The first versions of Convosphere used a global feed. People wrote, in a sense. But it was the usual self-promotional noise, disconnected from any place. You could turn off location and nothing would change.
So we rewrote the rules: no message without a position, no position without a radius, no radius without an explicit user choice. The map became the only entry point.
What changed
Conversations got shorter and more concrete: “anyone know if the shop on X street is open?”, “they’re closing the road”, “construction work, please keep it down”. Things that only make sense if the reader is close enough to act.
Volume dropped. Value went up. We took the trade.
What we dropped
We tried a daily neighbourhood digest. It was accurate, it was readable. But it turned the geochat into a newspaper, and people read and stopped replying. We removed it. Sfera does something similar now, but only when the conversation asks for it.
What we still don’t know
We haven’t figured out low-density areas, small towns, late nights. The radius widens, but the quality drops. It’s an open problem. If you have ideas, write.