There was an effort around 2010, where a bunch of young tech people founded a company Diaspora to create an open social network to take on Facebook. They had some traction, but it failed due to not enough funding and interest, and probably lack of a really clever goto market strategy.

But today we have blockchain and more of us see the threat of social networking platforms. Diaspora was mostly concerned about privacy, which people are concerned about,but in my opinion not as much as social networks controlling what we see and think. So maybe the time has come.

However a goto market strategy must be very cleverly executed (eg starting with the right target market and use cases) and it will require funding which could be raised in the community of those interested in blockchain from both a social and financial perspective.

I’m looking into putting a group together that is a combination of experienced and passionate business people plus young technologists and activists. I wrote up a summary which is to be used for initial discussions with people, but am still at the very early stages. I can share with people, but such people need to be serious and have a follow up plan. If you’re interested, please let me know, but there needs to be a clear actionable plan which goes beyond just blogging. I’m only saying that because we’re all extremely busy and I unfortunately no longer have time for wishful thinking. (I have to be frank because I spent much time in the past working on social issues, and I have a good idea of what works and what doesn’t)