“Your writing deserves more than a tweet.”Thoxt founder Shilpa Ahuja shares her vision for a social media blogging platform that rethinks how we publish and connect.
In a time when blogging feels too slow, Shilpa Ahuja is reimagining what it means to publish online. As the founder of Thoxt, she’s building a platform where writers, journalists, and thinkers can share not just long-form articles, but fleeting thoughts, rants, and everything in between. In this interview, she talks about why traditional platforms aren’t built for writers and what makes Thoxt different.
Is blogging dead? How does the current digital writing landscape fit into the idea of Thoxt?
Yes, the process of maintaining your own content website and driving traffic to it is quickly becoming a thing of the past as people use social media and AI to get most of their information. And for good reason too – the best writing on the internet is fragmented across many websites, each with a different UI/UX and comment system. Users prefer a seamless experience, so that’s what we’ve built.
I feel that SEO and ways to drive traffic made blogging not as fun as it was supposed to be. Ultimately, the idea of blogging is about digital self-expression, which is a basic human need. It’s been around since the cavemen and in that sense, blogging will never be dead. Thoxt aims to create a platform where the focus is on self-expression, so people don’t have to worry about SEO, maintaining or getting traffic to a separate website.
How are short videos fit into Thoxt?
Thoxt is writer-first, so short videos are a way for writers to promote their work, build a personal brand. Short videos can help people build a real connection with their audience and add authenticity; which is especially important in the post-AI era.
Social media platforms are all about short videos these days; does a social media blogging platform like Thoxt feel like a step back?
Writing is complex. While short posts and videos communicate fleeting thoughts, writing makes you think and edit. Writing also helps you think better. The written word matters and always will.
The future of how we think is influenced by the tools we use to write and share. So the Thoxt editing tool was designed to feel futuristic. Our automated tools cut hours of editing and publishing time, so anyone can just think of new ideas and post at the speed of thought.
What are your thoughts on the rise of AI generated content? Will it affect people’s creativity or the quality of content on Thoxt?
In a world of bots, I’m betting on human thoughts! There’s a reason nobody likes to read AI-generated content – it’s generic and doesn’t aim to connect. So people who share new ideas and build a connection with their readers will always have an audience.
Automation tools on Thoxt can cut the boring parts out of the publishing process, so that writers can spend all the time on ideation and expression. I’m sure people will find new ways to be creative with the new tools.
What was missing from existing social platforms that inspired you to build Thoxt?
Existing social media platforms aren’t optimized for reading. People post links of their websites or blogs, but users don’t want to click on them, because it breaks the flow of watching reels or scrolling through short posts. Thoxt can be a way to slow down, reflect. Reading makes you pause and think and that inspires you to write too. It’s like a brain detox!
Besides, what better way to flex than to show-off your intellect?
How do you define “social media” in the Thoxt context?
Thoxt embodies the term “social media” in the sense that it brings the social element to media. For journalists and writers, it’s a place to broadcast, share, express. Users are posting things like opinions, news, rants, reviews, journaling their hobbies, promoting their work. But they also use it for many non-social media-esque things like organizing fragments of their thoughts, posting academic papers, which makes it a source of truth and discourse.
Thoxt is still new and evolving, it’s the medium for digital self-expression for the post-social media world so it’s exciting to see where this goes and what that means in the future…
What specific UX or feature decisions make Thoxt writer-first?
The Thoxt editor is the first thing I coded. It’s the heart and soul of Thoxt and has evolved solely on writers’ feedback. In fact, people have expressed passionate views on what features should be in the editor, what parts of the writing process should or shouldn’t be automated, and it’s been so fulfilling to see how much they care.
The hardest part was balancing simplicity in its UI/UX while giving enough options for users to make their expression their own.
How does the Thoxt editor compare with WordPress?
The idea was to make the process of publishing as easy as posting on social media. While bloggers have to learn WordPress via tutorials, writers have told me Thoxt is very intuitive and they didn’t need to “learn” it. It’s so fast and simple now that it’s difficult to go back to WordPress!
Currently there are basic formatting options, scheduling, auto-save and other settings like on WordPress. On top of that, we also have automated-SEO and insights, collaborative tools like adding an editor and messaging, import tools, and AI-assisted meta-data. Adding images is as easy as copy-pasting directly into the editor and they’re automatically resized and optimized. The best part is you can add polls, and short videos.
What other writing or blogging features can we expect to see on Thoxt?
Interactive features like polls, quizzes and image galleries are coming soon. And in the future, I’d also love to give more expressive formats like canvas to create scrapbook-style posts or magazine-like layouts.
How do you balance visibility (likes, views) with depth and quality?
Social media typically places too much importance on engagement and views, which dilutes quality in favor of clickbait or viral content. On Thoxt, we have an “I recommend this” button instead of a like button, which helps people judge just the depth and quality, not the content topic itself, so we don’t end up with filter bubbles.
Other helpful metrics are the favorite or bookmark buttons, which help assess the utility or quality of the articles. There’s no right answer when it comes to prioritizing thoughtful content over vitality, as users may prefer different things, so there’s a long way to go.
What role does community play in a writer-focused platform?
Thoxt is all about building reader-writer connections. The idea of Thoxt was literally inspired by so many young journalists who have worked with me over the last few years, who made me realize that so many people want to be full or part-time writers or journalists but there’s no way to do that without finding a job, and jobs are very limited in this field. Getting published makes people happy, and Thoxt makes it possible for anyone do get your work in front of readers in seconds! It’s especially great for those who just want to try blogging out, and see if it’s for them, without having to build a whole website.
How is Thoxt different from blogging? From Twitter? From Substack?
Blogging got algorithm chased. Writing shouldn’t feel like work. With short videos, short posts and long articles, there are many options for self-expression here. Thoxt aims to make writing fun, and the focus is on building reader-writer connections through short video previews that add a face and voice to your writing.
Thoxt is also very big on visuals which gives it a magazine-y feel, so it’s great for visual genres too. Thoxt is sort of a way to bridge the gap between traditional writing/journalism and social media posts. Publishing shouldn’t take as long as typical blog posts do, nor should it be as fleeting as tweets.
Reading itself inspires writing, I feel that when we read, we get to think about it, I see many writers post opinions on what they read or watched on Thoxt itself. The best thing about Thoxt is that you can save raw thoughts as drafts or publish unfiltered bursts of creativity without worrying about anything. Writing is a way of creating something you can come back to years later and still be proud of it, so the focus is on original ideas – anything you thought of, whether people agree with it or not.
What do you think “social” will mean in 2030 – and how will Thoxt adapt?
On the one hand, we’re broadcasting our lives for the world to see. On the other, people spend so much time in a private space to make sense of the world with ChatGPT. I feel that social media will adapt to this shift in behavior as content gets more hyper-personalized than ever, and more ways of digital self-expression and alt-genres gain popularity.
Our need to connect and express will always be there. From a mini-episode-style news-feed created just for you, to a news-feed curated and read to you and your friend in each other’s voice, the possibilities are endless. Algorithms will become more powerful as they no longer have to rely just on collaborative filtering and will be able to suggest better topic ideas to read or write based on your mood – these are some of the things I can think of that Thoxt can have in the future.
What are your plans for content monetization for writers?
Monetization is very important and we’re working on bringing ad-revenue sharing options to writers very soon. It’ll hopefully make writing as accessible as a full or part-time career as being a YouTuber is right now. It’ll not be an overnight journey, because attracting advertisers depends on attracting users and vice versa, but the long-term goal is that people should be able to run a full-time blogging or media business right here on Thoxt.
Journalism student passionate about covering career development and education topics. Love conducting interviews and asking tough questions. Bangalorean at heart, mind and soul.