I wanted to design it for general open discussion on the web from day one.
The language of the site is designed for a general audience as opposed to say gaming or enterprise.
I'm mentioning them because those also focus on small talk or general discussions for everyone, but found their niche in hyper locality.
They basically show you what people write in (I think) 10km distance in an endless stream. So it's something like an anonymous hyperlocal twitter, with pretty much all kinds of random stuff that you can imagine. Too much downvoted comments are hidden, similar to HN and reddit.
Sounds like "small talk". But who likes small talk so much they would use a service specifically for it?
I fear in lieu of a more compelling USP it will have a hard ceiling as "a small online friend group", which is fine, just not something that will grow beyond a profitless hobby project.