A decentralized social network which lives on your own device and communicates via local networks or through “Pubs” — servers that let Scuttlebutt users sync their entries with one-another over the internet.

The video on the homepage does a great job of explaining how it works. And it appears to be modeled to match how relationships and interactions take place between people off the web. There’s a catch up mechanism where your Scuttlebutt clients sync entries with one-another. And not just each other’s entries, but any other person’s entries within their social circles.

Scuttlebutt handles blocking in a way that’s interesting too. Since there isn’t any centralized service, all blocking takes place at an individual level. So if I decide not to see entries from someone, I just don’t see them. That person can continue composing entries as they did before and everyone else that would have seen them will, but those entries won’t get synced to my client.

This is the type of platform that I would love to see gain some traction. The idea of catching up with someone at a family get-together, both in conversation and by syncing our Scuttlebutt entries is pretty darn rad. But I just don’t think it’ll ever see much use. The marketing capabilities of the biggest social media companies are just too influential to allow something decentralized to get off the ground.

➝ Source: scuttlebutt.nz