Digital gardens vs blogging: What’s the difference?
If people want to know what’s the difference between digital gardening and blogging, I’ll just direct them to this quote from the blog post, Stop giving af and start writing more by Joel Hooks:
The idea of a “blog” needs to get over itself. Everybody is treating writing as a “content marketing strategy” and using it to “build a personal brand” which leads to the fundamental flawed idea that everything you post has to be polished to perfection and ready to be consumed.
I started blogging in the early 2000s, back when “weblogs” are not about marketing thyself but about recording your life, your quirky thoughts and weird hobbies.
Now, marketing has invaded blogging, that’s all you see, and I hated what blogging has become.
Last year or so, I discovered digital gardening, and it’s like having a light bulb go off in a path shrouded by mists. I’ve had this idea to write on the web this way, but I just didn’t know what to call it. Once I got a solidified concept, I grew extremely excited!
I wrote being an imperfect digital gardener, about daring to put out grammar-addled, spelling-imperfect, half formed thoughts into the void of the Internet. I wrote about the joy of putting the idea “branding myself” to rest, and finally writing without dancing to the algorithm, not caring about SEO-fying my posts, just sharing my wild garden of thoughts and ideas to the world.
So, my thoughts about how digital gardens differ from blogs:
Blogs are chronological, often are “niched’ to align to a polished image you want to present to the world, and is about marketing the personality behind the writer. Blogs are tools to show you in the best light; a personal branding tool. Blog posts the most polished and complete version of your thoughts you want to show to the world. The posts that give people the best impression of you. Yet, they are ephemeral and rush past you like leaves on a fast-flowing river. Older posts are often buried and ignored.
Digital gardens are not chronological, the topics are often not confined to a topic but are a wild mix. The real star of the show is the knowledge being tended in the digital garden. Personal branding is more of an afterglow of the digital garden, a side effect rather than the sole purpose of a digital garden. Digital garden content are often incomplete, works-in-progress, not always polished or even well-written. However, they are like flowers in a garden, inviting you to linger and explore more through a series of posts, links and connections. Older content are resurfaced in newer essays and linked to newer ones. As a result, one can easily get lost in a rabbit hole of thoughts, exploring curiosities in unexpected ways.
Where to build your garden
Just recently, I decided to do the wild thing (at least by digital garden standards) to build my digital garden on wordpress.com. Many digital gardeners like to build theirs on static websites because they want to be free of the chronological format imposed by most blog content management systems, but I’m of the ilk who prefer not to spend endless hours building CMSes when there’s a perfectly good one I’m using.
But will there be a chance I move this website to a static website one day? I have no doubt, but the enterprise will be a humongous one.
#blogging #digitalgardens #indieweb #Internet
{
"type": "entry",
"author": {
"name": "#indieweb",
"url": "https://mastodon.social/tags/indieweb",
"photo": null
},
"url": "https://elizabethtai.com/2025/05/10/digital-gardens-vs-blogging-whats-the-difference/",
"content": {
"html": "<p><strong>Digital gardens vs blogging: What\u2019s the\u00a0difference?</strong></p><p>If people want to know what\u2019s the difference between digital gardening and blogging, I\u2019ll just direct them to this quote from the blog post, <a href=\"https://joelhooks.com/on-writing-more/\">Stop giving af and start writing more</a> by Joel Hooks:</p><blockquote><p>The idea of a \u201cblog\u201d needs to get over itself. Everybody is treating writing as a \u201ccontent marketing strategy\u201d and using it to \u201cbuild a personal brand\u201d which leads to the fundamental flawed idea that everything you post has to be polished to perfection and ready to be consumed.</p></blockquote><p>I started blogging in the early 2000s, back when \u201cweblogs\u201d are not about marketing thyself but about recording your life, your quirky thoughts and weird hobbies.</p><p>Now, marketing has invaded blogging, that\u2019s all you see, and I <a href=\"https://elizabethtai.com/blog/i-hate-what-blogging-has-become/\">hated what blogging has become</a>.</p><p>Last year or so, I discovered digital gardening, and it\u2019s like having a light bulb go off in a path shrouded by mists. I\u2019ve had this idea to write on the web this way, but I just didn\u2019t know what to call it. Once I got a solidified concept, I grew extremely excited!</p><p>I wrote <a href=\"https://elizabethtai.com/2023/07/06/being-an-imperfect-gardener-of-my-digital-garden/\">being an imperfect digital gardener</a>, about daring to put out grammar-addled, spelling-imperfect, half formed thoughts into the void of the Internet. I wrote about <a href=\"https://elizabethtai.com/2023/01/10/january-2023-digital-gardening/\">the joy</a> of putting the idea \u201cbranding myself\u201d to rest, and finally writing without <a href=\"https://elizabethtai.com/2023/06/20/how-im-healing-from-algorithms/\">dancing to the algorithm</a>, not caring about SEO-fying my posts, just sharing my wild garden of thoughts and ideas to the world.</p><p>So, my thoughts about how digital gardens differ from blogs:</p><p><strong>Blogs </strong>are chronological, often are \u201cniched\u2019 to align to a polished image you want to present to the world, and is about marketing the personality behind the writer. Blogs are tools to show you in the best light; a personal branding tool. Blog posts the most polished and complete version of your thoughts you want to show to the world. The posts that give people the best impression of you. Yet, they are ephemeral and rush past you like leaves on a fast-flowing river. Older posts are often buried and ignored.</p><p>Digital gardens are <em>not </em>chronological, the topics are often not confined to a topic but are a wild mix. The real star of the show is the knowledge being tended in the digital garden. Personal branding is more of an afterglow of the digital garden, a side effect rather than the sole purpose of a digital garden. Digital garden content are often incomplete, works-in-progress, not always polished or even well-written. However, they are like flowers in a garden, inviting you to linger and explore more through a series of posts, links and connections. Older content are resurfaced in newer essays and linked to newer ones. As a result, one can easily get lost in a rabbit hole of thoughts, exploring curiosities in unexpected ways.</p><p><strong>Where to build your garden</strong></p><p>Just recently, I decided to do the wild thing (at least by digital garden standards) to <a href=\"https://elizabethtai.com/2025/03/19/tsunami-ghosts-anti-linkedin-post-digital-gardens-obsidian-discoveries-npcs-and-more/#a-digital-garden-on-wordpress\">build my digital garden on wordpress.com</a>. Many digital gardeners like to build theirs on static websites because they want to be free of the chronological format imposed by most blog content management systems, but I\u2019m of the ilk who prefer not to spend endless hours building CMSes when there\u2019s a perfectly good one I\u2019m using.</p><p>But will there be a chance I move this website to a static website one day? I have no doubt, but the enterprise will be a humongous one.</p><p><a class=\"u-tag u-category\" href=\"https://elizabethtai.com/tag/blogging/\">#blogging</a> <a class=\"u-tag u-category\" href=\"https://elizabethtai.com/tag/digitalgardens/\">#digitalgardens</a> <a class=\"u-tag u-category\" href=\"https://elizabethtai.com/tag/indieweb/\">#indieweb</a> <a class=\"u-tag u-category\" href=\"https://elizabethtai.com/tag/internet/\">#Internet</a></p>",
"text": "Digital gardens vs blogging: What\u2019s the\u00a0difference?\n\nIf people want to know what\u2019s the difference between digital gardening and blogging, I\u2019ll just direct them to this quote from the blog post, Stop giving af and start writing more by Joel Hooks:The idea of a \u201cblog\u201d needs to get over itself. Everybody is treating writing as a \u201ccontent marketing strategy\u201d and using it to \u201cbuild a personal brand\u201d which leads to the fundamental flawed idea that everything you post has to be polished to perfection and ready to be consumed.I started blogging in the early 2000s, back when \u201cweblogs\u201d are not about marketing thyself but about recording your life, your quirky thoughts and weird hobbies.\n\nNow, marketing has invaded blogging, that\u2019s all you see, and I hated what blogging has become.\n\nLast year or so, I discovered digital gardening, and it\u2019s like having a light bulb go off in a path shrouded by mists. I\u2019ve had this idea to write on the web this way, but I just didn\u2019t know what to call it. Once I got a solidified concept, I grew extremely excited!\n\nI wrote being an imperfect digital gardener, about daring to put out grammar-addled, spelling-imperfect, half formed thoughts into the void of the Internet. I wrote about the joy of putting the idea \u201cbranding myself\u201d to rest, and finally writing without dancing to the algorithm, not caring about SEO-fying my posts, just sharing my wild garden of thoughts and ideas to the world.\n\nSo, my thoughts about how digital gardens differ from blogs:\n\nBlogs are chronological, often are \u201cniched\u2019 to align to a polished image you want to present to the world, and is about marketing the personality behind the writer. Blogs are tools to show you in the best light; a personal branding tool. Blog posts the most polished and complete version of your thoughts you want to show to the world. The posts that give people the best impression of you. Yet, they are ephemeral and rush past you like leaves on a fast-flowing river. Older posts are often buried and ignored.\n\nDigital gardens are not chronological, the topics are often not confined to a topic but are a wild mix. The real star of the show is the knowledge being tended in the digital garden. Personal branding is more of an afterglow of the digital garden, a side effect rather than the sole purpose of a digital garden. Digital garden content are often incomplete, works-in-progress, not always polished or even well-written. However, they are like flowers in a garden, inviting you to linger and explore more through a series of posts, links and connections. Older content are resurfaced in newer essays and linked to newer ones. As a result, one can easily get lost in a rabbit hole of thoughts, exploring curiosities in unexpected ways.\n\nWhere to build your garden\n\nJust recently, I decided to do the wild thing (at least by digital garden standards) to build my digital garden on wordpress.com. Many digital gardeners like to build theirs on static websites because they want to be free of the chronological format imposed by most blog content management systems, but I\u2019m of the ilk who prefer not to spend endless hours building CMSes when there\u2019s a perfectly good one I\u2019m using.\n\nBut will there be a chance I move this website to a static website one day? I have no doubt, but the enterprise will be a humongous one.\n\n#blogging #digitalgardens #indieweb #Internet"
},
"published": "2025-05-10T02:34:16+00:00",
"photo": [
"https://files.mastodon.social/cache/media_attachments/files/114/481/202/776/718/500/original/4b33ede755c9ebeb.jpeg"
],
"post-type": "photo",
"_id": "44764394",
"_source": "8007",
"_is_read": false
}
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2025-05-08T15:53:16+00:00",
"url": "https://werd.io/2025/if-i-started-fresh",
"name": "If I started fresh",
"content": {
"text": "Erin and I stood at the front of the room, our seven-minute pitch slides for Known still projected above us. At the wooden table in front of us, investors and media executives prepared to give us unfiltered feedback about what we\u2019d just presented to them. Beyond them, an audience of entrepreneurs, more investors, and other enthusiasts were raising their hands.\n\n\u201cDoes your excitement outweigh your hesitations?\u201d Corey Ford asked the Matter audience. A spattering of hands shot up; most of the audience did not raise theirs.\n\nAt Matter, Design Reviews were a big deal: a structured, safe way to find out what investors and potential customers actually thought about your business. You would pitch; then the audience would vote on a handful of questions; then the panel would weigh in.\n\nCorey took a beat before asking his next question, microphone in hand. \u201cDoes this venture have the potential to change media for good?\u201d A few more hands shot up this time.\n\n\u201cDoes this venture have the potential to raise investment? If not, does it have the potential to raise alternative funding?\u201d No hands.\n\nThe panel eviscerated us.\n\nI\u2019d started writing the first version of Known while my mother recovered from her double lung transplant. My mother wanted people to talk to about her experiences, but she didn\u2019t trust the likes of Facebook to host those conversations. I\u2019d built the platform to provide an alternative. I cared about the platform deeply; I cared about the idea of communities that didn\u2019t yield their data to one of a handful of centralized services even more.\n\nIndieweb and open social web people seemed excited. But I couldn\u2019t tell the story in a way that resonated with people who weren\u2019t a part of those worlds. This was 2014, before Cambridge Analytica or the genocide in Myanmar. The most common question I was asked was, \u201cwhat\u2019s wrong with Facebook?\u201d\n\nA decade later, nobody\u2019s asking that question. We\u2019ve all seen what\u2019s wrong. The centralized social web has failed us; its owners treat their platforms as a way to spread propaganda and further entrench their power, often at the expense of democracy. Mark Zuckerberg likens himself to a Roman emperor even while his policies fail community after community. Under Elon Musk, X has been reinvented as a firehose of toxicity. Users are hungry for alternatives.\n\nIn my previous posts in this series, I discussed what I would do if I ran Bluesky and Mastodon. But now let\u2019s zoom out: what if I started fresh?\n\nThere are several ways you could approach building a new open social web platform. You could hope to be remembered for building a great open protocol, as Tim Berners-Lee is, but I believe today\u2019s need is more acute. Few people were asking for the web in 1989; it emerged anyway, changing peoples\u2019 minds, habits, and culture. For its first decade, it was a slow-burning movement. In 2025, great harms are being done to vulnerable communities, and the profits from centralized platforms are used in part to fuel global fascism. Building a great protocol isn\u2019t enough to get us where we need to go. We need to adopt a different mindset: one of true service, where we build an alternative to serve people\u2019s direct needs today.\n\nI think these principles are important:Any new product must be laser-focused on solving people\u2019s needs. The technical details \u2014 protocols, languages, architecture, approach \u2014 are all in service of creating a great solution to real human problems.\nThe perfect can never be allowed to obstruct the good. Ideological purity is next to impossible. The important thing is to build something that\u2019s better than what we have today, and continue iterating towards greatness.\nEveryone who works on such a platform must be able to make a good living doing so. Or to put it another way, nobody should be financially penalized for working on the open social web.\nThe platform must be sustainable. If you\u2019re making something people rely on, you owe it to them to ensure it can last.\nIn his post Town squares, backyards, better metaphors, and decentralised networks, Anders Thoresson points out that social media and social networks are two different things that have sometimes been conflated. Social media is the proverbial global town square. A social network is the web of relationships between people; these might span apps, the web, and in-person conversations alike.\n\nAs I wrote in my 2008 piece The Internet is people:Let\u2019s reclaim a piece of language: a social network is an interconnected system of people, as I\u2019ve suggested above. The websites that foster social networks are simply social networking tools. A social network doesn\u2019t live on the Web, but a website can help its members communicate and share with each other.I believe there\u2019s enormous value to be found in building new platforms to support social networks in particular. The goal shouldn\u2019t be to try and gather everyone in the world around a particular voice or algorithmic spectacle, as X now does with Elon Musk\u2019s account and ideas; it should be to support networks of people and help them connect with each other on their terms.\n\nFrom the same piece:The idea of a social networking tool is to make that network communicate more efficiently, so anything that the tool does should make it easier for that network to talk to each other and share information. The tool itself shouldn\u2019t attempt to create the network \u2013 although that being said, new network connections may arise through a purpose. Most of us have made new contacts on Flickr or Twitter, for example, because we enjoyed someone\u2019s content.Compare and contrast with Meta\u2019s latest strategy to fill its platforms with AI-generated users, literally creating the network.\n\nIf I were starting from scratch \u2014 grounded in these principles, and committed to serving real human networks \u2014 here\u2019s what I\u2019d build.\n\nAs I hinted at in my if I ran Mastodon piece, I believe there is a need for a private-by-default, federated platform designed for groups that already know each other or are actively building trust. Think mutual aid groups, local advocacy orgs, artist collectives, parent groups, cooperatives, or even small media orgs with deeply engaged communities.\n\nOn this platform, anyone can build a group with its own look and feel, set of features, rules, and norms. As a user, I can join any number of groups with a single account, and read updates on a dashboard where I can easily switch between types of content (long-form vs short-form), modes of engagement (conversations vs published pieces), and categories (topics, timely updates vs evergreen).\n\nBecause it embraces the open social web, a user can connect to these groups using any compatible profile, and if a user doesn\u2019t like the dashboard that the platform provides, perhaps because they don\u2019t like how it prioritizes or filters content, they can choose another one made by someone else. Over time, groups can be hosted by multiple platform providers \u2014 and users will still be able to interact, collaborate, and share content as if they were on the same system.\n\nLet\u2019s say I\u2019m part of three very different communities: a neighborhood mutual aid group, a nonprofit newsroom, and a writing collective. On this platform, each has its own space, with its own tone, style, and boundaries.\n\nThe local mutual aid group uses their space to coordinate grocery drop-offs, ride shares, and emergency needs. Everything is private, and posts are tagged by urgency. There\u2019s a shared resource library and a microblogging space for check-ins. Members can signal availability without having to explain.\n\nThe newsroom uses its space to share behind-the-scenes updates with engaged readers, collect community tips, and publish previews of investigations. It connects directly with their existing WordPress site and lets audience editors manage conversations without needing a developer.\n\nThe writing collective is weird and messy and fun. It has a public-facing stream of essays and poetry, but also a rotating \u201cwriting prompt room\u201d and a long-form thread space that acts like a slow-moving group zine. It\u2019s run as a co-op, and contributors vote on changes to how it\u2019s governed. The writing is mostly private for its members, but every so often the group makes a piece available for the outside world.\n\nEach of these groups lives in its own lane and can be accessed individually on the web, but I choose to keep up to date on all of them from a dashboard that reflects how I think and what I care about. I can configure it, but it also learns from my use over time, and even suggests new groups that I might want to be a part of. It also lets me search for people I know or ideas I want to hear more about and surfaces groups relevant to both. The dashboard is available on the web and as a clean, responsive mobile app with a best-in-class consumer-grade design.\n\nBecause it\u2019s all built on the open social web, I can take my identity and content with me if I ever leave. If there\u2019s a dashboard by another company that works better for me (or fits my ideals better, for example by not learning from my use automatically), I can switch to it seamlessly. If I want, I can move my profile and memberships to an account hosted by another provider. Even if I don\u2019t do those things, I can connect other apps to my account that give me new insights about the content and conversations I\u2019m interested in \u2014 for example to highlight breaking news stories, surface group events I might be interested in, or to give me extra moderation powers for communities I run.\n\nHere\u2019s the bit that might make open social web purists upset: all of this would be built by a for-profit public benefit company and run as a hosted service. At launch, there would be no open source component.\n\nGasp! I can already read the Mastodon replies to this post. But rather than a betrayal of open social web values, I see these things as a way to better support the needs of the platform and the values of the space. This isn\u2019t about profit above all else. It\u2019s about aligning incentives to support a healthy, values-driven product, and making that alignment resilient over time. (Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll get back to open source below.)\n\nSo far, most open source self-hosted platforms have prioritized engineering efforts. Resources haven\u2019t been available for researchers, designers, trust and safety teams, or for dedicated staff to foster partnerships with other projects. Those things aren\u2019t nice-to-haves: they\u2019re vital for any service to ensure that it is fit for purpose for its users, a delightful experience to use, and, crucially for any social platform, safe for vulnerable users to participate in. Building a financial model in from the start improves the chances of those things being available. If we want great design, we need to pay designers. If we want a safe, healthy community, we need to pay a trust and safety team. And so on.\n\nIn order to pay for the teams that make it valuable, the platform will charge for non-core premium features like SSO and integrations, offer a hands-on enterprise concierge service, and take a cut from marketplace transactions inside groups. Most importantly, the business model isn\u2019t based on reach, surveillance, or ads; the values of the business are aligned with the communities it hosts.\n\nIn its earliest stages, every platform needs to reduce the feedback loop between its users and builders as much as possible. Incubating it internally until the basic interaction models, look and feel, and core feature-set are right will allow that to happen faster. I\u2019ve found in the past that open source communities can muddy that feedback loop in the earliest stages of a project: there are people who will cheerlead something because it\u2019s open source and not because the product works for them in itself. There are also other people who will relentlessly ask for esoteric features that benefit only them \u2014 or will be abusive or disrespectful in the open source community itself. None of these is what you want if your focus is on building something useful.\n\nFinally, something happens when you release a project under an open source license: anyone can use it. It\u2019s a permissive ethos that sits at the core of the movement, but it also has a key downside for open source social platforms: someone may take a platform you\u2019ve put a great deal of work into and use it for harm. There is nothing to stop someone from taking your code and using it to support Nazis, child abuse, or to organize other kinds of real-world violence. In contrast, a hosted product can be vigilant and remove those communities.\n\nBy not releasing an open source project at first, the business has a chance to seed the culture of the platform. It can provide the resources, support, and vigilance needed to make sure the space is inclusive, respectful, and safe. Once the platform has matured and there are thriving, healthy communities, that\u2019s when we can release a reference codebase \u2014 not as a symbolic gesture, but as a foundation others can build on without compromise. That moment would come once the platform has proven its core use case, the community culture is thriving, and the financial base is strong enough to support long-term governance.\n\nIn the meantime, because it\u2019s all based on open social web protocols, other developers could have been building their own participating open source community platforms, dashboards, and libraries.\n\nLast thing: I haven\u2019t mentioned where I would run this from. Vulnerable communities are under attack in many parts of the world, notably the US, and it isn\u2019t clear that data will be safe from subpoenas or other legal threats. So the business would be headquartered in Switzerland, a traditional home for neutral parties and a jurisdiction that offers stronger protections for user data. While starting it would require raising investment \u2014 and, perhaps, grants for starting a mission-driven high-tech business from Switzerland, the EU, and elsewhere \u2014 it would not aim to be a venture-scale business, and would operate largely independently from the US tech ecosystem. It would inclusively hire talent from all over the world and offer hybrid work: remotely but with the opportunity to come to Zurich and collaborate in-person as the need arose.\n\nIt would, of course, be a business that invested heavily in DEI, with strong benefits. These policies would allow a more diverse staff to collaborate on building it, ensuring that a greater array of perspectives were involved in its design. This isn\u2019t just morally correct: along with the choice of location and business model, it represents a commitment to resilience.\n\nResilience, I hope you\u2019ll agree, is something we need in abundance.\n\nI began this series by asking how I\u2019d run someone else\u2019s platform. But the real question is: what should we build now, and how do we build it together? What are the mindsets that will provide a true alternative? And how can we ensure it succeeds?\n\nIf any of this resonates, I\u2019d love to chat. You can always email me at ben@werd.io or on Signal at benwerd.01.\n\nPreviously in this series: if I ran Bluesky Product and if I ran Mastodon.\u00a0Subscribe to get every post via email.\n\n\u00a0\n\nPhoto by Renzo D'souza on Unsplash",
"html": "<p><img src=\"https://werd.io/file/681cd322274923c4e60cb702/thumb.jpg\" alt=\"A sapling breaking through dry ground.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" /></p><p><a href=\"https://werd.io/2016/stop-writing-specs-start-finding-needs---what-ive-learned\">Erin</a> and I stood at the front of the room, our seven-minute pitch slides for Known still projected above us. At the wooden table in front of us, investors and media executives prepared to give us unfiltered feedback about what we\u2019d just presented to them. Beyond them, an audience of entrepreneurs, more investors, and other enthusiasts were raising their hands.</p><p>\u201cDoes your excitement outweigh your hesitations?\u201d <a href=\"https://matter.vc/author/corey/\">Corey Ford</a> asked the <a href=\"https://knightfoundation.org/articles/announcing-matter-three/\">Matter</a> audience. A spattering of hands shot up; most of the audience did not raise theirs.</p><p>At Matter, Design Reviews were a big deal: a structured, safe way to find out what investors and potential customers actually thought about your business. You would pitch; then the audience would vote on a handful of questions; then the panel would weigh in.</p><p>Corey took a beat before asking his next question, microphone in hand. \u201cDoes this venture have the potential to change media for good?\u201d A few more hands shot up this time.</p><p>\u201cDoes this venture have the potential to raise investment? If not, does it have the potential to raise alternative funding?\u201d No hands.</p><p>The panel eviscerated us.</p><p>I\u2019d started writing the first version of Known while my mother recovered from her double lung transplant. My mother wanted people to talk to about her experiences, but she didn\u2019t trust the likes of Facebook to host those conversations. I\u2019d built the platform to provide an alternative. I cared about the platform deeply; I cared about the idea of communities that didn\u2019t yield their data to one of a handful of centralized services even more.</p><p><a href=\"https://indieweb.org\">Indieweb</a> and open social web people seemed excited. But I couldn\u2019t tell the story in a way that resonated with people who weren\u2019t a part of those worlds. This was 2014, before <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election\">Cambridge Analytica</a> or <a href=\"https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/\">the genocide in Myanmar</a>. The most common question I was asked was, \u201cwhat\u2019s wrong with Facebook?\u201d</p><p>A decade later, nobody\u2019s asking that question. We\u2019ve all seen what\u2019s wrong. The centralized social web has failed us; its owners treat their platforms as a way to spread propaganda and further entrench their power, often at the expense of democracy. Mark Zuckerberg likens himself to a Roman emperor even while his policies fail community after community. Under Elon Musk, X has been reinvented as a firehose of toxicity. Users are hungry for alternatives.</p><p>In my previous posts in this series, I discussed what I would do if <a href=\"https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-bluesky-product\">I ran Bluesky</a> and <a href=\"https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-mastodon\">Mastodon</a>. But now let\u2019s zoom out: what if I started fresh?</p><p>There are several ways you could approach building a new open social web platform. You could hope to be remembered for building a great open protocol, as Tim Berners-Lee is, but I believe today\u2019s need is more acute. Few people were asking for the web in 1989; it emerged anyway, changing peoples\u2019 minds, habits, and culture. For its first decade, it was a slow-burning movement. In 2025, great harms are being done to vulnerable communities, and the profits from centralized platforms are used in part to fuel global fascism. Building a great protocol isn\u2019t enough to get us where we need to go. We need to adopt a different mindset: one of true service, where we build an alternative <em>to serve people\u2019s direct needs today</em>.</p><p>I think these principles are important:</p><ul><li>Any new product must be laser-focused on solving people\u2019s needs. The technical details \u2014 protocols, languages, architecture, approach \u2014 are all in service of creating a great solution to real human problems.</li>\n<li>The perfect can never be allowed to obstruct the good. Ideological purity is next to impossible. The important thing is to build something that\u2019s better than what we have today, and continue iterating towards greatness.</li>\n<li>Everyone who works on such a platform must be able to make a good living doing so. Or to put it another way, nobody should be financially penalized for working on the open social web.</li>\n<li>The platform must be sustainable. If you\u2019re making something people rely on, you owe it to them to ensure it can last.</li>\n</ul><p>In his post <a href=\"https://anders.thoresson.se/post/2025/05/town-squares-backyards-better-metaphors-and-decentralised-networks/\">Town squares, backyards, better metaphors, and decentralised networks</a>, Anders Thoresson points out that social <em>media</em> and social <em>networks</em> are two different things that have sometimes been conflated. Social media is the proverbial global town square. A social network is the web of relationships between people; these might span apps, the web, and in-person conversations alike.</p><p>As I wrote in my 2008 piece <a href=\"https://benwerd.com/2008/12/04/the-internet-is-people/\">The Internet is people</a>:</p><blockquote><p>Let\u2019s reclaim a piece of language: a social network is an interconnected system of people, as I\u2019ve suggested above. The websites that foster social networks are simply social networking tools. A social network doesn\u2019t live on the Web, but a website can help its members communicate and share with each other.</p></blockquote><p>I believe there\u2019s enormous value to be found in building new platforms to support social networks in particular. The goal shouldn\u2019t be to try and gather everyone in the world around a particular voice or algorithmic spectacle, as X now does with Elon Musk\u2019s account and ideas; it should be to support networks of people and help them connect with each other on their terms.</p><p>From the same piece:</p><blockquote><p>The idea of a social networking tool is to make that network communicate more efficiently, so anything that the tool does should make it easier for that network to talk to each other and share information. The tool itself shouldn\u2019t attempt to create the network \u2013 although that being said, new network connections may arise through a purpose. Most of us have made new contacts on Flickr or Twitter, for example, because we enjoyed someone\u2019s content.</p></blockquote><p>Compare and contrast with Meta\u2019s latest strategy <a href=\"https://www.ft.com/content/91183cbb-50f9-464a-9d2e-96063825bfcf\">to fill its platforms with AI-generated users</a>, <em>literally</em> creating the network.</p><p>If I were starting from scratch \u2014 grounded in these principles, and committed to serving real human networks \u2014 here\u2019s what I\u2019d build.</p><p>As I hinted at in my <a href=\"https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-mastodon\">if I ran Mastodon</a> piece, I believe there is a need for a private-by-default, federated platform designed for groups that already know each other or are actively building trust. Think mutual aid groups, local advocacy orgs, artist collectives, parent groups, cooperatives, or even small media orgs with deeply engaged communities.</p><p>On this platform, anyone can build a group with its own look and feel, set of features, rules, and norms. As a user, I can join any number of groups with a single account, and read updates on a dashboard where I can easily switch between types of content (long-form vs short-form), modes of engagement (conversations vs published pieces), and categories (topics, timely updates vs evergreen).</p><p>Because it embraces the open social web, a user can connect to these groups using any compatible profile, and if a user doesn\u2019t like the dashboard that the platform provides, perhaps because they don\u2019t like how it prioritizes or filters content, they can choose another one made by someone else. Over time, groups can be hosted by multiple platform providers \u2014 and users will still be able to interact, collaborate, and share content as if they were on the same system.</p><p>Let\u2019s say I\u2019m part of three very different communities: a neighborhood mutual aid group, a nonprofit newsroom, and a writing collective. On this platform, each has its own space, with its own tone, style, and boundaries.</p><p>The local mutual aid group uses their space to coordinate grocery drop-offs, ride shares, and emergency needs. Everything is private, and posts are tagged by urgency. There\u2019s a shared resource library and a microblogging space for check-ins. Members can signal availability without having to explain.</p><p>The newsroom uses its space to share behind-the-scenes updates with engaged readers, collect community tips, and publish previews of investigations. It connects directly with their existing WordPress site and lets audience editors manage conversations without needing a developer.</p><p>The writing collective is weird and messy and fun. It has a public-facing stream of essays and poetry, but also a rotating \u201cwriting prompt room\u201d and a long-form thread space that acts like a slow-moving group zine. It\u2019s run as a co-op, and contributors vote on changes to how it\u2019s governed. The writing is mostly private for its members, but every so often the group makes a piece available for the outside world.</p><p>Each of these groups lives in its own lane and can be accessed individually on the web, but I choose to keep up to date on all of them from a dashboard that reflects how I think and what I care about. I can configure it, but it also learns from my use over time, and even suggests new groups that I might want to be a part of. It also lets me search for people I know or ideas I want to hear more about and surfaces groups relevant to both. The dashboard is available on the web and as a clean, responsive mobile app with a best-in-class consumer-grade design.</p><p>Because it\u2019s all built on the open social web, I can take my identity and content with me if I ever leave. If there\u2019s a dashboard by another company that works better for me (or fits my ideals better, for example by <em>not</em> learning from my use automatically), I can switch to it seamlessly. If I want, I can move my profile and memberships to an account hosted by another provider. Even if I don\u2019t do those things, I can connect other apps to my account that give me new insights about the content and conversations I\u2019m interested in \u2014 for example to highlight breaking news stories, surface group events I might be interested in, or to give me extra moderation powers for communities I run.</p><p>Here\u2019s the bit that might make open social web purists upset: all of this would be built by a for-profit public benefit company and run as a hosted service. At launch, there would be no open source component.</p><p>Gasp! I can already read the Mastodon replies to this post. But rather than a betrayal of open social web values, I see these things as a way to better support the needs of the platform and the values of the space. This isn\u2019t about profit above all else. It\u2019s about aligning incentives to support a healthy, values-driven product, and making that alignment resilient over time. (Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll get back to open source below.)</p><p>So far, most open source self-hosted platforms have prioritized engineering efforts. Resources haven\u2019t been available for researchers, designers, trust and safety teams, or for dedicated staff to foster partnerships with other projects. Those things aren\u2019t nice-to-haves: they\u2019re vital for any service to ensure that it is fit for purpose for its users, a delightful experience to use, and, crucially for any social platform, safe for vulnerable users to participate in. Building a financial model in from the start improves the chances of those things being available. If we want great design, we need to pay designers. If we want a safe, healthy community, we need to pay a trust and safety team. And so on.</p><p>In order to pay for the teams that make it valuable, the platform will charge for non-core premium features like SSO and integrations, offer a hands-on enterprise concierge service, and take a cut from marketplace transactions inside groups. Most importantly, the business model isn\u2019t based on reach, surveillance, or ads; the values of the business are aligned with the communities it hosts.</p><p>In its earliest stages, every platform needs to reduce the feedback loop between its users and builders as much as possible. Incubating it internally until the basic interaction models, look and feel, and core feature-set are right will allow that to happen faster. I\u2019ve found in the past that open source communities can muddy that feedback loop in the earliest stages of a project: there are people who will cheerlead something because it\u2019s open source and not because the product works for them in itself. There are also other people who will relentlessly ask for esoteric features that benefit only them \u2014 or will be abusive or disrespectful in the open source community itself. None of these is what you want if your focus is on building something useful.</p><p>Finally, something happens when you release a project under an open source license: anyone can use it. It\u2019s a permissive ethos that sits at the core of the movement, but it also has a key downside for open source social platforms: someone may take a platform you\u2019ve put a great deal of work into and use it for harm. There is nothing to stop someone from taking your code and using it to support Nazis, child abuse, or to organize other kinds of real-world violence. In contrast, a hosted product can be vigilant and remove those communities.</p><p>By not releasing an open source project <em>at first</em>, the business has a chance to seed the culture of the platform. It can provide the resources, support, and vigilance needed to make sure the space is inclusive, respectful, and safe. Once the platform has matured and there are thriving, healthy communities, that\u2019s when we can release a reference codebase \u2014 not as a symbolic gesture, but as a foundation others can build on without compromise. That moment would come once the platform has proven its core use case, the community culture is thriving, and the financial base is strong enough to support long-term governance.</p><p>In the meantime, because it\u2019s all based on open social web protocols, other developers could have been building their own participating open source community platforms, dashboards, and libraries.</p><p>Last thing: I haven\u2019t mentioned <em>where</em> I would run this from. Vulnerable communities are under attack in many parts of the world, notably the US, and it isn\u2019t clear that data will be safe from subpoenas or other legal threats. So the business would be headquartered in Switzerland, a traditional home for neutral parties and a jurisdiction that offers stronger protections for user data. While starting it would require raising investment \u2014 and, perhaps, grants for starting a mission-driven high-tech business from Switzerland, the EU, and elsewhere \u2014 it would not aim to be a venture-scale business, and would operate largely independently from the US tech ecosystem. It would inclusively hire talent from all over the world and offer hybrid work: remotely but with the opportunity to come to Zurich and collaborate in-person as the need arose.</p><p>It would, of course, be a business that invested heavily in DEI, with strong benefits. These policies would allow a more diverse staff to collaborate on building it, ensuring that a greater array of perspectives were involved in its design. This isn\u2019t just morally correct: along with the choice of location and business model, it represents a commitment to resilience.</p><p>Resilience, I hope you\u2019ll agree, is something we need in abundance.</p><p>I began this series by asking how I\u2019d run someone else\u2019s platform. But the real question is: what should we build now, and how do we build it together? What are the mindsets that will provide a true alternative? And how can we ensure it succeeds?</p><p>If any of this resonates, I\u2019d love to chat. You can always email me at <a href=\"mailto:ben@werd.io\">ben@werd.io</a> or on Signal at <a href=\"https://signal.me/#eu/_ehMeopT5JeELrkt2lSk-R0V6d1AsGt_3Q98UOJhgBMTal5EGTdNIbZHB9H9CqBn\">benwerd.01</a>.</p><p><em>Previously in this series: <a href=\"https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-bluesky-product\">if I ran Bluesky Product</a> and <a href=\"https://werd.io/2025/if-i-ran-mastodon\">if I ran Mastodon</a>.\u00a0<a href=\"https://newsletter.werd.io\">Subscribe to get every post via email.</a></em></p><p>\u00a0</p><p><em>Photo by <a href=\"https://unsplash.com/@renzods?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash\">Renzo D'souza</a> on </em><a href=\"https://unsplash.com/photos/green-plant-on-brown-soil-nJMUGwkqHqg?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash\"><em>Unsplash</em></a></p>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Ben Werdmuller",
"url": "https://werd.io/profile/benwerd",
"photo": "https://werd.io/file/5d388c5fb16ea14aac640912/thumb.jpg"
},
"post-type": "article",
"_id": "44751949",
"_source": "191",
"_is_read": false
}
