“I’d love to see more experimentation and investment in technology that doesn’t have a product monetizable outcome,” says Danielle Robinson, director of Code for Science & Society, a nonprofit that supports the development of open-source technology built in the public interest. Kazemi ran Friend Camp and wrote the accompanying guide during his year as a Mozilla Open Web Fellow, and Code for Science & Society was his host organization. Robinson became an early user of Friend Camp, which she compares to “pre-Friendster” internet communities like Makeoutclub, started in 1999, as well as certain aspects of the moms’ Facebook groups she joined after having her first kid. “Those groups were great when they were like 200 people, and quickly turned into terrible cesspools when they grew to 600 people and up,” she says of the latter. “Friend Camp reminds me of the best, most supportive part of those interactions, and that early internet experience of connecting with people.”
—Meg Miller, in “A Software Engineer’s Advice for Saving Social Media? Keep It Small”