Christopher Gulczynski, who co-founded Tinder and served as Chief Product Officer at Bumble, is leading the development of a decentralised social network called Niche.
Niche, now in its Beta stage, is trying to reimagine conventional social networks to provide new benefits for users. Firstly, Niche is organised into “interest-based clubs” which are owned by members.
The Niche website explains that it is looking to empower creators by letting them own content and organise communities. “Stop generating ad dollars for big companies. Start building value for yourself”, it writes.
The social network is built using blockchain technology which allows it to issue ownership tokens to relevant community members and creators, with Niche taking a small cut of transactions.
This model of social network looks to benefit independent creators and small businesses, which have a direct method of connecting with others, and a secure way to own the profits it generates.
“I think the first run of social networks was to connect everyone en masse—it’s your high school friends, your family; it’s a very large swath of connection and [with] very little in common”, Christopher Gulczynski, Niche’s CEO, told Fast Company.
“But I think the trend in social networking right now is to get smaller, to get more intimate around that relational status of everyone in the group”, he added.
Gulczynski co-founded Niche with Zaven Nahapetyan, a former senior engineering manager at Facebook.