Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has launched a new social network that aims to become Facebook and Twitter today. .
Today it must have about 80.000 members, who seem excited about the idea of a social network that fakes fake news.
The website does not uses το μοντέλο του Facebook που χρηματοδοτείται από διαφημίσεις, αλλά έχει υιοθετήσει ένα συνδρομητικό μοντέλο σαν αυτό που χρησιμοποιεί η Netflix και η Spotify.
It will cost $12,99 a month or $100 a year at USA, or €12 per month or €90 per year in Europe. However, there are still quite a few questions about the content of WT:Social. For example: Will it be worth paying the subscription?
The social network is a reboot of WikiTribune, which launched 2017 as a news exchange service but did not go ahead and Wales ended up firing several journalists it hired. WikiTribune was launched by a crowdfunding campaign.
Wales spoke to the Financial Times about the new project and how fragile the proposal for the new site is. But according to Wales:
The business model of social media companies is problematic. It turns out that the huge winner is the low quality content.
Wales hopes WT:Social can attract 50 millions or even half a billion users giving as an example its success Netflix and Spotify to attract people who are willing to pay for "meaningful" content.
Registration is free, but WT: Social has a waiting list. Of course those who pay can bypass it. So far, only 200 people have paid to bypass the waiting list.
Wales does not expect the new social network to be profitable, but believes it can be viable with minimal staff.
Why
Instead of the news model used by WikiTribune, WT: Social aims to become a self-sustaining community consisting of many small, specialized topics.
Instead of using coordinators to control them fake news like Facebook, Wales' social network will be based on users themselves, who will be able to edit and delete publications which they consider incomplete or unreliable.
