Scuttlebutt: The Social Network of the Future, Available Today

Summary

This article details a way to approach the revamping of scuttlebutt.nz. It aims to set distinct goals for this webpage, then outline new content or design revisions that can help achieve these goals.

Goals

1. Scuttlebutt.nz is the most accessible entrypoint for people curious about the wonders of Scuttlebutt. It's design and content, then, should be accessible and wonder-filled to as many types of people as possible.

2. An incredible culture is forming within the scuttleverse. It is supported by the technical layer in a way unprecedented in a social network,, but its also supported by people actively seeking out this type of community. This culture is an antidote to the depressed, competitive panic of standard social media. Scuttlebutt.nz is a great vehicle to broadcast this culture to people who are seeking something different, but did not know how to articulate it.

3. We have a ridiculous amount of talented developers nad technologists who understand the potential of Scuttlebutt, and want to help build this future, but are unsure where to start. They are desiring more technical specs and documentation for how to build in this space. Scuttlebutt.nz can be the basecamp for these adventurers.

My Vision, In Short

We create a classic landing page for scuttlebutt.nz that presents the idea of SSB in as simple and elegant of a way as possible. We remove any auxillary/unnecessary information from this landing page, and remove any formatting that could overwhelm or confuse non-technical vistors. The landing page would then offer two entrypoints into the larger ssb-handbook: One for people curious about a new social network, and one for people eager to build upon this network.

For those non-technical but curious, we create resources that communicate the spirit and excitement of SSB without needing to know much technical stuff. Additionally, we make resources that illustrate why this technical stuff is important (i.e. why decentralized matters, and what exactly it means for something to be centralized). We also proudly lean into the culture that's growing here, and use this as defining elements in our content. We do not try to present SSB as a network that works for all people. We present it as radical and lovely and strange as it actually is, and set our audience to be folks looking for their tribe, their people, who didn't realize this type of tribe could exist.

For the technical-minded we flesh out the documentation for how all of this works, with tutorials for entry points into development (how to set up your git-ssb repo, how to set up your own pub, how to build a simple module for patchbay, etc.). We consolidate the blog posts and documentation already around the scuttleverse and (with permission) republish it on this central homepage.

Lastly, we research how the internet and social media is used by different communities/users today, and document this research. If we want to appeal to artists and generl non-devs, then we should understand more what their life is like now, and build up a body of research around how people interact with the online, and what makes them exhausted and depressed and looking for something else. With these interviews and studies available to many people, we can better build applications that answer the needs of these communities and build instructional content that speaks to their heart.

My Vision, In List Form

1. Build a new landing page for Scuttlebutt that elegantly introduces the concept of SSB then offers two paths to learn more: one for people who want to join this community, and one for people who want to build for this community.

2. Develop stronger, and more accessible, content for the non-dev, non-techie identifying folks who want to join this community.

3. Consolidate our current tech documentation and then flesh it out and make it more accessible to techie-identifying folks who want to build out the network more.

4. Build up a body of research into the lives and needs of different groups of people: artists, musicians, scene-supporters, fans, to see how they exist online today, and what their dream of a connected future would be. Use this research to build out our clients and protocols to better answer the needs of these communities, and to write up content that better speaks to these peer types.

Each of these are rich enough projects to warrant their own grant, but connect together to make an incredible strong whole. I would propose we take on each one individually, but aware of the grander vision. Personally, I know that I could not help much with point 3--but would benefit from it if other people were able to tackle it. I can help with points 1,2, and 4 and in the following pages write out my proposals for each.

Individual Proposals

1. New Landing Page
2. Non-Dev Resources
3. Dev Resources
4. Research into Communities