Welcome to Connected Places, a place for news and analysis about the new generation of social networks, build on open protocols, such as Bluesky and the fediverse. The site is named Connected Places, because that is what the technology that powers these networks does: it builds digital places that connect people.
The internet as used by the majority of people consists of some dozen places, big platforms with millions or billions or so users. TikTok, Instagram and Facebook have become household names. These platforms are siloed places, with little to no connectivity between, often described as walled gardens. Within the walled gardens, algorithmic feeds flatten the network. A sense of community, a sense of place within a larger group of people, got replaced by a personalised recommendation engine.
Over the last decade, the internet has transitioned away from being a wild ecosystem full of websites. The rise of Big Tech platforms has shrunk the amount of places on the internet. And the platforms that came out victorious and got all the riches did their hardest to reduce the amount of unique and varied cultures on their platform as well. What’s left now is a smaller internet, disconnected from itself.
The emerging generation of social networks build on open internet protocols, such as the fediverse and the ATmosphere, have radically different ideas on how social networks should be constructed. Technical terms like decentralisation and federation all facilitate the core of what these new networks are: social places that are connected with each other, and open for anyone to join.
The value that networks like Bluesky and the fediverse have is in that they give people the ability to build their own digital places, and connect with others online, without being beholden to the tech oligarchs. This is why I write this site, because I care about open and Connected Places online.