Small net and social networks
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The small net isn't a social network, yet it's deeply social at its
core. Meaningful connections happen naturally. I think it works
thanks to three components: a homepage (Web, Gemini, Gopher,
other?), a feed and an email address. Those three components enable
most of the features a traditional social network offers.

A homepage is a lot like a profile. It introduces who we are, what
we like and anything we'd like to share. While on social media
there's often a "friends" section, on a homepage there are links or
blogrolls. Sometimes even old-school 88x31 buttons. There's little
limit to how creative we can be on a homepage.

While on social media you can subscribe (or follow) someone, with a
homepage, you can subscribe to a feed. Atom/RSS are widely
supported by readers. A homepage doesn't need to limit itself to a
single feed. Maybe there's one for small updates, one for pictures
and one for posts. As the author, you control what you want to
share, and as a user, you decide what you're interested in.

Emails are the perfect DM system. Everyone has an email address. It
doesn't need to be there only to receive email confirmations or
notifications.

So there we have it. A fully decentralized social network based on
widely available tools. Here's a summary:

* URL: your ID
* Homepage: profile
* Feeds: timeline
* Links: friends
* Webrings: Groups
* Emails: DM

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