Universities have experimented with more private social networks. I remember YikYak back in my uni days. They either don’t have the resource to spin one up or they don’t know about it.
Because of the network effect and content aggregation. With emails you just want to reach a specific person, with public posts you want to reach as many people as possible. But I also think the whole ownership and control problem of centralized social networks wasn’t as apparent as it is now.
Back in my uni days (1997-01) my uni ran its own Usenet server.
Don’t think it carried the alt.binaries, but did have groups specifically for the uni. Sadly only a small handful of people used it.
Now this is the kind of growth factor the Fediverse needs, not Threads.
Removed by mod
Universities have experimented with more private social networks. I remember YikYak back in my uni days. They either don’t have the resource to spin one up or they don’t know about it.
Might not qualify as a social network, but university hosted IRC servers were a thing once.
https://social.edu.nl/@MishaVelthuis/110673361080930801
Because of the network effect and content aggregation. With emails you just want to reach a specific person, with public posts you want to reach as many people as possible. But I also think the whole ownership and control problem of centralized social networks wasn’t as apparent as it is now.
Back in my uni days (1997-01) my uni ran its own Usenet server. Don’t think it carried the alt.binaries, but did have groups specifically for the uni. Sadly only a small handful of people used it.