Yup. A bigger point on "small social networks" that it's taken years for me to learn; I've always dabbled in the idea of social networking as its grown up, hack

Yup. A bigger point on "small social networks" that it's taken years for me to learn; I've always dabbled in the idea of social networking as its grown up, hacking together a little thing that looked like twitter before twitter for my friends, etc. Here's the thing that may save you if you're trying to pull one of these together: You can't do it without something else. Meaning, the idea of a "local" Twitter/Facebook killer is great but (if you're me) no one will see the value and you won't be able to onboard ANYONE without some sort of "social carrot" separate and apart from the mere idea of "hey, new social network." (This is one of those ideas that nerds like me just have trouble digesting, so hopefully it helps someone get through this. I've tried and failed this many times over. Will probably do it again :) )