Reclaiming Connection: Building Decentralized Social Networks with Web Fundamentals

July 1, 2025 by Dan Quellhorst

The modern social web has become increasingly centralized, controlled by a handful of platforms that mediate our connections, filter our information, and monetize our attention. But what if there were another way? What if the fundamental technologies of the internet already contained everything we need to build social networks that are open, interconnected, and controlled by the people who use them?

A decentralized web of connections between people, powered by open standards

This article explores how we can use the core building blocks of the web—URLs, HTML, CSS, and open standards—to create decentralized social networks that work for people, not platforms. These approaches can work for any group of adults who share a common context: professional networks, alumni associations, interest-based communities, local neighborhoods, and yes, academic institutions.

The Foundation: Core Internet Protocols as Social Infrastructure

Before Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, the internet already had powerful social tools built into its foundation:

These technologies already provide the infrastructure for a decentralized social web. What's been missing is the layer that makes social connections explicit, machine-readable, and easy to implement.

The Social Graph: From FOAF to Modern Microformats

In the early 2000s, the "Friend of a Friend" (FOAF) project pioneered the concept of machine-readable social relationships. While ahead of its time, FOAF was complex for average users to implement. Today, we have simpler alternatives that achieve similar goals.

<div class="h-card">
  <img class="u-photo" src="/images/profile.jpg" alt="Dan Quellhorst" />
  <a class="p-name u-url" href="https://quellhorst.com">Dan Quellhorst</a>
  <p class="p-note">Software engineering, DevOps, and cloud infrastructure</p>
</div>
      

<a href="https://alex-tech-blog.com" rel="friend colleague">Alex's Tech Blog</a>
<a href="https://professional-mentor.com" rel="mentor">Sarah Johnson</a>
      

These technologies enable machine-readable social connections without requiring users to join centralized platforms. They work with standard web technologies and can be implemented by anyone with basic web development skills.

The Modern Connection Directory: Reimagining the Blogroll

Most of us are too young to remember the "blogroll"—a list of recommended sites that bloggers would display prominently on their personal websites. This simple feature created an early social graph of the web, helping people discover new content through trusted connections.

A modern connection directory takes this concept and enhances it with contemporary design and semantic markup. I've implemented a live example in the Connection Directory on this site's homepage, showing how these principles can be applied with modern design while maintaining machine-readable structure.

<section class="connection-directory">
  <h3>My Network</h3>
  
  <div class="connection-group">
    <h4>Professional Collaborators</h4>
    <ul class="connection-list">
      <li>
        <div class="h-card">
          <img class="u-photo" src="/connections/james.jpg" alt="James Chen" />
          <a class="p-name u-url" href="https://jameschen.dev" rel="colleague">James Chen</a>
          <span class="p-category">DevOps</span>
        </div>
      </li>
      <!-- More connections... -->
    </ul>
  </div>
  
  <div class="connection-group">
    <h4>Industry Experts I Follow</h4>
    <ul class="connection-list">
      <li>
        <div class="h-card">
          <img class="u-photo" src="/connections/maria.jpg" alt="Maria Lopez" />
          <a class="p-name u-url" href="https://marialopez.tech" rel="contact">Maria Lopez</a>
          <span class="p-category">Cloud Architecture</span>
        </div>
      </li>
      <!-- More connections... -->
    </ul>
  </div>
</section>
      

This modern implementation enhances the traditional blogroll with:

• Rich connection information with profile photos and categories
• Machine-readable relationship types (colleague, friend, etc.)
• Grouping that provides context for different types of connections
• Semantic markup that makes the data accessible to tools and agents

Implementation in Various Communities

This approach to decentralized social networking can be implemented in any community where members share a common context:

For organizations like universities, this approach offers particular advantages. Institutions can provide stable subdomains (e.g., jane-smith.alumni.university.edu) that persist after graduation, giving students a permanent digital identity associated with their educational community while respecting their autonomy.

But the same principles apply to any community. A professional association could offer members persistent profiles with relationship markup. A neighborhood association could create a local directory of skills and interests. The technical foundation remains the same regardless of the specific community.

Enabling Intelligent Discovery Without Surveillance

One advantage of centralized social platforms is their ability to recommend content and connections. But this typically comes at the cost of invasive tracking and opaque algorithms. A decentralized approach can enable similar intelligence without the privacy concerns.

This approach shifts the intelligence from centralized black-box algorithms to a combination of:

• Explicit human curation (through connection directories)
• Community-governed discovery mechanisms
• Personal agents working on behalf of individual users

The result is a system that can provide smart discovery and filtering without requiring surveillance or centralized control.

Technical Recipe: Getting Started

If you're interested in implementing these ideas, here's a practical starting point:

# Options in order of increasing control:
- Profile on existing IndieWeb-compatible platform
- Subdomain on community/organizational domain
- Your own domain with basic hosting
      

<!-- Minimum viable h-card -->
<div class="h-card">
  <img class="u-photo" src="/images/me.jpg" alt="Your Name" />
  <a class="p-name u-url" href="https://your-site.com">Your Name</a>
  <p class="p-note">Brief description of who you are</p>
</div>
      

<section class="connections h-feed">
  <h2>My Network</h2>
  <!-- For each connection -->
  <div class="h-card">
    <a class="p-name u-url" href="https://their-site.com" rel="friend colleague">Their Name</a>
  </div>
</section>
      

<!-- In your page head -->
<link rel="webmention" href="https://webmention.io/yourdomain.com/webmention" />

<!-- Where you want to display webmentions -->
<div class="webmentions">
  <h3>Responses</h3>
  <div id="webmentions-container"></div>
</div>

<!-- JavaScript to fetch and display webmentions -->
<script src="https://webmention.io/js/webmention.js"></script>
      

These basic building blocks can be enhanced and expanded based on your specific needs and technical comfort level. The key is starting with the fundamentals and building incrementally.

Challenges and Solutions

Building decentralized social networks isn't without challenges. Here are some common obstacles and potential solutions:

The key principle in addressing these challenges is to start small, focus on real utility, and build incrementally. A decentralized social network doesn't need to replace Facebook or LinkedIn entirely to be valuable—it just needs to serve specific needs better than the alternatives.

Inclusive Bridging: Connecting Rather Than Replacing

Perhaps the most important principle for successful decentralized social networking is focusing on inclusive bridges rather than exclusive alternatives. The goal shouldn't be to replace existing platforms entirely, but to create open connections between different communities and systems.

This approach recognizes that people participate in multiple communities and have different technical comfort levels. By focusing on bridges and interoperability, we can create a more connected web without requiring everyone to adopt the same tools or approaches.

The Path Forward: Small Steps Toward a More Connected Web

Building a more decentralized, human-centered social web won't happen overnight. It requires incremental progress across multiple dimensions:

The good news is that none of these steps require massive coordination or investment. Individuals and small communities can start implementing these principles today, creating value without waiting for others to adopt the same approach.

Conclusion: Reclaiming the Social Web

The original vision of the web was one of interconnected resources under diverse control—a truly decentralized system where anyone could participate and no single entity dominated. The rise of social media platforms has moved us away from that vision, creating centralized choke points that mediate our connections and control our data.

By returning to the fundamental technologies of the web and enhancing them with modern approaches like microformats and semantic markup, we can reclaim the social web as a space for human connection that respects individual agency and community values.

This isn't about creating a utopian alternative to existing platforms. It's about building the web we want to see—one connection, one community, one bridge at a time. The technologies exist. The principles are clear. All that's needed is for people to start implementing them in their own contexts.

Whether you're part of a university community, a professional network, a neighborhood association, or any other group of people with shared context, you can start building a more connected, more human web today.