with the tools and call the social part ‘community.’
Naqvi’s product has an AI tool, though she remains mum on further details. Its product is a search engine that allows people to go down the rabbit holes of the Internet. It provides an interactive experience, tied in with fan theories, cultural context and easter eggs. It creates personalized charts, reveals fan updates, and gives users monthly reports on their obsessions.
“One of our early testers said it best: ‘It’s like Wikipedia — but if Wikipedia knew exactly what I was thinking,'” he said, adding that its users call it “Mother Lore.”
Emily Herrera, a consumer investor who worked at Slow Ventures, said creators like Naqvi are now at the forefront of this new social media ecosystem. Creators are moving away from participating in the “broadcast” ecosystem to creating environments in which they act as owners, he said, citing newsletters as an example of this trend.
Dani Tran, director of BITKRAFT Ventures, said she also sees the further rise of “niche passion communities” in gaming, giving Superblooma game studio targeting underrepresented audiences, for example.
“Looking to the future, the most vibrant social communities will be those built around interactive experiences,” he said.
Dillon of Maveron added to it. “The winners will be the platforms that combine intimacy, utility and creativity in one ecosystem,” he said. “They won’t look like traditional social networks, they’ll feel like multiplayer environments where people can build, buy and own at the same time.”
Or, as Naqvi put it: People “want tools that help them remember why it was fun to be online in the first place.”
