At WordPress.com, we believe short thoughts deserve a real home. Today we’re introducing a new theme built for quick posts, replies, and reblogs: the kind of writing that lives somewhere between a tweet and a blog post, on a site that’s entirely yours.
If you’ve been thinking about starting your own small, private social network with friends or family, or you want a space to post thoughts freely, or to import your historical posts from Twitter, Mastodon, or Bluesky without handing your words over to someone else’s platform, this one’s for you.
Let’s take a look — or sign up now at wordpress.com/social.
Write now, not later
Click the “Compose” button, type your thoughts, watch the 500-character counter, and tap Post. No blank canvas, no formatting toolbar to navigate first. Just a simple prompt, What’s happening?, and a place to answer it.
A profile page that feels familiar
Your profile collects everything in one place: your avatar, bio, and the counts your readers will look for posts, following, followers. Tabs for Posts, Replies, Media, and Likes let visitors browse the way they already know how. A sidebar keeps Home, Explore, and your profile one click away.
Reblogs that actually work
This is the feature we’re most excited about. Click the reblog icon on any post and it flows into your own feed, credited to the original author, automatically. No screenshots, no copy-paste, no lost attribution.
Every post is a real post
Here’s what makes this different from a social app: every quick thought and every reblog is a real WordPress.com post on a site you own, and every reply is saved as a comment. You get the speed and feel of a social feed, with the permanence and portability of a blog. Export it, back it up, migrate it to another host. It’s yours.
Built for the open web
The theme is fully mobile-responsive, so posting from your phone feels just as natural as from your desktop. Tap Compose from wherever the thought hits you.
And because every blog on WordPress.com comes with RSS out of the box, your readers can follow along in whatever feed reader they already use. No algorithm, no app required, just a URL they can subscribe to and content that shows up when you publish it.
Give it a try
Head to wordpress.com/social to sign up for a new blog and get started.
We’d love to hear what you think.
WordPress.com News 
Guess it’s not ready for primetime yet. LOL
Thanks for the heads up! Fixing it now.
You know, sometimes a week has two Mondays! We’ve all been there.
I get a blank page when I go to ~/social I tried clearing my cache but I am still getting a blank page in Safari and in Firefox?
Also, is this similar to P2 or different?
Sorry about that. That’s my fault. Should be working in a couple of minutes.
No theme listed in the chooser to swap one of my sites to (check it out kind of thing.)
And wordpress.com/social is throwing a blank white screen. On my Mac (firefox) and pixel phone (G) shows 404
Yes. That was my fault! I’m sorry. Should be fixed now if you want to try again.
Oh, I see you’re aware. Ignore me.
Sorry for the delay! We should be all set for anyone to visit https://wordpress.com/social
Note to self: Remember to remove the auth check prior to shipping a new feature. 🤪
I had a really fun time working with Dave on this – it became one of those things that I really wanted to have for myself, so I’m excited to see it available publicly now.
This sounds fantastic, I only wish I could easily incorporate it into my own blog rather than starting a new one. Maybe there’s a way to do this with post type or something, but it’s beyond me. Absolutely love where this is headed though.
Thanks for sharing! That’s a great idea. Adding it to our list of things to consider.
Will the main reader feed will be getting any of these feeds? Or both would be separate. I would like it all to be separate pls.
That’s up to you! If you follow the site, it will pull posts into the Reader. If you don’t it won’t.
Noted. Does the site owner have a chance to have a new name on social?
– Also, can we toggle to switch off the socials post off? ( for ex – if the blogger doesn’t switch the name etc & I already follow and vice versa)
The Reader follows sites, not authors, so I don’t believe this should be an issue.
Noted. Thanks
I’d prefer not to create another site.wordpress.com URL when I already have an existing WordPress.com site. It would be much more useful if this short-form blogging feature could be enabled on an existing site or connected directly to a custom domain.
The ability to run it on custom domains is definitely something we would look at as a future option.
Is the Blur theme available to download?
The /social site creation form is very restrictive on names that can be chosen — it looks like they need to be fairly long.
The site generation process froze on me, but it picked up when I clicked a second time on the “create my site” button.
The Blurt theme is not currently available for download. Right now the site creation step only provides sites on *.wordpress.com – so it does need to be something unique.
I can’t get a site registered at all
Can you provide some details on how it failed – we’d be happy to figure out what happened and fix it. You can email directly if you’d like – joseph@automattic.com – with the details.
Sure. I’ll email you shortly
I can’t get it. It won’t approve any sites I try to use.
Me too same issue. Refuses every name
Hey there, as Joseph mentioned above, if you send through some details of how it failed, we’d be happy to investigate. Thanks for trying it out!
What’s the link to the demo?
There isn’t a demo, but it’s fast to get started and play on your own site!
Half baked. You’re not doing yourself any favors by representing something as a service for readers when in fact you’re using your customers to surface suggestions. I don’t want to play. Bye.
Nick
Thanks for being candid about this. I hear you.
It sounds like the experience came across as incomplete and more like an experiment than a finished product, and I understand why that’s frustrating. That’s not the feeling we want anyone to have when they try something new from us.
We are still iterating on this, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of a clear, solid experience upfront. Your feedback is helpful in calling that out, and I appreciate you taking the time to say it plainly.
If you’re open to it down the line, I’d be glad to share updates as the experience matures. But no pressure at all.
This is interesting!
Start up for free . But what are costs after . Have premium now
Same limitations as the existing plans. You’re welcome to stay on the free plan. If for instance you want to add videos, you’d need to upgrade to a paid plan.
I am on a paid plan . Just asking if the new stuff advertised is additional cost
No additional cost. 🙂
I think there’s potential for us to have a new version of P2 here.
One way or another, the character limit shouldn’t exist, since social media platforms themselves have already relaxed that rule.
Thanks for sharing! Maybe we just make it an option? I could see some folks wanting to keep the limit. Constraints can be a good thing.
hey guys I’ve set it up but I don’t know why my name and url is fortunatelymoone6cec64dfa, I mean, I kinda like it, but it’s not what I chose. Thank you!
Thanks for calling this out. I’ll dig in to see what options we can come up with.
Thanks again for flagging this! I’ve fixed a bug that was causing the issue. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to change an existing username. However, if you sign up again, it should use the username you choose on https://wordpress.com/social (make sure you’re logged out when setting it).
Thank you sir thank you word press com
Thanks for the new feature!
I’m currently exploring and was a bit surprised to see the Customizer included since it doesn’t seem to change anything?
Good call out. We should disable that.
Update: Customizer has been disabled. Thanks again for the suggestion!
Having that Tumblr feeling but this time it’s more open.
Three things I’d like to know
Did I forget to say great work. This is very interesting, clean and simple
Currently it provides RSS feeds – using the built-in flexibility from WordPress to provides feeds for the whole site, per author, per tag, and per post.
Because the theme assumes it is running the whole site there isn’t a direct integration option for existing site. How that might work is something that we’d need to give some real thought to. Custom domains is something that we would definitely consider.
Exporting can be done via the regular WordPress export feature.
This sounds fantastic, I only wish I could easily incorporate it into my own blog rather than starting a new one
Would you like to turn these into a recommended feed?
Got this up and running. I really would like to use this theme on a self-hosted site, but this is really cool and nicely developed.
https://myreplies.wordpress.com/
I did notice that the lightbox for attached images doesn’t like portrait orientation. The image ends up beyond the screen and not scrollable.
Thank you for the report about the portrait image issue, I will take a look at that.
This should be fixed now.
Nice, thanks for the quick fix and reply.
Good work on this theme, it is really good!
Hey, I just wanted to come back and update on my personal experience. I sent the email and was immediately given a reply with next steps, I tried creating this the next day and it worked. I’ll link my first post down below.
https://psychiclexi.wordpress.com/2026/05/01/hey-so-this-is-my-first-post-im/
Really interesting update from WordPress.com! The idea of a lightweight, distraction-free space for short posts and personal updates feels very useful in today’s fast social media world.
I’m operating the theme now, and have invited some collaborators…
Test post of a link to an article in atlantic.com shows the entire url — I thought that after a wait, the theme would retrofit to a tumbnail …
My mastodon site and bsky accounts do that…
Looking forward. I like the simplicity!
Thank you.
Thanks for the feedback! Adding this idea to our list. 👍
Noting that this should be implemented now.
Like others, my preference would be to add a Post type within my existing WordPress.com site. But I understand Automattic’s approach here. However, why not allow custom domains? Because a potential, acceptable workaround would be to configure the /social site as a custom subdomain of a user’s existing domain. For example, social.mrulster.com . I could live with that. It would my personal brand consistent across two WordPress sites. What do you think?
You should be able to add a custom domain via wp-admin > Upgrades > Domains.
So you mentioned RSS, can you also send emails when you post, like a typical blog? And can they also share to your Tumblr like WP.com typical blog? Thank you.
Yes, when you send on WordPress.com, if anyone is following the blog, they can set up email notifications, just like how the newsletter feature works on typical WordPress.com blogs. If you have the Tumblr connection activated, it can share there as well!
Sweet! Thanks much! I often thought what it might be like if you did this.
This looks really cool. A way to have your own social media page (sort of), but not on social media. I like that idea. Thanks for making it! I have so many questions (sorry). Is this new WordPress Social a separate thing from everything else here on wordpress.com, or would this just be considered another site like all your others, but just using this theme? Is this set up to work with the WordPress Plans, where some features it may have would require a paid plan, or does this not require a plan for any of it’s features? Is this a block theme, meaning can we add the Categories, and Archive blocks to the sidebar so that people can dig through historical posts? Does this work in the Jetpack app like the rest of our sites we have on our account? Are there theme color options, like a dark mode option maybe? Does this tie in to the WordPress Reader such that people will see your posts there and can follow your page using this theme from there? I hope these questions make sense. Also, you know you’re going to have to get custom domain option on this. I’m looking forward to giving this a try soon.
It’s just like any other site on WordPress.com. Yes, you can upgrade to add video uploads, or to increase storage for instance. This is not a block theme. There are currently no widget areas. Yes, it should work in the Jetpack app, but you’ll probably have more success just using the site in your mobile browser. We’ve not added color options or a dark mode, but those are interesting ideas! If people are following a site, posts will show up in the reader, yes. Thanks for taking interest!
Yes I’m finding it’s better used on the web rather than the app. I probably won’t need high storage for my new blog using this, but could definitely see getting on a plan for a custom domain later.
I was successful in setting up new wordpress.com/social site https://mrulstersocial.wordpress.com . I don’t like the lack of any header image or information the home page; the Author page contains both https://mrulstersocial.wordpress.com/author/mrulster/ . Any thought of enabling a header and profile info on the site’s home page (which is standard for a social media site)?
Indeed, this affected my decision to forgo a custom subdomain for the site (because I would want it to land on the Author not Home page). So, with my primary custom domain registered with Automattic for my primary WordPress.com site https://mrulster.com, I simply added a subdomain forward, so that https://social.mrulster.com forwards to my new social WordPress.com’s author page.
For others who have a custom domain registered and used for their primary WordPress.com site, the instructions for the above are here: https://wordpress.com/support/domains/domain-forwarding/#create-a-domain-forwarding
[I tried to post this message as a reply to my original message above, but I got caught in a riddle loop, “This site requires registration to comment. Visit the original post to log in or create an account and join the conversation.”, even though I was already logged in and the original post doesn’t enable any replies (that I could find).]
Thank you for the feedback. We don’t currently have plans for the header and profile on the home page, but I will add it to our ideas list.
Hey @lessbloat @josephscott Are you collecting feedback/support issues here, the forums or elsewhere?
Here is fine.
While adding an image to the post, I noticed that it only allows uploads from your device and does not include access to the site’s Media Library. Is this intentional?
I also uploaded a screenshot at https://wp.me/ahdQGX-f showing an error message I received. Thanks
Appreciate the feedback! Currently we don’t have support for the media library, but we probably should. Do you remember what file type you attempted to upload when you got the error?
I imported the original image from Pexels to my Media Library. Since I couldn’t access the Media Library, I downloaded the image from my Media Library to my computer and then uploaded it to the post it was a JPEG on upload.
That’s a creative way to make it happen! Nice.
Thanks, but it didn’t really work since, as I noted, it caused an error on upload. “Sorry, you are not allowed to upload this file type.” This is shown in the screenshot link I shared earlier.
In in the end, I had to download the original file directly from Pexels to my computer. It was a JPG and uploaded without a problem. Both images are in my site’s Media Library.
Thank you for noting that. As Dave noted, hooking up the current upload image feature with the WordPress media library is probably the right way to go. I’ve made a note about that.
I’ve started using this theme on a new blog to test it. I’ve noticed it is posting a duplicate of photos when published from the Jetpack app (Android). Not sure if it’s doing it on the web as I haven’t test that yet as of this comment. You can see on my blog at liiinkz.wordpress.com and I’ve verified in media that it uploaded the photo once in the app. Also I wonder if we can get page navigation numbers added to the bottom of the template? Otherwise, so far, I’m liking this theme.
Thank you for the report, I will look into what is happening with the double photos.
This should be fixed for new posts going forward.
I just wanted to compliment @lessbloat (and everyone else) for the civilized and very productive thread.
That’s all. I’ve enjoyed being in the loop. No RSVP needed.
That is very kind of you to say. Thank you!
This is awesome! I noticed there have been several new feature additions on WordPress.com recently. Not only is Social really cool, but there are also other great new things, for example, I also noticed the dark mode feature in my dashboard. Thank you!
Is there someplace we can view your changelog? While I would love to see the code, I’m more interested in following your updates as you make them. I noticed that you made the main column wider recently, which made me wonder what other updates you’ve made.
One thing I really like is that today, I visited another user’s site with the theme, my username and author link appearing in their navigation menu – however, it is broken. The URL associated with it is my author archive on that person’s site, which doesn’t exist so it returns a 404 error. What action on my part as a site visitor (logged in to WP.com) would make an author archive exist for me on the other person’s site? I don’t have a user account on their site. I think the idea is clever, but the current implementation has real flaws.
We don’t have changelog for this feature, but I appreciate you bringing it up. It’s a good idea.
The the second issue, I’d recommend reaching out to us our happiness engineers. I think we might need some additional information and perhaps a screenshot to help diagnose what is going on there.
I tried out #hashtags today on the theme and was really impressed by the implementation.
Using a hashtag dynamically creates a standard post tag in the back end and assigns it to the post. Then, in the post itself, it links to the standard tag archive page, not a search result.
This implementation is really smooth and elegant. To the user it is frictionless, but how it is handled in the CMS functionality of WordPress is complex and does things the WordPress Way.
Very cool.
Great to hear! So glad you’re finding useful. 🙂
Regarding an author archive link for me appearing on another user’s site, it’s pretty simple to recreate. Whenever I visit another user’s site with this theme installed, my username appears in the left navigation bar (when logged in to the WordPress.com network). The URL is linked to is https://subdomain.wordpress.com/author/sauntvalerian/ – the author archive for my username.
Since I don’t have a user account on that site, clicking the link (my username) returns a 404 error when it loads the URL. If anything, that URL should link to the author archive of my own site. If you are grabbing my username, you should also be able to grab the Public Web Address from my WP.com user profile. Doing it in a cool way would append /author/username/ to the end of it so it links to my own author archive correctly. Doing this doesn’t do anything toward creating a network of Blurt sites, but clicking on my own username on another person’s Blurt site and have it link to something valid would be a more meaningful experience.
I think you are simply creating the false author archive URL on the site where I am a guest, instead of pulling from my user profile.
I think the right move is to only show the profile link when you are logged in with an active account on that specific site, even if you are logged into WordPress.com.
found another issue to be aware of, this one is on mobile.
oEmbed for WP sites breaks the layout on mobile. The embed goes wider than the screen, causing side scrolling and then scaling if you pinch zoom.
The UX falls apart completely when side scrolling is present and you load the lightbox to view an image.
You can see a screenshot of the problem here https://myreplies.wordpress.com/2026/05/17/turns-out-that-it-doesnt-handle-embedded-links/
Also, if you view this post on mobile, you will see the problem First-Hand.
Good catch, thank you for reporting that!
Is there a live chat
There isn’t a live chat component.
Feature request: Jetpack Social support for auto publishing to a wp.com social site from our main wp.com site.
Here’s our new social site:
https://stimpunkssocial.wordpress.com
I’ll add my +1 to the bug reports above about “oEmbed breaks layout” and “only show the profile link when you are logged in with an active account on that specific site”.
After we test it some more, we will upgrade to get a custom domain. Deciding between stimpunks.social and social.stimpunks.org as the primary domain.
Hadn’t considered that idea. I like it! Adding it to our list. Thank you for the +1s.