For this purpose, he created the OpenMicroBlogging protocol, which, although limited, allowed Identi.ca users to communicate with users of other Laconica instances, like Leo Laporte's TWiT Army. In August 2009, Laconica - both the company and the software - was renamed to StatusNet. The same year they began developing OStatus as a more advanced protocol for federation, which by March 2010 had allowed different StatusNet instances to act almost as a single social network.