---
title: 'Planetary rethinks social media by creating a collection of communities'
date: '2021-02-08T13:15:44-08:00'
type: post
word_count: 290
char_count: 1782
tokens: 377
categories:
  - Oregon
  - Portland
  - Startups
tags:
  - Community
  - 'evan henshaw-plath'
  - ios
  - 'open source'
  - planetary
  - 'product hunt'
  - rabble
  - scuttlebutt
  - 'social media'
---

# Planetary rethinks social media by creating a collection of communities

While the team building this startup is distributed, CEO [Evan “@rabble” Henshaw-Plath](https://twitter.com/rabble) spends a good deal of time in Portland. So it seemed worth a mentioning that [Planetary](https://www.planetary.social/), a new decentralized entrant in the social media realm, officially launched today.

What makes this newsworthy? Rabble was the first employee at another social network, Twitter. So he’s seen from the inside what it takes to make this sort of thing work.

What’s the concept of Planetary?

> Planetary is all about communities. Share what you love with likeminded people and make the network feel more like you.
> 
> Create and develop new communities with your own set of rules. Each one works as an independent social network.

I had the opportunity to muck around with early versions of the product, and I really like where it’s going. If you’re interested in connecting with me, [please feel free](https://planetary.link/%404j%2BZ7LK00oZyJvLz691AIfUo1816ZPuucGe0L3BT%2Bu8%3D.ggfeed-v1).

Planetary is currently available for iOS. And it’s been built on the open source Scuttlebutt project — to which Planetary also contributes.

> No one company should own the Internet’s public spaces, which is why we’re working with —and contributing back to— the open source Scuttlebutt project. Their core technologies let us recreate a social network experience, but in an open decentralized way that no one organisation can dominate.

For more information, visit [Planetary](https://www.planetary.social/). And if you like what you see, consider upvoting [Planetary on Product Hunt](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/planetary-bcedec54-a0eb-4d1b-b1ec-d423300a2b15).

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