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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
While many are focused on news, there are also some nonprofits like The News Literacy Project and education-focused news site The 74, in this debut list.
“As we said in the earlier part of this year, we will be embracing ActivityPub into Flipboard and effectively reworking our whole backend to that,” explained Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, in a conversation with TechCrunch about the coming changes. He says the company had first integrated with Mastodon at the API level, so users could log into their Mastodon accounts, see those posts and interact with others in the fediverse from Flipboard. “But you had to have an account on all those platforms,” McCue noted.
“What we’re announcing on Monday is basically our roadmap for how we will be rolling out ActivityPub, and effectively tearing down the walls around our own walled garden,” he added.
With the changes, when Flipboard users curate an article or post into one of their social magazines on Flipboard’s app, with an optional comment, that “flip,” as it’s called, will also appear as a post on their new flipboard.com Mastodon account.
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33501
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
He says the company had first integrated with Mastodon at the API level, so users could log into their Mastodon accounts, see those posts and interact with others in the fediverse from Flipboard. “But you had to have an account on all those platforms,” McCue noted.
“What we’re announcing on Monday is basically our roadmap for how we will be rolling out ActivityPub, and effectively tearing down the walls around our own walled garden,” he added.
With the changes, when Flipboard users curate an article or post into one of their social magazines on Flipboard’s app, with an optional comment, that “flip,” as it’s called, will also appear as a post on their new flipboard.com Mastodon account. This is not the same server as Flipboard had set up before (flipboard.social), which was a place to experiment with decentralized social media. Instead, it’s the Flipboard app itself that’s now connected to the fediverse.
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33502
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
He says the company had first integrated with Mastodon at the API level, so users could log into their Mastodon accounts, see those posts and interact with others in the fediverse from Flipboard. “But you had to have an account on all those platforms,” McCue noted.
“What we’re announcing on Monday is basically our roadmap for how we will be rolling out ActivityPub, and effectively tearing down the walls around our own walled garden,” he added.
With the changes, when Flipboard users curate an article or post into one of their social magazines on Flipboard’s app, with an optional comment, that “flip,” as it’s called, will also appear as a post on their new flipboard.com Mastodon account. This is not the same server as Flipboard had set up before (flipboard.social), which was a place to experiment with decentralized social media. Instead, it’s the Flipboard app itself that’s now connected to the fediverse. Users’ posts on Mastodon will include a link both to the article being flipped and to the user’s Flipboard magazine, while the user profile will point to their Flipboard profile page.
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33503
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
“But you had to have an account on all those platforms,” McCue noted.
“What we’re announcing on Monday is basically our roadmap for how we will be rolling out ActivityPub, and effectively tearing down the walls around our own walled garden,” he added.
With the changes, when Flipboard users curate an article or post into one of their social magazines on Flipboard’s app, with an optional comment, that “flip,” as it’s called, will also appear as a post on their new flipboard.com Mastodon account. This is not the same server as Flipboard had set up before (flipboard.social), which was a place to experiment with decentralized social media. Instead, it’s the Flipboard app itself that’s now connected to the fediverse. Users’ posts on Mastodon will include a link both to the article being flipped and to the user’s Flipboard magazine, while the user profile will point to their Flipboard profile page.
As this rolls out, all Flipboard users will have one Flipboard.com account connected to the fediverse, even if they host numerous Flipboard magazines.
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33504
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
With the changes, when Flipboard users curate an article or post into one of their social magazines on Flipboard’s app, with an optional comment, that “flip,” as it’s called, will also appear as a post on their new flipboard.com Mastodon account. This is not the same server as Flipboard had set up before (flipboard.social), which was a place to experiment with decentralized social media. Instead, it’s the Flipboard app itself that’s now connected to the fediverse. Users’ posts on Mastodon will include a link both to the article being flipped and to the user’s Flipboard magazine, while the user profile will point to their Flipboard profile page.
As this rolls out, all Flipboard users will have one Flipboard.com account connected to the fediverse, even if they host numerous Flipboard magazines. That’s not ideal as their magazines may focus on different topics. But McCue believes that Mastodon could one day support a notion of sub-feeds that would allow more differentiation.
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33505
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
This is not the same server as Flipboard had set up before (flipboard.social), which was a place to experiment with decentralized social media. Instead, it’s the Flipboard app itself that’s now connected to the fediverse. Users’ posts on Mastodon will include a link both to the article being flipped and to the user’s Flipboard magazine, while the user profile will point to their Flipboard profile page.
As this rolls out, all Flipboard users will have one Flipboard.com account connected to the fediverse, even if they host numerous Flipboard magazines. That’s not ideal as their magazines may focus on different topics. But McCue believes that Mastodon could one day support a notion of sub-feeds that would allow more differentiation.
Users will be able to opt out of having their “flips” posted on Mastodon, but being opted-in will be the default experience. The company expects to have all its user accounts connected to the fediverse by the end of January.
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33506
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
Instead, it’s the Flipboard app itself that’s now connected to the fediverse. Users’ posts on Mastodon will include a link both to the article being flipped and to the user’s Flipboard magazine, while the user profile will point to their Flipboard profile page.
As this rolls out, all Flipboard users will have one Flipboard.com account connected to the fediverse, even if they host numerous Flipboard magazines. That’s not ideal as their magazines may focus on different topics. But McCue believes that Mastodon could one day support a notion of sub-feeds that would allow more differentiation.
Users will be able to opt out of having their “flips” posted on Mastodon, but being opted-in will be the default experience. The company expects to have all its user accounts connected to the fediverse by the end of January. (This won’t impact any magazines set to “private” on Flipboard. Those will remain private, McCue notes.)
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33507
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
Users’ posts on Mastodon will include a link both to the article being flipped and to the user’s Flipboard magazine, while the user profile will point to their Flipboard profile page.
As this rolls out, all Flipboard users will have one Flipboard.com account connected to the fediverse, even if they host numerous Flipboard magazines. That’s not ideal as their magazines may focus on different topics. But McCue believes that Mastodon could one day support a notion of sub-feeds that would allow more differentiation.
Users will be able to opt out of having their “flips” posted on Mastodon, but being opted-in will be the default experience. The company expects to have all its user accounts connected to the fediverse by the end of January. (This won’t impact any magazines set to “private” on Flipboard. Those will remain private, McCue notes.)
Today, Flipboard has over 10,000 publishers of social magazines on its app and over a quarter million individuals who are curating content using Flipboard’s app.
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33508
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
As this rolls out, all Flipboard users will have one Flipboard.com account connected to the fediverse, even if they host numerous Flipboard magazines. That’s not ideal as their magazines may focus on different topics. But McCue believes that Mastodon could one day support a notion of sub-feeds that would allow more differentiation.
Users will be able to opt out of having their “flips” posted on Mastodon, but being opted-in will be the default experience. The company expects to have all its user accounts connected to the fediverse by the end of January. (This won’t impact any magazines set to “private” on Flipboard. Those will remain private, McCue notes.)
Today, Flipboard has over 10,000 publishers of social magazines on its app and over a quarter million individuals who are curating content using Flipboard’s app. Given that Mastodon today has around 1.5 million monthly active users, this could be a notable bump for the fediverse when Flipboard’s integration fully rolls out, assuming Flipboard’s users don’t opt out.
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33509
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
That’s not ideal as their magazines may focus on different topics. But McCue believes that Mastodon could one day support a notion of sub-feeds that would allow more differentiation.
Users will be able to opt out of having their “flips” posted on Mastodon, but being opted-in will be the default experience. The company expects to have all its user accounts connected to the fediverse by the end of January. (This won’t impact any magazines set to “private” on Flipboard. Those will remain private, McCue notes.)
Today, Flipboard has over 10,000 publishers of social magazines on its app and over a quarter million individuals who are curating content using Flipboard’s app. Given that Mastodon today has around 1.5 million monthly active users, this could be a notable bump for the fediverse when Flipboard’s integration fully rolls out, assuming Flipboard’s users don’t opt out.
Flipboard is only one of now several companies that has embraced decentralized social media.
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33510
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
But McCue believes that Mastodon could one day support a notion of sub-feeds that would allow more differentiation.
Users will be able to opt out of having their “flips” posted on Mastodon, but being opted-in will be the default experience. The company expects to have all its user accounts connected to the fediverse by the end of January. (This won’t impact any magazines set to “private” on Flipboard. Those will remain private, McCue notes.)
Today, Flipboard has over 10,000 publishers of social magazines on its app and over a quarter million individuals who are curating content using Flipboard’s app. Given that Mastodon today has around 1.5 million monthly active users, this could be a notable bump for the fediverse when Flipboard’s integration fully rolls out, assuming Flipboard’s users don’t opt out.
Flipboard is only one of now several companies that has embraced decentralized social media. In addition to X rival Instagram Threads, which began testing ActivityPub last week, other tech companies are moving in this direction, as well.
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33511
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
The company expects to have all its user accounts connected to the fediverse by the end of January. (This won’t impact any magazines set to “private” on Flipboard. Those will remain private, McCue notes.)
Today, Flipboard has over 10,000 publishers of social magazines on its app and over a quarter million individuals who are curating content using Flipboard’s app. Given that Mastodon today has around 1.5 million monthly active users, this could be a notable bump for the fediverse when Flipboard’s integration fully rolls out, assuming Flipboard’s users don’t opt out.
Flipboard is only one of now several companies that has embraced decentralized social media. In addition to X rival Instagram Threads, which began testing ActivityPub last week, other tech companies are moving in this direction, as well. Automattic made it possible for all WordPress.org and WordPress.com blogs to become federated, and said it’s working on doing the same with Tumblr next year.
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33512
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
(This won’t impact any magazines set to “private” on Flipboard. Those will remain private, McCue notes.)
Today, Flipboard has over 10,000 publishers of social magazines on its app and over a quarter million individuals who are curating content using Flipboard’s app. Given that Mastodon today has around 1.5 million monthly active users, this could be a notable bump for the fediverse when Flipboard’s integration fully rolls out, assuming Flipboard’s users don’t opt out.
Flipboard is only one of now several companies that has embraced decentralized social media. In addition to X rival Instagram Threads, which began testing ActivityPub last week, other tech companies are moving in this direction, as well. Automattic made it possible for all WordPress.org and WordPress.com blogs to become federated, and said it’s working on doing the same with Tumblr next year. Medium and Mozilla have also set up their own servers, and the latter backed a Mastodon client called Mammoth, too.
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33513
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
Those will remain private, McCue notes.)
Today, Flipboard has over 10,000 publishers of social magazines on its app and over a quarter million individuals who are curating content using Flipboard’s app. Given that Mastodon today has around 1.5 million monthly active users, this could be a notable bump for the fediverse when Flipboard’s integration fully rolls out, assuming Flipboard’s users don’t opt out.
Flipboard is only one of now several companies that has embraced decentralized social media. In addition to X rival Instagram Threads, which began testing ActivityPub last week, other tech companies are moving in this direction, as well. Automattic made it possible for all WordPress.org and WordPress.com blogs to become federated, and said it’s working on doing the same with Tumblr next year. Medium and Mozilla have also set up their own servers, and the latter backed a Mastodon client called Mammoth, too.
For Flipboard, after integrating its back end with the fediverse, the company may reconsider what its front end should look like, too, for this new age of social media.
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33514
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
Given that Mastodon today has around 1.5 million monthly active users, this could be a notable bump for the fediverse when Flipboard’s integration fully rolls out, assuming Flipboard’s users don’t opt out.
Flipboard is only one of now several companies that has embraced decentralized social media. In addition to X rival Instagram Threads, which began testing ActivityPub last week, other tech companies are moving in this direction, as well. Automattic made it possible for all WordPress.org and WordPress.com blogs to become federated, and said it’s working on doing the same with Tumblr next year. Medium and Mozilla have also set up their own servers, and the latter backed a Mastodon client called Mammoth, too.
For Flipboard, after integrating its back end with the fediverse, the company may reconsider what its front end should look like, too, for this new age of social media.
“The front end was built at a time pre-federation,” noted McCue. “What are the implications of federation in the front end?
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33515
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
Flipboard is only one of now several companies that has embraced decentralized social media. In addition to X rival Instagram Threads, which began testing ActivityPub last week, other tech companies are moving in this direction, as well. Automattic made it possible for all WordPress.org and WordPress.com blogs to become federated, and said it’s working on doing the same with Tumblr next year. Medium and Mozilla have also set up their own servers, and the latter backed a Mastodon client called Mammoth, too.
For Flipboard, after integrating its back end with the fediverse, the company may reconsider what its front end should look like, too, for this new age of social media.
“The front end was built at a time pre-federation,” noted McCue. “What are the implications of federation in the front end? How do we think about curation and all the things, all the capabilities and tools that we’ve created over the years?
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33516
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
Flipboard is only one of now several companies that has embraced decentralized social media. In addition to X rival Instagram Threads, which began testing ActivityPub last week, other tech companies are moving in this direction, as well. Automattic made it possible for all WordPress.org and WordPress.com blogs to become federated, and said it’s working on doing the same with Tumblr next year. Medium and Mozilla have also set up their own servers, and the latter backed a Mastodon client called Mammoth, too.
For Flipboard, after integrating its back end with the fediverse, the company may reconsider what its front end should look like, too, for this new age of social media.
“The front end was built at a time pre-federation,” noted McCue. “What are the implications of federation in the front end? How do we think about curation and all the things, all the capabilities and tools that we’ve created over the years? How does that work in a world that’s federated, and from a user experience point of view?
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33517
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
Automattic made it possible for all WordPress.org and WordPress.com blogs to become federated, and said it’s working on doing the same with Tumblr next year. Medium and Mozilla have also set up their own servers, and the latter backed a Mastodon client called Mammoth, too.
For Flipboard, after integrating its back end with the fediverse, the company may reconsider what its front end should look like, too, for this new age of social media.
“The front end was built at a time pre-federation,” noted McCue. “What are the implications of federation in the front end? How do we think about curation and all the things, all the capabilities and tools that we’ve created over the years? How does that work in a world that’s federated, and from a user experience point of view? That is a great question,” he said.
Despite all the changes, Flipboard is not in need of raising funds to support its new developments.
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33518
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
Medium and Mozilla have also set up their own servers, and the latter backed a Mastodon client called Mammoth, too.
For Flipboard, after integrating its back end with the fediverse, the company may reconsider what its front end should look like, too, for this new age of social media.
“The front end was built at a time pre-federation,” noted McCue. “What are the implications of federation in the front end? How do we think about curation and all the things, all the capabilities and tools that we’ve created over the years? How does that work in a world that’s federated, and from a user experience point of view? That is a great question,” he said.
Despite all the changes, Flipboard is not in need of raising funds to support its new developments. It’s running off the profits of its own business as it moves in this direction.
The company is also betting on the fact that federated social media may only be the beginning of what’s to come for the web overall.
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33519
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
For Flipboard, after integrating its back end with the fediverse, the company may reconsider what its front end should look like, too, for this new age of social media.
“The front end was built at a time pre-federation,” noted McCue. “What are the implications of federation in the front end? How do we think about curation and all the things, all the capabilities and tools that we’ve created over the years? How does that work in a world that’s federated, and from a user experience point of view? That is a great question,” he said.
Despite all the changes, Flipboard is not in need of raising funds to support its new developments. It’s running off the profits of its own business as it moves in this direction.
The company is also betting on the fact that federated social media may only be the beginning of what’s to come for the web overall.
“I saw what was happening with ActivityPub and it became very clear to me that this is the future of the web, period,” McCue said.
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33520
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
“The front end was built at a time pre-federation,” noted McCue. “What are the implications of federation in the front end? How do we think about curation and all the things, all the capabilities and tools that we’ve created over the years? How does that work in a world that’s federated, and from a user experience point of view? That is a great question,” he said.
Despite all the changes, Flipboard is not in need of raising funds to support its new developments. It’s running off the profits of its own business as it moves in this direction.
The company is also betting on the fact that federated social media may only be the beginning of what’s to come for the web overall.
“I saw what was happening with ActivityPub and it became very clear to me that this is the future of the web, period,” McCue said. “The social web is people linking to pages and people linking to people.
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33521
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
“The front end was built at a time pre-federation,” noted McCue. “What are the implications of federation in the front end? How do we think about curation and all the things, all the capabilities and tools that we’ve created over the years? How does that work in a world that’s federated, and from a user experience point of view? That is a great question,” he said.
Despite all the changes, Flipboard is not in need of raising funds to support its new developments. It’s running off the profits of its own business as it moves in this direction.
The company is also betting on the fact that federated social media may only be the beginning of what’s to come for the web overall.
“I saw what was happening with ActivityPub and it became very clear to me that this is the future of the web, period,” McCue said. “The social web is people linking to pages and people linking to people. So it’s a much more intricate web.”
He sees Flipboard as a part of that opportunity.
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33522
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
How do we think about curation and all the things, all the capabilities and tools that we’ve created over the years? How does that work in a world that’s federated, and from a user experience point of view? That is a great question,” he said.
Despite all the changes, Flipboard is not in need of raising funds to support its new developments. It’s running off the profits of its own business as it moves in this direction.
The company is also betting on the fact that federated social media may only be the beginning of what’s to come for the web overall.
“I saw what was happening with ActivityPub and it became very clear to me that this is the future of the web, period,” McCue said. “The social web is people linking to pages and people linking to people. So it’s a much more intricate web.”
He sees Flipboard as a part of that opportunity. “There needs to be a way to do discovery and search and have it be beautiful and simple and easy to use.
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33523
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Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
How does that work in a world that’s federated, and from a user experience point of view? That is a great question,” he said.
Despite all the changes, Flipboard is not in need of raising funds to support its new developments. It’s running off the profits of its own business as it moves in this direction.
The company is also betting on the fact that federated social media may only be the beginning of what’s to come for the web overall.
“I saw what was happening with ActivityPub and it became very clear to me that this is the future of the web, period,” McCue said. “The social web is people linking to pages and people linking to people. So it’s a much more intricate web.”
He sees Flipboard as a part of that opportunity. “There needs to be a way to do discovery and search and have it be beautiful and simple and easy to use. That is what we’re focused on,” McCue added.
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33524
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
There’s this picture from more than a decade ago that still goes viral on the web every once in a while. You’ve probably seen it: it was created by the venture capitalist Andrew Parker, and it compares a few dozen startups with subsections of Craigslist. Back then, Craigslist was all things to all people online, and a generation of startups figured they could do part of the job a lot better.
Some of those companies failed — sometimes because of Craigslist! — but some also became gigantically successful. Airbnb worked because it was more searchable, reliable, and trustworthy than a random Craigslist listing; StubHub sold you secondhand tickets without the 50 percent chance those tickets were fake; Etsy offered a much more fun shopping and discovery experience than a bunch of text listings and crappy photos.
For a decade, startups tried to unbundle Craigslist. Now they can do the same for social networks.
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33525
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
There’s this picture from more than a decade ago that still goes viral on the web every once in a while. You’ve probably seen it: it was created by the venture capitalist Andrew Parker, and it compares a few dozen startups with subsections of Craigslist. Back then, Craigslist was all things to all people online, and a generation of startups figured they could do part of the job a lot better.
Some of those companies failed — sometimes because of Craigslist! — but some also became gigantically successful. Airbnb worked because it was more searchable, reliable, and trustworthy than a random Craigslist listing; StubHub sold you secondhand tickets without the 50 percent chance those tickets were fake; Etsy offered a much more fun shopping and discovery experience than a bunch of text listings and crappy photos.
For a decade, startups tried to unbundle Craigslist. Now they can do the same for social networks. Image: Andrew Parker
This is the same opportunity in front of the social media landscape right now: a rare chance to unbundle the internet, to pull apart an existing system and rebuild it, piece by piece, in vastly better ways.
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33526
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Back then, Craigslist was all things to all people online, and a generation of startups figured they could do part of the job a lot better.
Some of those companies failed — sometimes because of Craigslist! — but some also became gigantically successful. Airbnb worked because it was more searchable, reliable, and trustworthy than a random Craigslist listing; StubHub sold you secondhand tickets without the 50 percent chance those tickets were fake; Etsy offered a much more fun shopping and discovery experience than a bunch of text listings and crappy photos.
For a decade, startups tried to unbundle Craigslist. Now they can do the same for social networks. Image: Andrew Parker
This is the same opportunity in front of the social media landscape right now: a rare chance to unbundle the internet, to pull apart an existing system and rebuild it, piece by piece, in vastly better ways. If we do this correctly — if the next phase of how we congregate and communicate online is built for humans and not advertisers — there won’t be a new titanic company to rival Meta or a platform with eye-poppingly huge numbers like Facebook.
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33527
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
— but some also became gigantically successful. Airbnb worked because it was more searchable, reliable, and trustworthy than a random Craigslist listing; StubHub sold you secondhand tickets without the 50 percent chance those tickets were fake; Etsy offered a much more fun shopping and discovery experience than a bunch of text listings and crappy photos.
For a decade, startups tried to unbundle Craigslist. Now they can do the same for social networks. Image: Andrew Parker
This is the same opportunity in front of the social media landscape right now: a rare chance to unbundle the internet, to pull apart an existing system and rebuild it, piece by piece, in vastly better ways. If we do this correctly — if the next phase of how we congregate and communicate online is built for humans and not advertisers — there won’t be a new titanic company to rival Meta or a platform with eye-poppingly huge numbers like Facebook. What we’ll get instead is something much bigger: an entirely new infrastructure for our online lives that no company or platform controls.
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33528
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
For a decade, startups tried to unbundle Craigslist. Now they can do the same for social networks. Image: Andrew Parker
This is the same opportunity in front of the social media landscape right now: a rare chance to unbundle the internet, to pull apart an existing system and rebuild it, piece by piece, in vastly better ways. If we do this correctly — if the next phase of how we congregate and communicate online is built for humans and not advertisers — there won’t be a new titanic company to rival Meta or a platform with eye-poppingly huge numbers like Facebook. What we’ll get instead is something much bigger: an entirely new infrastructure for our online lives that no company or platform controls.
The reason this suddenly feels possible is the emergence of the fediverse. In a sentence, the fediverse is an interconnected set of apps that can all read and write the same content.
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33529
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
For a decade, startups tried to unbundle Craigslist. Now they can do the same for social networks. Image: Andrew Parker
This is the same opportunity in front of the social media landscape right now: a rare chance to unbundle the internet, to pull apart an existing system and rebuild it, piece by piece, in vastly better ways. If we do this correctly — if the next phase of how we congregate and communicate online is built for humans and not advertisers — there won’t be a new titanic company to rival Meta or a platform with eye-poppingly huge numbers like Facebook. What we’ll get instead is something much bigger: an entirely new infrastructure for our online lives that no company or platform controls.
The reason this suddenly feels possible is the emergence of the fediverse. In a sentence, the fediverse is an interconnected set of apps that can all read and write the same content. Decentralized social media is often compared to email, in that you don’t have to compose, organize, and read your messages all in the same app, and you and I don’t have to use the same tools to communicate.
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33530
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
If we do this correctly — if the next phase of how we congregate and communicate online is built for humans and not advertisers — there won’t be a new titanic company to rival Meta or a platform with eye-poppingly huge numbers like Facebook. What we’ll get instead is something much bigger: an entirely new infrastructure for our online lives that no company or platform controls.
The reason this suddenly feels possible is the emergence of the fediverse. In a sentence, the fediverse is an interconnected set of apps that can all read and write the same content. Decentralized social media is often compared to email, in that you don’t have to compose, organize, and read your messages all in the same app, and you and I don’t have to use the same tools to communicate. Email apps can have different interfaces, different privacy policies, even wildly different ideas about what email is for. Every app knows what an email address is, and every email address can talk to every other.
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33531
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
What we’ll get instead is something much bigger: an entirely new infrastructure for our online lives that no company or platform controls.
The reason this suddenly feels possible is the emergence of the fediverse. In a sentence, the fediverse is an interconnected set of apps that can all read and write the same content. Decentralized social media is often compared to email, in that you don’t have to compose, organize, and read your messages all in the same app, and you and I don’t have to use the same tools to communicate. Email apps can have different interfaces, different privacy policies, even wildly different ideas about what email is for. Every app knows what an email address is, and every email address can talk to every other.
The point is that email is just data, and lots of apps can understand and manipulate it. When Meta’s Adam Mosseri posts on Threads and you see it on Mastodon, that’s the fediverse at work.
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33532
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
What we’ll get instead is something much bigger: an entirely new infrastructure for our online lives that no company or platform controls.
The reason this suddenly feels possible is the emergence of the fediverse. In a sentence, the fediverse is an interconnected set of apps that can all read and write the same content. Decentralized social media is often compared to email, in that you don’t have to compose, organize, and read your messages all in the same app, and you and I don’t have to use the same tools to communicate. Email apps can have different interfaces, different privacy policies, even wildly different ideas about what email is for. Every app knows what an email address is, and every email address can talk to every other.
The point is that email is just data, and lots of apps can understand and manipulate it. When Meta’s Adam Mosseri posts on Threads and you see it on Mastodon, that’s the fediverse at work. If you post on Mastodon and I see it in my Pixelfed feed, that’s fediverse too.
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33533
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
The reason this suddenly feels possible is the emergence of the fediverse. In a sentence, the fediverse is an interconnected set of apps that can all read and write the same content. Decentralized social media is often compared to email, in that you don’t have to compose, organize, and read your messages all in the same app, and you and I don’t have to use the same tools to communicate. Email apps can have different interfaces, different privacy policies, even wildly different ideas about what email is for. Every app knows what an email address is, and every email address can talk to every other.
The point is that email is just data, and lots of apps can understand and manipulate it. When Meta’s Adam Mosseri posts on Threads and you see it on Mastodon, that’s the fediverse at work. If you post on Mastodon and I see it in my Pixelfed feed, that’s fediverse too. When I comment on your Flipboard post and it shows up as a reply in the Mastodon feed you check through the Mammoth app?
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Decentralized social media is often compared to email, in that you don’t have to compose, organize, and read your messages all in the same app, and you and I don’t have to use the same tools to communicate. Email apps can have different interfaces, different privacy policies, even wildly different ideas about what email is for. Every app knows what an email address is, and every email address can talk to every other.
The point is that email is just data, and lots of apps can understand and manipulate it. When Meta’s Adam Mosseri posts on Threads and you see it on Mastodon, that’s the fediverse at work. If you post on Mastodon and I see it in my Pixelfed feed, that’s fediverse too. When I comment on your Flipboard post and it shows up as a reply in the Mastodon feed you check through the Mammoth app? Pure fediverse, baby.
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Decentralized social media is often compared to email, in that you don’t have to compose, organize, and read your messages all in the same app, and you and I don’t have to use the same tools to communicate. Email apps can have different interfaces, different privacy policies, even wildly different ideas about what email is for. Every app knows what an email address is, and every email address can talk to every other.
The point is that email is just data, and lots of apps can understand and manipulate it. When Meta’s Adam Mosseri posts on Threads and you see it on Mastodon, that’s the fediverse at work. If you post on Mastodon and I see it in my Pixelfed feed, that’s fediverse too. When I comment on your Flipboard post and it shows up as a reply in the Mastodon feed you check through the Mammoth app? Pure fediverse, baby.
I’m convinced we’ll be better off with a hundred different apps for Snapchat or Instagram or X instead of just one
I’m convinced we’ll be better off with a hundred different apps for Snapchat or Instagram or X instead of just one, a dozen companies competing to build the best moderation tools, and an app store filled with different ways for me to follow and be followed by other people on the internet.
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
The point is that email is just data, and lots of apps can understand and manipulate it. When Meta’s Adam Mosseri posts on Threads and you see it on Mastodon, that’s the fediverse at work. If you post on Mastodon and I see it in my Pixelfed feed, that’s fediverse too. When I comment on your Flipboard post and it shows up as a reply in the Mastodon feed you check through the Mammoth app? Pure fediverse, baby.
I’m convinced we’ll be better off with a hundred different apps for Snapchat or Instagram or X instead of just one
I’m convinced we’ll be better off with a hundred different apps for Snapchat or Instagram or X instead of just one, a dozen companies competing to build the best moderation tools, and an app store filled with different ways for me to follow and be followed by other people on the internet. It doesn’t make sense that we have a dozen usernames, a dozen profiles, a dozen sets of fans and friends.
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
When Meta’s Adam Mosseri posts on Threads and you see it on Mastodon, that’s the fediverse at work. If you post on Mastodon and I see it in my Pixelfed feed, that’s fediverse too. When I comment on your Flipboard post and it shows up as a reply in the Mastodon feed you check through the Mammoth app? Pure fediverse, baby.
I’m convinced we’ll be better off with a hundred different apps for Snapchat or Instagram or X instead of just one
I’m convinced we’ll be better off with a hundred different apps for Snapchat or Instagram or X instead of just one, a dozen companies competing to build the best moderation tools, and an app store filled with different ways for me to follow and be followed by other people on the internet. It doesn’t make sense that we have a dozen usernames, a dozen profiles, a dozen sets of fans and friends. All that stuff should belong to me, and I should be able to access it and interact with it anywhere and everywhere.
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33538
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
If you post on Mastodon and I see it in my Pixelfed feed, that’s fediverse too. When I comment on your Flipboard post and it shows up as a reply in the Mastodon feed you check through the Mammoth app? Pure fediverse, baby.
I’m convinced we’ll be better off with a hundred different apps for Snapchat or Instagram or X instead of just one
I’m convinced we’ll be better off with a hundred different apps for Snapchat or Instagram or X instead of just one, a dozen companies competing to build the best moderation tools, and an app store filled with different ways for me to follow and be followed by other people on the internet. It doesn’t make sense that we have a dozen usernames, a dozen profiles, a dozen sets of fans and friends. All that stuff should belong to me, and I should be able to access it and interact with it anywhere and everywhere.
The infrastructure underlying all of this is typically ActivityPub, a decade-old protocol overseen by the World Wide Web Consortium (also known as the group more or less in charge of how the internet works).
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33539
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Pure fediverse, baby.
I’m convinced we’ll be better off with a hundred different apps for Snapchat or Instagram or X instead of just one
I’m convinced we’ll be better off with a hundred different apps for Snapchat or Instagram or X instead of just one, a dozen companies competing to build the best moderation tools, and an app store filled with different ways for me to follow and be followed by other people on the internet. It doesn’t make sense that we have a dozen usernames, a dozen profiles, a dozen sets of fans and friends. All that stuff should belong to me, and I should be able to access it and interact with it anywhere and everywhere.
The infrastructure underlying all of this is typically ActivityPub, a decade-old protocol overseen by the World Wide Web Consortium (also known as the group more or less in charge of how the internet works). There are other similar protocols as well, like Bluesky’s AT Protocol and Nostr and Farcaster.
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33540
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
I’m convinced we’ll be better off with a hundred different apps for Snapchat or Instagram or X instead of just one
I’m convinced we’ll be better off with a hundred different apps for Snapchat or Instagram or X instead of just one, a dozen companies competing to build the best moderation tools, and an app store filled with different ways for me to follow and be followed by other people on the internet. It doesn’t make sense that we have a dozen usernames, a dozen profiles, a dozen sets of fans and friends. All that stuff should belong to me, and I should be able to access it and interact with it anywhere and everywhere.
The infrastructure underlying all of this is typically ActivityPub, a decade-old protocol overseen by the World Wide Web Consortium (also known as the group more or less in charge of how the internet works). There are other similar protocols as well, like Bluesky’s AT Protocol and Nostr and Farcaster. I’d bet heavily that ActivityPub becomes the default choice over time, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter so much which protocol wins as long as one of them does.
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33541
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
It doesn’t make sense that we have a dozen usernames, a dozen profiles, a dozen sets of fans and friends. All that stuff should belong to me, and I should be able to access it and interact with it anywhere and everywhere.
The infrastructure underlying all of this is typically ActivityPub, a decade-old protocol overseen by the World Wide Web Consortium (also known as the group more or less in charge of how the internet works). There are other similar protocols as well, like Bluesky’s AT Protocol and Nostr and Farcaster. I’d bet heavily that ActivityPub becomes the default choice over time, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter so much which protocol wins as long as one of them does. We don’t need two internets, and we don’t need two social protocols. We need one thing that is both simple enough and big enough to handle all the ways we connect with each other online. No centralized platform has ever been big enough. The fediverse can be.
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
All that stuff should belong to me, and I should be able to access it and interact with it anywhere and everywhere.
The infrastructure underlying all of this is typically ActivityPub, a decade-old protocol overseen by the World Wide Web Consortium (also known as the group more or less in charge of how the internet works). There are other similar protocols as well, like Bluesky’s AT Protocol and Nostr and Farcaster. I’d bet heavily that ActivityPub becomes the default choice over time, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter so much which protocol wins as long as one of them does. We don’t need two internets, and we don’t need two social protocols. We need one thing that is both simple enough and big enough to handle all the ways we connect with each other online. No centralized platform has ever been big enough. The fediverse can be.
Mastodon is the biggest thing in the fediverse so far, but it may not be for long.
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33543
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
The infrastructure underlying all of this is typically ActivityPub, a decade-old protocol overseen by the World Wide Web Consortium (also known as the group more or less in charge of how the internet works). There are other similar protocols as well, like Bluesky’s AT Protocol and Nostr and Farcaster. I’d bet heavily that ActivityPub becomes the default choice over time, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter so much which protocol wins as long as one of them does. We don’t need two internets, and we don’t need two social protocols. We need one thing that is both simple enough and big enough to handle all the ways we connect with each other online. No centralized platform has ever been big enough. The fediverse can be.
Mastodon is the biggest thing in the fediverse so far, but it may not be for long. Image: Mastodon
Decentralizing social media can sound like a sort of kumbaya anti-capitalist manifesto: “It’s about openness and sharing, not capitalism, man!” In practice it’s the opposite: it’s a truly free market approach to social networking.
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
There are other similar protocols as well, like Bluesky’s AT Protocol and Nostr and Farcaster. I’d bet heavily that ActivityPub becomes the default choice over time, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter so much which protocol wins as long as one of them does. We don’t need two internets, and we don’t need two social protocols. We need one thing that is both simple enough and big enough to handle all the ways we connect with each other online. No centralized platform has ever been big enough. The fediverse can be.
Mastodon is the biggest thing in the fediverse so far, but it may not be for long. Image: Mastodon
Decentralizing social media can sound like a sort of kumbaya anti-capitalist manifesto: “It’s about openness and sharing, not capitalism, man!” In practice it’s the opposite: it’s a truly free market approach to social networking. Mastodon may not be interested in becoming a trillion-dollar company, but there’s no reason there can’t be plenty of those built on the fediverse.
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33545
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
We don’t need two internets, and we don’t need two social protocols. We need one thing that is both simple enough and big enough to handle all the ways we connect with each other online. No centralized platform has ever been big enough. The fediverse can be.
Mastodon is the biggest thing in the fediverse so far, but it may not be for long. Image: Mastodon
Decentralizing social media can sound like a sort of kumbaya anti-capitalist manifesto: “It’s about openness and sharing, not capitalism, man!” In practice it’s the opposite: it’s a truly free market approach to social networking. Mastodon may not be interested in becoming a trillion-dollar company, but there’s no reason there can’t be plenty of those built on the fediverse. It’s just that in a fediverse-dominated world, the way to win is not to achieve excellent lock-in and network effects. The only way to win is to build the best product.
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33546
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
We need one thing that is both simple enough and big enough to handle all the ways we connect with each other online. No centralized platform has ever been big enough. The fediverse can be.
Mastodon is the biggest thing in the fediverse so far, but it may not be for long. Image: Mastodon
Decentralizing social media can sound like a sort of kumbaya anti-capitalist manifesto: “It’s about openness and sharing, not capitalism, man!” In practice it’s the opposite: it’s a truly free market approach to social networking. Mastodon may not be interested in becoming a trillion-dollar company, but there’s no reason there can’t be plenty of those built on the fediverse. It’s just that in a fediverse-dominated world, the way to win is not to achieve excellent lock-in and network effects. The only way to win is to build the best product.
This is really not a particularly hot take, by the way.
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33547
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
No centralized platform has ever been big enough. The fediverse can be.
Mastodon is the biggest thing in the fediverse so far, but it may not be for long. Image: Mastodon
Decentralizing social media can sound like a sort of kumbaya anti-capitalist manifesto: “It’s about openness and sharing, not capitalism, man!” In practice it’s the opposite: it’s a truly free market approach to social networking. Mastodon may not be interested in becoming a trillion-dollar company, but there’s no reason there can’t be plenty of those built on the fediverse. It’s just that in a fediverse-dominated world, the way to win is not to achieve excellent lock-in and network effects. The only way to win is to build the best product.
This is really not a particularly hot take, by the way. Even the most successful centralized platforms have long understood that a protocol-driven social web is a good idea.
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
The fediverse can be.
Mastodon is the biggest thing in the fediverse so far, but it may not be for long. Image: Mastodon
Decentralizing social media can sound like a sort of kumbaya anti-capitalist manifesto: “It’s about openness and sharing, not capitalism, man!” In practice it’s the opposite: it’s a truly free market approach to social networking. Mastodon may not be interested in becoming a trillion-dollar company, but there’s no reason there can’t be plenty of those built on the fediverse. It’s just that in a fediverse-dominated world, the way to win is not to achieve excellent lock-in and network effects. The only way to win is to build the best product.
This is really not a particularly hot take, by the way. Even the most successful centralized platforms have long understood that a protocol-driven social web is a good idea. Jack Dorsey used to say that Twitter was better as a protocol than a platform, and started the project that became Bluesky before also helping get Nostr going.
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Image: Mastodon
Decentralizing social media can sound like a sort of kumbaya anti-capitalist manifesto: “It’s about openness and sharing, not capitalism, man!” In practice it’s the opposite: it’s a truly free market approach to social networking. Mastodon may not be interested in becoming a trillion-dollar company, but there’s no reason there can’t be plenty of those built on the fediverse. It’s just that in a fediverse-dominated world, the way to win is not to achieve excellent lock-in and network effects. The only way to win is to build the best product.
This is really not a particularly hot take, by the way. Even the most successful centralized platforms have long understood that a protocol-driven social web is a good idea. Jack Dorsey used to say that Twitter was better as a protocol than a platform, and started the project that became Bluesky before also helping get Nostr going. (We really don’t need to get into the whole story of what happened to Twitter since then, except to say that the speed with which that platform changed made a lot of people acutely aware that we need a social ecosystem that can resist the whims of a single company or CEO.)
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33550
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Mastodon may not be interested in becoming a trillion-dollar company, but there’s no reason there can’t be plenty of those built on the fediverse. It’s just that in a fediverse-dominated world, the way to win is not to achieve excellent lock-in and network effects. The only way to win is to build the best product.
This is really not a particularly hot take, by the way. Even the most successful centralized platforms have long understood that a protocol-driven social web is a good idea. Jack Dorsey used to say that Twitter was better as a protocol than a platform, and started the project that became Bluesky before also helping get Nostr going. (We really don’t need to get into the whole story of what happened to Twitter since then, except to say that the speed with which that platform changed made a lot of people acutely aware that we need a social ecosystem that can resist the whims of a single company or CEO.)
Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to earnestly believe that bringing Threads to the fediverse is a good idea, both for its product and for its business.
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33551
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
It’s just that in a fediverse-dominated world, the way to win is not to achieve excellent lock-in and network effects. The only way to win is to build the best product.
This is really not a particularly hot take, by the way. Even the most successful centralized platforms have long understood that a protocol-driven social web is a good idea. Jack Dorsey used to say that Twitter was better as a protocol than a platform, and started the project that became Bluesky before also helping get Nostr going. (We really don’t need to get into the whole story of what happened to Twitter since then, except to say that the speed with which that platform changed made a lot of people acutely aware that we need a social ecosystem that can resist the whims of a single company or CEO.)
Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to earnestly believe that bringing Threads to the fediverse is a good idea, both for its product and for its business. “Not everyone wants to use one product,” he said to my colleague Alex Heath earlier this fall, “and I think making it so that they can use an alternative but can still interact with people on the network will make it so that that product also is more valuable.” Mark Zuckerberg!
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33552
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Jack Dorsey used to say that Twitter was better as a protocol than a platform, and started the project that became Bluesky before also helping get Nostr going. (We really don’t need to get into the whole story of what happened to Twitter since then, except to say that the speed with which that platform changed made a lot of people acutely aware that we need a social ecosystem that can resist the whims of a single company or CEO.)
Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to earnestly believe that bringing Threads to the fediverse is a good idea, both for its product and for its business. “Not everyone wants to use one product,” he said to my colleague Alex Heath earlier this fall, “and I think making it so that they can use an alternative but can still interact with people on the network will make it so that that product also is more valuable.” Mark Zuckerberg! Said that!
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33553
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Jack Dorsey used to say that Twitter was better as a protocol than a platform, and started the project that became Bluesky before also helping get Nostr going. (We really don’t need to get into the whole story of what happened to Twitter since then, except to say that the speed with which that platform changed made a lot of people acutely aware that we need a social ecosystem that can resist the whims of a single company or CEO.)
Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to earnestly believe that bringing Threads to the fediverse is a good idea, both for its product and for its business. “Not everyone wants to use one product,” he said to my colleague Alex Heath earlier this fall, “and I think making it so that they can use an alternative but can still interact with people on the network will make it so that that product also is more valuable.” Mark Zuckerberg! Said that! He understands that people want to feel like their social connections and content belong to them, not to a company that can disappear or pivot or change its ways.
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33554
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
(We really don’t need to get into the whole story of what happened to Twitter since then, except to say that the speed with which that platform changed made a lot of people acutely aware that we need a social ecosystem that can resist the whims of a single company or CEO.)
Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to earnestly believe that bringing Threads to the fediverse is a good idea, both for its product and for its business. “Not everyone wants to use one product,” he said to my colleague Alex Heath earlier this fall, “and I think making it so that they can use an alternative but can still interact with people on the network will make it so that that product also is more valuable.” Mark Zuckerberg! Said that! He understands that people want to feel like their social connections and content belong to them, not to a company that can disappear or pivot or change its ways. And let’s be real: if Meta can’t build and maintain the One True Social Network For Everybody, nobody can.
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33555
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to earnestly believe that bringing Threads to the fediverse is a good idea, both for its product and for its business. “Not everyone wants to use one product,” he said to my colleague Alex Heath earlier this fall, “and I think making it so that they can use an alternative but can still interact with people on the network will make it so that that product also is more valuable.” Mark Zuckerberg! Said that! He understands that people want to feel like their social connections and content belong to them, not to a company that can disappear or pivot or change its ways. And let’s be real: if Meta can’t build and maintain the One True Social Network For Everybody, nobody can. It’s well past time to try something else.
The only way to see your Facebook posts is to sign up for Facebook’s rules, Facebook’s aesthetic, Facebook’s features, Facebook’s moderation, Facebook’s algorithm, and Facebook’s business model.
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33556
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
“Not everyone wants to use one product,” he said to my colleague Alex Heath earlier this fall, “and I think making it so that they can use an alternative but can still interact with people on the network will make it so that that product also is more valuable.” Mark Zuckerberg! Said that! He understands that people want to feel like their social connections and content belong to them, not to a company that can disappear or pivot or change its ways. And let’s be real: if Meta can’t build and maintain the One True Social Network For Everybody, nobody can. It’s well past time to try something else.
The only way to see your Facebook posts is to sign up for Facebook’s rules, Facebook’s aesthetic, Facebook’s features, Facebook’s moderation, Facebook’s algorithm, and Facebook’s business model.
Right now, every social platform is a universe unto itself.
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33557
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
“Not everyone wants to use one product,” he said to my colleague Alex Heath earlier this fall, “and I think making it so that they can use an alternative but can still interact with people on the network will make it so that that product also is more valuable.” Mark Zuckerberg! Said that! He understands that people want to feel like their social connections and content belong to them, not to a company that can disappear or pivot or change its ways. And let’s be real: if Meta can’t build and maintain the One True Social Network For Everybody, nobody can. It’s well past time to try something else.
The only way to see your Facebook posts is to sign up for Facebook’s rules, Facebook’s aesthetic, Facebook’s features, Facebook’s moderation, Facebook’s algorithm, and Facebook’s business model.
Right now, every social platform is a universe unto itself. The only way to see your Facebook posts is to sign up for Facebook’s rules, Facebook’s aesthetic, Facebook’s features, Facebook’s moderation, Facebook’s algorithm, and Facebook’s business model.
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33558
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Said that! He understands that people want to feel like their social connections and content belong to them, not to a company that can disappear or pivot or change its ways. And let’s be real: if Meta can’t build and maintain the One True Social Network For Everybody, nobody can. It’s well past time to try something else.
The only way to see your Facebook posts is to sign up for Facebook’s rules, Facebook’s aesthetic, Facebook’s features, Facebook’s moderation, Facebook’s algorithm, and Facebook’s business model.
Right now, every social platform is a universe unto itself. The only way to see your Facebook posts is to sign up for Facebook’s rules, Facebook’s aesthetic, Facebook’s features, Facebook’s moderation, Facebook’s algorithm, and Facebook’s business model. That’s not just a bad user experience, it’s a ridiculous way to run a company. Facebook has to invent and maintain all these things, just as every one of its competitors does.
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33559
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
He understands that people want to feel like their social connections and content belong to them, not to a company that can disappear or pivot or change its ways. And let’s be real: if Meta can’t build and maintain the One True Social Network For Everybody, nobody can. It’s well past time to try something else.
The only way to see your Facebook posts is to sign up for Facebook’s rules, Facebook’s aesthetic, Facebook’s features, Facebook’s moderation, Facebook’s algorithm, and Facebook’s business model.
Right now, every social platform is a universe unto itself. The only way to see your Facebook posts is to sign up for Facebook’s rules, Facebook’s aesthetic, Facebook’s features, Facebook’s moderation, Facebook’s algorithm, and Facebook’s business model. That’s not just a bad user experience, it’s a ridiculous way to run a company. Facebook has to invent and maintain all these things, just as every one of its competitors does. It’s an impossible task but just as impossible to compete with; you can’t build social products without building an entire social graph from scratch, and good luck with that.
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33560
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
It’s well past time to try something else.
The only way to see your Facebook posts is to sign up for Facebook’s rules, Facebook’s aesthetic, Facebook’s features, Facebook’s moderation, Facebook’s algorithm, and Facebook’s business model.
Right now, every social platform is a universe unto itself. The only way to see your Facebook posts is to sign up for Facebook’s rules, Facebook’s aesthetic, Facebook’s features, Facebook’s moderation, Facebook’s algorithm, and Facebook’s business model. That’s not just a bad user experience, it’s a ridiculous way to run a company. Facebook has to invent and maintain all these things, just as every one of its competitors does. It’s an impossible task but just as impossible to compete with; you can’t build social products without building an entire social graph from scratch, and good luck with that.
In a fediverse world, rather than try to build another all-encompassing Facebook from scratch, an enterprising developer can pick one or a few of its features and try to do better.
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33561
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Right now, every social platform is a universe unto itself. The only way to see your Facebook posts is to sign up for Facebook’s rules, Facebook’s aesthetic, Facebook’s features, Facebook’s moderation, Facebook’s algorithm, and Facebook’s business model. That’s not just a bad user experience, it’s a ridiculous way to run a company. Facebook has to invent and maintain all these things, just as every one of its competitors does. It’s an impossible task but just as impossible to compete with; you can’t build social products without building an entire social graph from scratch, and good luck with that.
In a fediverse world, rather than try to build another all-encompassing Facebook from scratch, an enterprising developer can pick one or a few of its features and try to do better. Users can pick their favorite app — or two, or two hundred — through which to get their posts.
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33562
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Right now, every social platform is a universe unto itself. The only way to see your Facebook posts is to sign up for Facebook’s rules, Facebook’s aesthetic, Facebook’s features, Facebook’s moderation, Facebook’s algorithm, and Facebook’s business model. That’s not just a bad user experience, it’s a ridiculous way to run a company. Facebook has to invent and maintain all these things, just as every one of its competitors does. It’s an impossible task but just as impossible to compete with; you can’t build social products without building an entire social graph from scratch, and good luck with that.
In a fediverse world, rather than try to build another all-encompassing Facebook from scratch, an enterprising developer can pick one or a few of its features and try to do better. Users can pick their favorite app — or two, or two hundred — through which to get their posts. Because everything is based on one set of posts and an open network of friends and followers, new social products can be useful even if you’re the very first user.
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33563
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
That’s not just a bad user experience, it’s a ridiculous way to run a company. Facebook has to invent and maintain all these things, just as every one of its competitors does. It’s an impossible task but just as impossible to compete with; you can’t build social products without building an entire social graph from scratch, and good luck with that.
In a fediverse world, rather than try to build another all-encompassing Facebook from scratch, an enterprising developer can pick one or a few of its features and try to do better. Users can pick their favorite app — or two, or two hundred — through which to get their posts. Because everything is based on one set of posts and an open network of friends and followers, new social products can be useful even if you’re the very first user.
Image: W3C
In the world of ActivityPub, every post everywhere is made up of a sender, a message, and a URL. Every user has an inbox and an outbox for those messages.
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33564
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Facebook has to invent and maintain all these things, just as every one of its competitors does. It’s an impossible task but just as impossible to compete with; you can’t build social products without building an entire social graph from scratch, and good luck with that.
In a fediverse world, rather than try to build another all-encompassing Facebook from scratch, an enterprising developer can pick one or a few of its features and try to do better. Users can pick their favorite app — or two, or two hundred — through which to get their posts. Because everything is based on one set of posts and an open network of friends and followers, new social products can be useful even if you’re the very first user.
Image: W3C
In the world of ActivityPub, every post everywhere is made up of a sender, a message, and a URL. Every user has an inbox and an outbox for those messages. That’s the whole protocol in a nutshell.
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33565
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
It’s an impossible task but just as impossible to compete with; you can’t build social products without building an entire social graph from scratch, and good luck with that.
In a fediverse world, rather than try to build another all-encompassing Facebook from scratch, an enterprising developer can pick one or a few of its features and try to do better. Users can pick their favorite app — or two, or two hundred — through which to get their posts. Because everything is based on one set of posts and an open network of friends and followers, new social products can be useful even if you’re the very first user.
Image: W3C
In the world of ActivityPub, every post everywhere is made up of a sender, a message, and a URL. Every user has an inbox and an outbox for those messages. That’s the whole protocol in a nutshell. The simplicity is the point: since ActivityPub is not a product but a data format like PDF or JPG, what you do with those messages, those URLs, those inboxes and outboxes, is entirely up to you.
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33566
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
In a fediverse world, rather than try to build another all-encompassing Facebook from scratch, an enterprising developer can pick one or a few of its features and try to do better. Users can pick their favorite app — or two, or two hundred — through which to get their posts. Because everything is based on one set of posts and an open network of friends and followers, new social products can be useful even if you’re the very first user.
Image: W3C
In the world of ActivityPub, every post everywhere is made up of a sender, a message, and a URL. Every user has an inbox and an outbox for those messages. That’s the whole protocol in a nutshell. The simplicity is the point: since ActivityPub is not a product but a data format like PDF or JPG, what you do with those messages, those URLs, those inboxes and outboxes, is entirely up to you.
You could have a Twitter-like app that emphasizes text, or an Instagram-like one with a UI that shows photos first.
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33567
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Users can pick their favorite app — or two, or two hundred — through which to get their posts. Because everything is based on one set of posts and an open network of friends and followers, new social products can be useful even if you’re the very first user.
Image: W3C
In the world of ActivityPub, every post everywhere is made up of a sender, a message, and a URL. Every user has an inbox and an outbox for those messages. That’s the whole protocol in a nutshell. The simplicity is the point: since ActivityPub is not a product but a data format like PDF or JPG, what you do with those messages, those URLs, those inboxes and outboxes, is entirely up to you.
You could have a Twitter-like app that emphasizes text, or an Instagram-like one with a UI that shows photos first. Your federated YouTube could be full of everybody’s videos, or you could make TikTok by filtering only for short and vertical ones.
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33568
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Because everything is based on one set of posts and an open network of friends and followers, new social products can be useful even if you’re the very first user.
Image: W3C
In the world of ActivityPub, every post everywhere is made up of a sender, a message, and a URL. Every user has an inbox and an outbox for those messages. That’s the whole protocol in a nutshell. The simplicity is the point: since ActivityPub is not a product but a data format like PDF or JPG, what you do with those messages, those URLs, those inboxes and outboxes, is entirely up to you.
You could have a Twitter-like app that emphasizes text, or an Instagram-like one with a UI that shows photos first. Your federated YouTube could be full of everybody’s videos, or you could make TikTok by filtering only for short and vertical ones. You could use a WhatsApp-style messaging app that only cares about messages sent directly to someone’s inbox.
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33569
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Image: W3C
In the world of ActivityPub, every post everywhere is made up of a sender, a message, and a URL. Every user has an inbox and an outbox for those messages. That’s the whole protocol in a nutshell. The simplicity is the point: since ActivityPub is not a product but a data format like PDF or JPG, what you do with those messages, those URLs, those inboxes and outboxes, is entirely up to you.
You could have a Twitter-like app that emphasizes text, or an Instagram-like one with a UI that shows photos first. Your federated YouTube could be full of everybody’s videos, or you could make TikTok by filtering only for short and vertical ones. You could use a WhatsApp-style messaging app that only cares about messages sent directly to someone’s inbox.
You could try to do all those things, or you could try to do something nobody’s ever been able to do before.
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33570
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Image: W3C
In the world of ActivityPub, every post everywhere is made up of a sender, a message, and a URL. Every user has an inbox and an outbox for those messages. That’s the whole protocol in a nutshell. The simplicity is the point: since ActivityPub is not a product but a data format like PDF or JPG, what you do with those messages, those URLs, those inboxes and outboxes, is entirely up to you.
You could have a Twitter-like app that emphasizes text, or an Instagram-like one with a UI that shows photos first. Your federated YouTube could be full of everybody’s videos, or you could make TikTok by filtering only for short and vertical ones. You could use a WhatsApp-style messaging app that only cares about messages sent directly to someone’s inbox.
You could try to do all those things, or you could try to do something nobody’s ever been able to do before. You could build a news reader that only includes posts with links to news sites and automatically loads those links in a nice reading interface.
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33571
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Every user has an inbox and an outbox for those messages. That’s the whole protocol in a nutshell. The simplicity is the point: since ActivityPub is not a product but a data format like PDF or JPG, what you do with those messages, those URLs, those inboxes and outboxes, is entirely up to you.
You could have a Twitter-like app that emphasizes text, or an Instagram-like one with a UI that shows photos first. Your federated YouTube could be full of everybody’s videos, or you could make TikTok by filtering only for short and vertical ones. You could use a WhatsApp-style messaging app that only cares about messages sent directly to someone’s inbox.
You could try to do all those things, or you could try to do something nobody’s ever been able to do before. You could build a news reader that only includes posts with links to news sites and automatically loads those links in a nice reading interface. You could build a content moderation tool that any fediverse app could use to filter and manage content on their platform.
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33572
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
The simplicity is the point: since ActivityPub is not a product but a data format like PDF or JPG, what you do with those messages, those URLs, those inboxes and outboxes, is entirely up to you.
You could have a Twitter-like app that emphasizes text, or an Instagram-like one with a UI that shows photos first. Your federated YouTube could be full of everybody’s videos, or you could make TikTok by filtering only for short and vertical ones. You could use a WhatsApp-style messaging app that only cares about messages sent directly to someone’s inbox.
You could try to do all those things, or you could try to do something nobody’s ever been able to do before. You could build a news reader that only includes posts with links to news sites and automatically loads those links in a nice reading interface. You could build a content moderation tool that any fediverse app could use to filter and manage content on their platform. You could build the perfect algorithm that only up-ranks shitposts and good jokes, and license that algorithm to any app that wants a “Epic Posts Only” mode.
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33573
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
You could have a Twitter-like app that emphasizes text, or an Instagram-like one with a UI that shows photos first. Your federated YouTube could be full of everybody’s videos, or you could make TikTok by filtering only for short and vertical ones. You could use a WhatsApp-style messaging app that only cares about messages sent directly to someone’s inbox.
You could try to do all those things, or you could try to do something nobody’s ever been able to do before. You could build a news reader that only includes posts with links to news sites and automatically loads those links in a nice reading interface. You could build a content moderation tool that any fediverse app could use to filter and manage content on their platform. You could build the perfect algorithm that only up-ranks shitposts and good jokes, and license that algorithm to any app that wants a “Epic Posts Only” mode. You could build an app that’s just an endless feed of great stuff for NBA fans.
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33574
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Your federated YouTube could be full of everybody’s videos, or you could make TikTok by filtering only for short and vertical ones. You could use a WhatsApp-style messaging app that only cares about messages sent directly to someone’s inbox.
You could try to do all those things, or you could try to do something nobody’s ever been able to do before. You could build a news reader that only includes posts with links to news sites and automatically loads those links in a nice reading interface. You could build a content moderation tool that any fediverse app could use to filter and manage content on their platform. You could build the perfect algorithm that only up-ranks shitposts and good jokes, and license that algorithm to any app that wants a “Epic Posts Only” mode. You could build an app that’s just an endless feed of great stuff for NBA fans. You could build one that’s just for crypto true believers. You could build one that lets you swipe from one to the other depending on your mood.
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33575
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
You could use a WhatsApp-style messaging app that only cares about messages sent directly to someone’s inbox.
You could try to do all those things, or you could try to do something nobody’s ever been able to do before. You could build a news reader that only includes posts with links to news sites and automatically loads those links in a nice reading interface. You could build a content moderation tool that any fediverse app could use to filter and manage content on their platform. You could build the perfect algorithm that only up-ranks shitposts and good jokes, and license that algorithm to any app that wants a “Epic Posts Only” mode. You could build an app that’s just an endless feed of great stuff for NBA fans. You could build one that’s just for crypto true believers. You could build one that lets you swipe from one to the other depending on your mood.
There are already a few platforms built on ActivityPub and embracing the ideas of the fediverse.
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33576
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
You could try to do all those things, or you could try to do something nobody’s ever been able to do before. You could build a news reader that only includes posts with links to news sites and automatically loads those links in a nice reading interface. You could build a content moderation tool that any fediverse app could use to filter and manage content on their platform. You could build the perfect algorithm that only up-ranks shitposts and good jokes, and license that algorithm to any app that wants a “Epic Posts Only” mode. You could build an app that’s just an endless feed of great stuff for NBA fans. You could build one that’s just for crypto true believers. You could build one that lets you swipe from one to the other depending on your mood.
There are already a few platforms built on ActivityPub and embracing the ideas of the fediverse. Apps like Mammoth and Ivory are showing the potential for different user experiences on top of the same data and infrastructure.
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33577
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
You could build a news reader that only includes posts with links to news sites and automatically loads those links in a nice reading interface. You could build a content moderation tool that any fediverse app could use to filter and manage content on their platform. You could build the perfect algorithm that only up-ranks shitposts and good jokes, and license that algorithm to any app that wants a “Epic Posts Only” mode. You could build an app that’s just an endless feed of great stuff for NBA fans. You could build one that’s just for crypto true believers. You could build one that lets you swipe from one to the other depending on your mood.
There are already a few platforms built on ActivityPub and embracing the ideas of the fediverse. Apps like Mammoth and Ivory are showing the potential for different user experiences on top of the same data and infrastructure. But so far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition.
|
33578
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
You could build a content moderation tool that any fediverse app could use to filter and manage content on their platform. You could build the perfect algorithm that only up-ranks shitposts and good jokes, and license that algorithm to any app that wants a “Epic Posts Only” mode. You could build an app that’s just an endless feed of great stuff for NBA fans. You could build one that’s just for crypto true believers. You could build one that lets you swipe from one to the other depending on your mood.
There are already a few platforms built on ActivityPub and embracing the ideas of the fediverse. Apps like Mammoth and Ivory are showing the potential for different user experiences on top of the same data and infrastructure. But so far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition. (Which is definitely better than “popular app, but blockchain” from a couple of years ago… but not by much.)
|
33579
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
You could build the perfect algorithm that only up-ranks shitposts and good jokes, and license that algorithm to any app that wants a “Epic Posts Only” mode. You could build an app that’s just an endless feed of great stuff for NBA fans. You could build one that’s just for crypto true believers. You could build one that lets you swipe from one to the other depending on your mood.
There are already a few platforms built on ActivityPub and embracing the ideas of the fediverse. Apps like Mammoth and Ivory are showing the potential for different user experiences on top of the same data and infrastructure. But so far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition. (Which is definitely better than “popular app, but blockchain” from a couple of years ago… but not by much.)
So far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition
Mastodon deliberately looks and feels like Twitter.
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33580
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
You could build an app that’s just an endless feed of great stuff for NBA fans. You could build one that’s just for crypto true believers. You could build one that lets you swipe from one to the other depending on your mood.
There are already a few platforms built on ActivityPub and embracing the ideas of the fediverse. Apps like Mammoth and Ivory are showing the potential for different user experiences on top of the same data and infrastructure. But so far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition. (Which is definitely better than “popular app, but blockchain” from a couple of years ago… but not by much.)
So far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition
Mastodon deliberately looks and feels like Twitter. (So do Firefish and Pleroma and GoToSocial and others. The fediverse is super into replacing Twitter.) Pixelfed is Instagram through and through.
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33581
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2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
You could build one that’s just for crypto true believers. You could build one that lets you swipe from one to the other depending on your mood.
There are already a few platforms built on ActivityPub and embracing the ideas of the fediverse. Apps like Mammoth and Ivory are showing the potential for different user experiences on top of the same data and infrastructure. But so far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition. (Which is definitely better than “popular app, but blockchain” from a couple of years ago… but not by much.)
So far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition
Mastodon deliberately looks and feels like Twitter. (So do Firefish and Pleroma and GoToSocial and others. The fediverse is super into replacing Twitter.) Pixelfed is Instagram through and through. Lemmy’s features are virtually all ripped straight from Reddit.
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33582
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
You could build one that lets you swipe from one to the other depending on your mood.
There are already a few platforms built on ActivityPub and embracing the ideas of the fediverse. Apps like Mammoth and Ivory are showing the potential for different user experiences on top of the same data and infrastructure. But so far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition. (Which is definitely better than “popular app, but blockchain” from a couple of years ago… but not by much.)
So far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition
Mastodon deliberately looks and feels like Twitter. (So do Firefish and Pleroma and GoToSocial and others. The fediverse is super into replacing Twitter.) Pixelfed is Instagram through and through. Lemmy’s features are virtually all ripped straight from Reddit. Almost everything in the fediverse is a one-to-one competitor to an existing platform: PeerTube to YouTube; Friendica to Facebook; BookWyrm to Goodreads; on and on it goes.
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33583
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Apps like Mammoth and Ivory are showing the potential for different user experiences on top of the same data and infrastructure. But so far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition. (Which is definitely better than “popular app, but blockchain” from a couple of years ago… but not by much.)
So far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition
Mastodon deliberately looks and feels like Twitter. (So do Firefish and Pleroma and GoToSocial and others. The fediverse is super into replacing Twitter.) Pixelfed is Instagram through and through. Lemmy’s features are virtually all ripped straight from Reddit. Almost everything in the fediverse is a one-to-one competitor to an existing platform: PeerTube to YouTube; Friendica to Facebook; BookWyrm to Goodreads; on and on it goes. Some of these apps are very good!
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33584
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
But so far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition. (Which is definitely better than “popular app, but blockchain” from a couple of years ago… but not by much.)
So far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition
Mastodon deliberately looks and feels like Twitter. (So do Firefish and Pleroma and GoToSocial and others. The fediverse is super into replacing Twitter.) Pixelfed is Instagram through and through. Lemmy’s features are virtually all ripped straight from Reddit. Almost everything in the fediverse is a one-to-one competitor to an existing platform: PeerTube to YouTube; Friendica to Facebook; BookWyrm to Goodreads; on and on it goes. Some of these apps are very good! But nearly all of them are differentiated only in that they’re federated.
|
33585
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
But so far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition. (Which is definitely better than “popular app, but blockchain” from a couple of years ago… but not by much.)
So far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition
Mastodon deliberately looks and feels like Twitter. (So do Firefish and Pleroma and GoToSocial and others. The fediverse is super into replacing Twitter.) Pixelfed is Instagram through and through. Lemmy’s features are virtually all ripped straight from Reddit. Almost everything in the fediverse is a one-to-one competitor to an existing platform: PeerTube to YouTube; Friendica to Facebook; BookWyrm to Goodreads; on and on it goes. Some of these apps are very good! But nearly all of them are differentiated only in that they’re federated.
Let’s be super clear about this: the point of the fediverse is not that it’s federated.
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33586
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
(Which is definitely better than “popular app, but blockchain” from a couple of years ago… but not by much.)
So far we’re mostly in the “popular app, but federated” phase of this transition
Mastodon deliberately looks and feels like Twitter. (So do Firefish and Pleroma and GoToSocial and others. The fediverse is super into replacing Twitter.) Pixelfed is Instagram through and through. Lemmy’s features are virtually all ripped straight from Reddit. Almost everything in the fediverse is a one-to-one competitor to an existing platform: PeerTube to YouTube; Friendica to Facebook; BookWyrm to Goodreads; on and on it goes. Some of these apps are very good! But nearly all of them are differentiated only in that they’re federated.
Let’s be super clear about this: the point of the fediverse is not that it’s federated. The most consistent argument against the long-term viability of platforms like Mastodon is that most people don’t give a hoot about the underlying protocols and infrastructure of their apps and just want things to be easy, reliable, and useful.
|
33587
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
(So do Firefish and Pleroma and GoToSocial and others. The fediverse is super into replacing Twitter.) Pixelfed is Instagram through and through. Lemmy’s features are virtually all ripped straight from Reddit. Almost everything in the fediverse is a one-to-one competitor to an existing platform: PeerTube to YouTube; Friendica to Facebook; BookWyrm to Goodreads; on and on it goes. Some of these apps are very good! But nearly all of them are differentiated only in that they’re federated.
Let’s be super clear about this: the point of the fediverse is not that it’s federated. The most consistent argument against the long-term viability of platforms like Mastodon is that most people don’t give a hoot about the underlying protocols and infrastructure of their apps and just want things to be easy, reliable, and useful. That is absolutely, unequivocally true.
|
33588
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
(So do Firefish and Pleroma and GoToSocial and others. The fediverse is super into replacing Twitter.) Pixelfed is Instagram through and through. Lemmy’s features are virtually all ripped straight from Reddit. Almost everything in the fediverse is a one-to-one competitor to an existing platform: PeerTube to YouTube; Friendica to Facebook; BookWyrm to Goodreads; on and on it goes. Some of these apps are very good! But nearly all of them are differentiated only in that they’re federated.
Let’s be super clear about this: the point of the fediverse is not that it’s federated. The most consistent argument against the long-term viability of platforms like Mastodon is that most people don’t give a hoot about the underlying protocols and infrastructure of their apps and just want things to be easy, reliable, and useful. That is absolutely, unequivocally true. Making the “It’s federated!” argument is like making the “It’s better for privacy!” argument: it makes you feel good, and at best it’s a useful tiebreaker, but it doesn’t actually matter.
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33589
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Almost everything in the fediverse is a one-to-one competitor to an existing platform: PeerTube to YouTube; Friendica to Facebook; BookWyrm to Goodreads; on and on it goes. Some of these apps are very good! But nearly all of them are differentiated only in that they’re federated.
Let’s be super clear about this: the point of the fediverse is not that it’s federated. The most consistent argument against the long-term viability of platforms like Mastodon is that most people don’t give a hoot about the underlying protocols and infrastructure of their apps and just want things to be easy, reliable, and useful. That is absolutely, unequivocally true. Making the “It’s federated!” argument is like making the “It’s better for privacy!” argument: it makes you feel good, and at best it’s a useful tiebreaker, but it doesn’t actually matter. All that matters is the product.
|
33590
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Almost everything in the fediverse is a one-to-one competitor to an existing platform: PeerTube to YouTube; Friendica to Facebook; BookWyrm to Goodreads; on and on it goes. Some of these apps are very good! But nearly all of them are differentiated only in that they’re federated.
Let’s be super clear about this: the point of the fediverse is not that it’s federated. The most consistent argument against the long-term viability of platforms like Mastodon is that most people don’t give a hoot about the underlying protocols and infrastructure of their apps and just want things to be easy, reliable, and useful. That is absolutely, unequivocally true. Making the “It’s federated!” argument is like making the “It’s better for privacy!” argument: it makes you feel good, and at best it’s a useful tiebreaker, but it doesn’t actually matter. All that matters is the product.
The best thing about the fediverse is that it will actually enable an explosion of better social products, for lots of reasons but one in particular: it allows for so many more of them.
|
33591
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Some of these apps are very good! But nearly all of them are differentiated only in that they’re federated.
Let’s be super clear about this: the point of the fediverse is not that it’s federated. The most consistent argument against the long-term viability of platforms like Mastodon is that most people don’t give a hoot about the underlying protocols and infrastructure of their apps and just want things to be easy, reliable, and useful. That is absolutely, unequivocally true. Making the “It’s federated!” argument is like making the “It’s better for privacy!” argument: it makes you feel good, and at best it’s a useful tiebreaker, but it doesn’t actually matter. All that matters is the product.
The best thing about the fediverse is that it will actually enable an explosion of better social products, for lots of reasons but one in particular: it allows for so many more of them. Forget the hand-wavy protocol stuff for a second — one of the best things about embracing ActivityPub is that it sticks a crowbar into a single Voltron-ic product like Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat and pries it apart into its component pieces, each one ripe for innovation and new ideas.
|
33592
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
That is absolutely, unequivocally true. Making the “It’s federated!” argument is like making the “It’s better for privacy!” argument: it makes you feel good, and at best it’s a useful tiebreaker, but it doesn’t actually matter. All that matters is the product.
The best thing about the fediverse is that it will actually enable an explosion of better social products, for lots of reasons but one in particular: it allows for so many more of them. Forget the hand-wavy protocol stuff for a second — one of the best things about embracing ActivityPub is that it sticks a crowbar into a single Voltron-ic product like Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat and pries it apart into its component pieces, each one ripe for innovation and new ideas.
We’re still in the very early days of the fediverse, and it’s going to be messy for a while.
|
33593
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
That is absolutely, unequivocally true. Making the “It’s federated!” argument is like making the “It’s better for privacy!” argument: it makes you feel good, and at best it’s a useful tiebreaker, but it doesn’t actually matter. All that matters is the product.
The best thing about the fediverse is that it will actually enable an explosion of better social products, for lots of reasons but one in particular: it allows for so many more of them. Forget the hand-wavy protocol stuff for a second — one of the best things about embracing ActivityPub is that it sticks a crowbar into a single Voltron-ic product like Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat and pries it apart into its component pieces, each one ripe for innovation and new ideas.
We’re still in the very early days of the fediverse, and it’s going to be messy for a while. It might feel like you’re seeing the same posts too many times, and like you see some posts that obviously weren’t meant to be seen in the app or feed you’re using.
|
33594
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
All that matters is the product.
The best thing about the fediverse is that it will actually enable an explosion of better social products, for lots of reasons but one in particular: it allows for so many more of them. Forget the hand-wavy protocol stuff for a second — one of the best things about embracing ActivityPub is that it sticks a crowbar into a single Voltron-ic product like Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat and pries it apart into its component pieces, each one ripe for innovation and new ideas.
We’re still in the very early days of the fediverse, and it’s going to be messy for a while. It might feel like you’re seeing the same posts too many times, and like you see some posts that obviously weren’t meant to be seen in the app or feed you’re using. Some particularly thirsty influencers are going to go hard on cross-posting tools that threaten to clutter up all your feeds everywhere and become totally unavoidable.
|
33595
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
All that matters is the product.
The best thing about the fediverse is that it will actually enable an explosion of better social products, for lots of reasons but one in particular: it allows for so many more of them. Forget the hand-wavy protocol stuff for a second — one of the best things about embracing ActivityPub is that it sticks a crowbar into a single Voltron-ic product like Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat and pries it apart into its component pieces, each one ripe for innovation and new ideas.
We’re still in the very early days of the fediverse, and it’s going to be messy for a while. It might feel like you’re seeing the same posts too many times, and like you see some posts that obviously weren’t meant to be seen in the app or feed you’re using. Some particularly thirsty influencers are going to go hard on cross-posting tools that threaten to clutter up all your feeds everywhere and become totally unavoidable. This is not a problem with the protocols; it’s an opportunity for better products.
|
33596
|
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
Forget the hand-wavy protocol stuff for a second — one of the best things about embracing ActivityPub is that it sticks a crowbar into a single Voltron-ic product like Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat and pries it apart into its component pieces, each one ripe for innovation and new ideas.
We’re still in the very early days of the fediverse, and it’s going to be messy for a while. It might feel like you’re seeing the same posts too many times, and like you see some posts that obviously weren’t meant to be seen in the app or feed you’re using. Some particularly thirsty influencers are going to go hard on cross-posting tools that threaten to clutter up all your feeds everywhere and become totally unavoidable. This is not a problem with the protocols; it’s an opportunity for better products. There’s plenty of money to be made in the fediverse, and plenty of space for new products to take off.
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33597
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The new American Dream is to get MrBeast to pay off your debt
A woman in a blue tracksuit is on the floor of a bright asylum-like room, stretching in a pigeon yoga pose when she turns to the stranger she plans to live with for 100 days.
“What are you going to do with this money?” she asks. The two contestants in MrBeast’s newest video, Suzie Taylor and Bailey Stanfield, have been cohabitating for nearly three weeks at this point, isolated from the rest of the world. They only eat canned food, and all they have to entertain themselves is a deck of cards that they made themselves.
“I was probably going to pay a lot on the house,” Bailey replies. He’s sitting in his bed, where he’s made a canopy with a sheet to keep the light out, since the bright lights never turn off. Stacks of dollar bills lie atop his canopy, and he’s surrounded by 15 more briefcases filled with money, which he will only get if he can stick this out for another few months.
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The new American Dream is to get MrBeast to pay off your debt
“What are you going to do with this money?” she asks. The two contestants in MrBeast’s newest video, Suzie Taylor and Bailey Stanfield, have been cohabitating for nearly three weeks at this point, isolated from the rest of the world. They only eat canned food, and all they have to entertain themselves is a deck of cards that they made themselves.
“I was probably going to pay a lot on the house,” Bailey replies. He’s sitting in his bed, where he’s made a canopy with a sheet to keep the light out, since the bright lights never turn off. Stacks of dollar bills lie atop his canopy, and he’s surrounded by 15 more briefcases filled with money, which he will only get if he can stick this out for another few months.
“I want to pay off my parents’ debt,” Suzie says. “That would be like, my ideal world.”
Taylor and Stanfield successfully completed the challenge, winning $185,000 each.
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33599
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The new American Dream is to get MrBeast to pay off your debt
The two contestants in MrBeast’s newest video, Suzie Taylor and Bailey Stanfield, have been cohabitating for nearly three weeks at this point, isolated from the rest of the world. They only eat canned food, and all they have to entertain themselves is a deck of cards that they made themselves.
“I was probably going to pay a lot on the house,” Bailey replies. He’s sitting in his bed, where he’s made a canopy with a sheet to keep the light out, since the bright lights never turn off. Stacks of dollar bills lie atop his canopy, and he’s surrounded by 15 more briefcases filled with money, which he will only get if he can stick this out for another few months.
“I want to pay off my parents’ debt,” Suzie says. “That would be like, my ideal world.”
Taylor and Stanfield successfully completed the challenge, winning $185,000 each. But what’s intriguing about their reality TV-like experience is that this trade-off has become a new normal on social media.
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