Realities of the Fediverse: ActivityPub and Mastodon have room to improve
The fediverse is a grand improvement in many ways over walled gardens like Twitter, but there’s plenty of room to improve. For example, federation does little good for users on a site that unexpectedly shuts down without time for users to migrate....
Two observations about Mastodon in early 2023
Tonight, not for the first time, I learned about a “breaking news” item from Mastodon. That’s been happening more often over the past few weeks, whereas this time last year I’d have gotten this kind of thing via Twitter first. This seems significant to me because Mastodon is making...
Where does Mastodon fit with social media policies?
Mastodon is an odd beast. This has been discussed a lot from the user’s point of view, but not so much from the organizational point of view. Specifically, should organizations provide users with branded/hosted instances, and what kind of policies apply for this new breed of social media? (Note:...
Extremely minimal blogging with WriteFreely
Loving the explosion of IndieWeb activity. For fun I decided to try out WriteFreely, a really minimal blog with ActivityPub features....
Vivaldi jumps into social while Twitter burns
Looks like Vivaldi is the first to jump on Mastodon/the Twitter exodus as an opportunity to boost their other offerings. The company launched “Vivaldi Social” on November 15th, which is a Vivaldi-run instance of Mastodon tied in with their other offerings. From their post, “Vivaldi Social is a natural...
Stop normalizing Musk (and why “work harder” isn’t going to do it for Twitter)
One of the most disheartening things about the Musk takeover of Twitter is how his malignant narcissism is being treated as normal. Even sadder, celebrated, by a small but vocal contingent of people who are still inexplicably fans of a person who’d happily have them thrown into a wood...
Taming Mastodons for a better web
The surge of people joining Mastodon and the Fediverse the past few days has been inspiring. I’m optimistic about the potential for a better web, but experience keeps whispering in my ear. Right now, people are fired up and ready to try new things. They’re happy to sign up,...
All the perfect drugs and superheroes…
Don’t let the title fool you, this is a rambly post about social media1. Specifically, about the plague that has visited the house of Twitter and the diaspora (but not Diaspora) to Mastodon or elsewhere. The title is from a song that’s been going through my head for the...