What if your app wants to be social?

Here is a dream: as a software engineer, I want the tech I create to have social features, like publishing content to feeds, letting people follow and comment on content, etc. This is a dream that is older than the internet and sadly, has been co-opted by big tech with the goal to suck and lock our social interactions. But we are in 2025, and I hope there are better ways to proceed, so where should we start?

If you are like me and want our software to "be social", we are lucky! There are not one, not two, but three (or is it four?) ways to make that happen! Well, maybe there are a couple too many, but I'd argue that it is a good thing. This post starts a series of experiments that I want to run as I explore some of these options!

My intention is not to create the final word on this topic, quite the contrary: I want to explore, play, and hopefully make them easier to navigate.

Here is a list of options¹, highly biased towards my liking (e.g., no closed-garden shit):

• The Fediverse (i.e., ActivityPub+)
• Nostr
• The IndieWeb
• Bluesky (i.e., AT-Proto)
• And the oldie but goodies like RSS, iCalendar, and email.

As you can see, my counting was not completely off, and I am sure I am missing some relevant and exciting players, but you need to start somewhere. These are, many times, complex technologies that have been evolving over time and, with this history, a lot of documentation, libraries, formal specifications, dedicated forums, and... Well, it can get confusing! Let's make this clearer and more playful?

--