This point came up because I was reading an article that mentioned a bunch of TV shows that I'd never heard of. Why had I never heard of them? Because I am not a black female, whom the TV shows are targeted at. When you go to a movie, yous see previews for movies... that are similar the movie you are about to watch.
And similarly, "social networking" tends to reinforce an existing set of friendships and relationships.
So it is difficult to curate a particularly rich set of unusual experiences if most of our kind of opportunity set is very similar.
(Related: The Big Sort - how our neighborhoods are similar. I noticed this - growing up your house is surrounded by similar houses with similar family structures, and I move out to an apartment, where I am surrounded by similar people who make a similar amount of money and drive similar cars, etc)
There's a place for "this is what I like, this is what I'm comfortable with" and there's a place for "try new things."
Like a place for the anti-social network - where you don't know people, where people are just kind of smart and interesting.
I think you could do this with Netflix. You turn over your Netflix queue to someone else - so it's like a mixtape for movies.
The difficulty is really in finding or creating the real life experiences where people find themselves in unfamiliar circumstances. So I have this idea where you sign up for something, like a subscription, and once a month or so, you get assigned to a random group and a van picks you up and takes you to do something with a group. Gun club, puppets, sailboats, etc. Purposefully curating and editing experiences. I think there are places like this, but they are for marketed at single people who are actively seeking a mate, which is not what I want to get at. It is exactly the opposite, actually.
Strangers, serendipity. Like Chatroulette, but with fewer exposed penises, maybe.
