I’m looking for something where I can do some local community building, I’m guessing mastodon might work but I think the ideal is something like facebook where I can join a group tied to a common idea and a location, as well as being a bit more personal. Is there anything like that?

  • @PixelPassport@lemm.ee
    10•2 years ago

    I think that would be friendica. I haven’t tried it but it uses the ActivityPub protocol so you should even be able to interact with lemmy and mastodon.

  • @fubo@lemmy.world
    4•2 years ago

    Facebook started out as a stalker/creeper site at Harvard, based on the model of the printed “face books” that colleges distributed with photos & names of students — which other students sometimes used to find sexy classmates.

    It then expanded to other US colleges & universities, before opening to the general public.

    This gave it an initial user base that was young, rich, & sexually active.

    It’s that, not the technology, which is difficult to replicate “in the wild”.

      • @fubo@lemmy.world
        5•2 years ago

        I didn’t. I was working in IT at a college when Facebook launched, and they sent email spam to all my users.

        • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠
          4•2 years ago

          Yeah, I was one of the students at those first dozen colleges when it rolled out.

      • @fubo@lemmy.world
        5•2 years ago

        Getting a critical mass of people to sign up for the service depends on having something to offer those people. In the case of Facebook, that offering was initially “this is where you can find your hot classmates” and subsequently “this is where the hot college students hang out”.

        • @oshitwaddup@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyzOP
          3•2 years ago

          I guess that’s a good point. I might just have to be the one to go into some facebook groups I’m interested in and try to get people to move over to friendica or something

      • SeanM
        4•2 years ago

        If you want to start a group with old, poor, and ugly then sign me up!

  • nimrod
    4•2 years ago

    Depending on your needs, take a closer look at Mobilizon (similar to Facebook Groups and Pages) or Bonfire (modular ecosystem with different apps).

    I believe both are great federated tools for community building.

  • Brave Little Hitachi Wand
    4•2 years ago

    Jimmy Page Wales has been working on a beta of trust cafe. It’s not federated yet but he’s open to the idea. It’s still pretty small and sleepy, don’t go there yet. I like it the way it is for now. My best shit gets 8 upvotes lol

  • tinwhiskers
    2•2 years ago

    This may be a silly question, but what is wrong with lemmy for this purpose? You’re already there, friend.