Group blogs as social network alternatives? A thought experiment
22 January 2025
The Verge recently published a list of social network alternatives for people disillusioned with the likes of X, Facebook, Threads, and Instagram, to consider moving to. Having built-up a network of acquaintances and followers on these channels though, I’m not sure how many people would really consider migrating. Starting over, persuading contacts to relocate, might be a step too far for some. Still, there’ll be people determined to leave certain social network platforms.
But where will they go?
The Verge list includes many of the usual suspects. Bluesky, Mastodon, Snapchat, and Discord. There’s also a few that are new to me: Spill, Trust Cafe, Spoutible, and CounterSocial. Tumblr is also suggested, and might be one of the easier-to-adopt options, as the experience is somewhat similar to that of a micro-blogging platform. But you’d still have your work cut out getting your followers to join you there. Reddit is also listed, but be aware, your content might be used to train AI bots.
Conspicuous through absence from the list though are blogs. But aren’t blogs only for one person, I hear you asking. What use then are blogs as an alternative sort of social network? While it’s true many blogs are maintained by one person, some blogging platforms, including WordPress (WP), allow individual blogs to have multiple users. These are group blogs. Someone sets themselves up as an administrator, and then invites acquaintances to join. Blog-based social networks would be similar.
Here, a member’s user page would serve as their profile page, where biographical information can be added. From there someone would be able to post content — blog posts — as if they were doing so on Facebook or Instagram. As far as I know, there’s no limit to how many users (being admins, editors, authors, or contributors) a WP blog can have. This WP Website Tools post suggests millions. I’m not sure a blog-based social network would have millions of users, but it could have a lot.
Such a setup would need to be hosted on a robust web server, capable of handling what might be heavy user traffic. This would entail cost, but if this were shared among members, it may not be onerous. It might be a small price to pay. Members of a blog-based (private) social network would no longer need to concern themselves with the whims, and rules and regulations, of a billionaire tech-bro. Nor would algorithms be a problem. Sure, it would be different. But it would be independent.
To be clear, this sort of idea is not going to be for everyone, in fact it’s not going to be for most people. Certainly not influencers (but you never know). And probably not anyone not comfortable with setting up a self-hosted blogging application (such as WP), on a web server. But on the plus side, members would be part of a social network they controlled under their own terms. These networks might need “community” guidelines of some sort, but I doubt these would need to be expansive.
Of course, anyone hoping to escape from the mainstream social networks, to a blog-based social network, would still have to convince their acquaintances to follow them over. There’s probably more questions than answers. There would be a learning curve for some people. So maybe we’re back to square one. And yes, this thought experiment of mine is WordPress-centric (since I use WP), but no doubt there are other blogging platforms with similar functionality. Still, this might be an option.
RELATED CONTENT