We don't need a social networking website. We need building websites to be more accessible.

Some may know that I’ve been wanting to build an open-source social networking website for a long time. The trouble with building a social networking site is there is so much to do. Especially if you want to build something that’s on par with the likes of Facebook.

No one wants to help build it with you and it’s hard to build all of it yourself. I really wanted to get something out there, especially with the news on Facebook recently. I thought to myself “this is it, I need to build this now”. Then start building and just get overwhelmed with the amount of work that needs to be done.

There are already open source social platforms out there already, but I thought I could build it better (I was so wrong about this). There are also decentralised social networking platforms that are great, but it isn’t accessible to everyone.

What could we do instead?

This got me thinking, what we need to do is make building a website easier and cheaper. We need a platform that similar to that of myspace where you can build your profile how you like, but more limited so we don’t have a huge mess with flashy gifs.

We then also need the ability to add a custom domain and connect that as easily as possible. People would then be able to have their own personalised website that is also their profile.

They should have full control over what is shown and what isn’t and they should be able to download that code fully to allow them to move to another server if they so choose.

These sites/profiles should be able to connect (or subscribe to) one another. I suspect in a very similar way to how WordPress and JetPack connect to one another.

I guess you could reskin WordPress as a more profile based website and have a platform like wordpress.com that allows users who are a less experienced sign-up and build their profile. More advanced users will download and its places on their server and then start building their profile.