







Paid groups, bespoke social networks, and the meaning of community for internet-native businesses.
Build Community Online with Decentralized Tools | Blacksky
Decentralized tools to build community online. The intercommunal net where communities govern, pool funds and stay safe on their own terms.

Build Community Online with Decentralized Tools | Blacksky
Decentralized tools to build community online. The intercommunal net where communities govern, pool funds and stay safe on their own terms.

The future of the internet is likely smaller communities, with a focus on curated experiences
As brands look to hold onto the internet of the past, the term “community” will become a loaded word.

A New Social
Our mission is to liberate people's networks from their platforms, enabling The Last Network Effect and leveling the playing field across the open social web.
A New Social
Our mission is to liberate people's networks from their platforms, enabling The Last Network Effect and leveling the playing field across the open social web.
Where Tech Companies Build Communities
The customizable, scalable community platform powering over 22,000 communities. Create knowledge through conversation.

co/infra
Free, public infrastructure for the open social web, run as a community cooperative. - co/infra
When Community Becomes Your Competitive Advantage
If a company can transition from simply delivering a product to building a community, they can unlock extraordinary competitive advantages and create a superior business model. In fact, strong communities help support the ideal business model. Specifically: • Enthusiastic members help acquire new members, resulting in lower customer acquisition costs and a tight viral loop. • Members of a community are loath to abandon it, resulting in increased member retention and therefore improved lifetime value. • Members of a community support other members in that community, resulting in high gross margins due to a lower cost of service. The result of this are very real network effects: as engagement grows, the community gets smarter, faster to respond, more globally available, and generates more value.

Online communities and social communities: a primer
What are online communities and for what goals can they be used? A primer with plenty of community marketing and management tips.

Come for the tool, stay for the network
programming, philosophy, history, internet, startups
Piloting paid memberships for the open social web! - Leaflet Lab Notes
Lab Notes 035: building monetization features for Leaflet creators, starting with paid memberships — tell us if you'd like to be the first to try, and what else you need!
The Wealth of Networks
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom is a book by Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler published by Yale University Press on April 3, 2006. The book has been recognized as one of the most influential works of its time concerning the rise and impact of the Internet on the society, particularly in the sphere of economics. It also helped popularize the term Benkler coined few years earlier, the commons-based peer production (CBPP).

Rudy Fraser on Blacksky, Mutual Aid & Reclaiming Social Media
What people in the global majority need from networks
Or really, what some people in the global majority/Majority World need from networks, but that's too long for a headline.

Institute of Network Cultures | Ben Grosser: Planning the Exodus from Platform Realism
Thinking about the current state of platforms, I’m reminded of Mark Fisher’s articulation of capitalist realism, the idea that we don’t imagine or build alternatives to capitalism because we can no longer envision a world without it. Big tech, in a few short years, has managed to instill within the public a similar state of platform realism. So many are unable to imagine how global communication, media, search, etc. could ever function without the platforms. Despite a growing malaise, it’s become difficult for many to consider a world without big tech platforms as a viable conception of the future.

Reclaiming Social Spaces: Are Open Source Platforms a Path for More Human Connection?
What if social media platforms were built to serve their communities, not billionaires? Join us with the founders of Blacksky as we explore the potential of open source social media.
