How Musk Made Vivaldi Build A Mastodon Server... In A Fortnight (Official Mastodon / Fediverse Development Thread)
- Thread starter bnew
- Start date
Twitter being head and shoulders above the rest makes sense because it was a paid program that has been around 2x as long as Mastodon. Also, things like the search issue are not a surprise because these devs are amazing at creating products but are typically extremely lacking re: onboarding, documentation, appealing to tech-illiterate users etc
Sucks seeing that post today tho.
kbin is not letting me log in on mobile, and firefish.social (which imo has the cleanest UI out there) only loads the feed/notifications like 40% of the time right now, and is having trouble posting reactions and replies, which makes it pretty, but useless in terms of social media. That is in spite of them being doing for 2-3 days straight as they migrated to an upgraded db
Ivan Moscoso (@ivan3bx@indieweb.social)
When folks point out that discoverability is an issue on #Mastodon, people get hung up on the question of "who do I follow?" when in reality a 'follow' is a trailing indicator of interest and/or alignment. Good content should come first. The follow comes later. There's good content for new...
Last edited:
Darnell Clayton :verified: (@darnell@one.darnell.one)
I want to be wrong, but I believe #Tumblr may delay embracing the #Fediverse due to the cost of activating #ActivityPub site wide. 👉🏾 Tumblr to Fediverse: The Rent Is Too D-mn High! https://darnell.tv/2023/10/01/tumblr-fediverse-too-high/ Too Long; Did Not Read: 👉🏾 Tumblr sees little upside...
Darnell Clayton :verified: (@darnell@one.darnell.one)
@osma@mas.to I agree as a large number of people would join #Tumblr if the site embraced the #Fediverse (reporters, governments, etcetera). I think Automattic knows that as well, but they can not justify the extra cost. I am basically waiting for #WordPress dot com to activate #ActivityPub on a...
Ryan Robinson (@Ryan@mstdn.ca)
#Threads is the big domino to fall eventually, but I'd like to see #Tumblr hurry up with their promised #ActivityPub integration. I know at least one of my follows from The Bad Place who settled into using only Tumblr - it's all she says on her podcast now - instead of bouncing around between...
Last edited:
volkris (@volkris@qoto.org)
@jwz@mastodon.social I think the key is right there at the end: "costing" #ActivityPub is not a lightweight protocol or system. We've seen plenty of instance operators voicing concerns and surprise about how resource intensive it is at scale, how much it costs to operate as usage increases...
Jay (@JavierKolstad@mindly.social)
@MeanestBossEver@mas.to This exists in some of the prominent Mastodon forks, i.e. https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown/wiki/Local-only-posting . You may want to switch to an instance running such a fork (and/or encourage the feature to get merged into mainline Mastodon). (Hope you don't...
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24995625/1236742798.jpg)
WordPress now offers official support for ActivityPub
Mastodon audiences will be able to interact with blog posts.
www.theverge.com
WordPress now offers official support for ActivityPub
/The ActivityPub plug-in is now available for all WordPress.com plans, allowing users to communicate with each other across other federated platforms like Mastodon.
By Mia Sato, platforms and communities reporter with five years of experience covering the companies that shape technology and the people who use their tools.Oct 11, 2023, 4:29 PM EDT|11 Comments / 11 New
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24995625/1236742798.jpg "The WordPress logo on a phone screen in front of a larger sign with the same logo.")
Photo illustration by Pavlo Gonchar / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
Bloggers and other publishers using WordPress to host their site can now use it to join the fediverse through an official ActivityPub plug-in, announced today by WordPress.com.
ActivityPub allows social networks to talk across platforms, meaning users can see and engage with content on other platforms from where they are without making a new account. WordPress.com owner Automattic acquired the ActivityPub for WordPress plug-in earlier this year, and the feature is now available for anyone to install through WordPress settings.
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24995542/image_2.png "WordPress.com site settings with a toggle for joining the fediverse.")
The ActivityPub plug-in is available for WordPress.com plans. Image: WordPress.com
In the case of a WordPress.com blog, audiences will be able to follow a publisher through other federated platforms like Mastodon. Responses on other platforms will automatically turn into comments on a publisher’s WordPress post, allowing them to interact directly with off-platform audiences. The setting is available across WordPress sites on free, personal, and premium tiers — millions of blogs will now be able to join the fediverse in a few seconds.
An official ActivityPub setting for WordPress comes as social networks try to compete with X, formerly Twitter — and many users try to figure out where to go. X alternatives like Mastodon, Bluesky, Meta’s Threads, and Tumblr (also owned by Automattic) have intermittently received surges of users, but so far, each space has its own — and competing — vibe. Meta says it plans to make Threads part of the fediverse in the future, potentially opening up content users share there to other platforms like Mastodon or WordPress. So far, that hasn’t materialized, though Meta did in recent months introduce a way to verify your Threads profile via Mastodon.
Clint Lalonde (he/him) (@clintlalonde@mastodon.oeru.org)
This is significant, and hopefully provides an easier pathway to decentralized social media for those who have found federated social media confusing or overwhelming. WordPress.com blogs can now be followed on Mastodon and other federated platforms | TechCrunch...
Chris Pirillo (@chrispirillo) on Threads
The answer to this problem, again, is federation. Threads can continue to optimize its platform AND connect with others in the fediverse. That doesn't mean you have to join Mastodon, either. It just means that you get the benefit of sharing news cross-platform from the platform of your choosing...
www.threads.net
AStrangeName
Member of Snitch Syndication
The only true Twitter competitor is Bluesky, but it's still invite only right now, so the majority is still stuck on Twitter if they're looking for a 1-1 experience minus the bullshyt.Clint Lalonde (he/him) (@clintlalonde@mastodon.oeru.org)
This is significant, and hopefully provides an easier pathway to decentralized social media for those who have found federated social media confusing or overwhelming. WordPress.com blogs can now be followed on Mastodon and other federated platforms | TechCrunch...mastodon.oeru.org
Chris Pirillo (@chrispirillo) on Threads
The answer to this problem, again, is federation. Threads can continue to optimize its platform AND connect with others in the fediverse. That doesn't mean you have to join Mastodon, either. It just means that you get the benefit of sharing news cross-platform from the platform of your choosing...
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25102905/Screen_Shot_2023_11_21_at_12.22.26_PM.png)
Flipboard is ditching X
The platform cited a spike in hate speech and misinformation on X and plans to devote its time to Mastodon.
www.theverge.com
Flipboard is abandoning X for Mastodon
The platform says it will hold on to its accounts and retweet from time to time, but it plans to focus on Mastodon and other social platforms instead.
By Amrita Khalid, one of the authors of audio industry newsletter Hot Pod. Khalid has covered tech, surveillance policy, consumer gadgets, and online communities for more than a decade.Nov 21, 2023, 4:22 PM EST|16 Comments / 16 New
Share this story
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25102905/Screen_Shot_2023_11_21_at_12.22.26_PM.png)
Flipboard is the latest company to end its presence on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. In a Medium post published Tuesday, the company said it would no longer be “actively monitoring or posting updates on X,” save for the occasional retweet. Instead, Flipboard will be refocusing its efforts on Mastodon and other open social platforms.
The reasons for Flipboard’s departure from X appear to be two-fold: X’s more lax moderation policies under Elon Musk’s leadership, which has led to a sharp spike in hate speech and misinformation; and Flipboard’s goal of working with federated social media services. Over the past several months, Flipboard has joined a growing list of companies, including Mozilla, Tumblr, and Medium, that are using the ActivityPub protocol to integrate with federated platforms.
“As widely reported, Twitter/X’s rollback of moderation policies has led to a rise in harmful rhetoric and hate speech and its platform decisions have advanced false narratives and disinformation. These changes run contrary to our values and so we’ve decided to invest in other, healthier environments,” Flipboard wrote in a message posted to Medium.
Flipboard and X’s ties began to fray in April, when X shut off its free API, breaking the sharing function that Flipboard used to publish content. Instead, X has urged companies to join its paid API tier — for which an Enterprise plan was reported by Platformer to cost as much as $42,000 a month.
The company also launched its own podcast about the open social web, Dot Social, which will be hosted by Flipboard CEO Mike McCue. The first episode, published today, features Techdirt founder Mike Masnick.
Meta starts testing Threads integration with ActivityPub | TechCrunch
Mark Zuckerberg said today that Meta has started testing a feature to show Threads posts on Mastodon and other ActivityPub protocol-supported networks.
techcrunch.com
Threads is officially starting to test ActivityPub integration
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company has started testing showing posts on Mastodon and other ActivityPub services.
By David Pierce and Wes Davis
Dec 13, 2023, 1:22 PM EST|34 Comments / 34 New
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24774110/STK156_Instagram_threads_1.jpg)
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24774110/STK156_Instagram_threads_1.jpg "An image showing the Threads logo")
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted on Threads that the platform is beginning to test making Threads posts available on Mastodon and other ActivityPub-supporting services. Zuckerberg wrote that making Threads work with the interoperable standard “will give people more choice over how they interact and it will help content reach more people.”
Joining the fediverse — the decentralized world of social media that includes Mastodon, Pixelfed, and other services that all interoperate through ActivityPub — has been on the Threads team’s to-do list since the very beginning. Instagram head Adam Mosseri told The Verge in July that he believed decentralizing the platform was key to making it relevant to a new generation of creators. “I think we might be a more compelling platform for creators, particularly for the newer creators who are more and more savvy, if we are a place where you don’t have to feel like you have to trust us forever,” he said at the time.
Zuckerberg echoed the sentiment this fall, telling The Verge’s Alex Heath that “my view is that the more that there’s interoperability between different services and the more content can flow, the better all the services can be.” In August, Threads made it possible to verify your account through Mastodon, which isn’t exactly a decentralization feature but was at least a sign of goodwill toward the fediverse.
Skeptics have long held that Threads would never actually federate, even as Zuckerberg, Mosseri, and others at Meta kept promising they would. For the largest and most centralized social service on the web, suddenly throwing open the gates to other platforms seemed like an unlikely pivot. And as Threads got bigger and more mature, ActivityPub integration became a bigger project — and as the platform became more successful, there were more reasons for Meta to try to back off its decentralization plans. But it appears the company might actually do it.
This test appears to only cover one small part of a truly federated social network — it doesn’t sound like you’ll be able to post from Mastodon to Threads, for instance, and you can’t move your account between services. But the test at least reaffirms Meta’s commitment to ActivityPub and to being part of the broader open social web.
Move Over Twitter, Threads is Going Fediverse
In a surprise announcement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared that Threads, the company’s Twitter-competitor app, will soon become interoperable with the fediverse via decentralized protocols. This means Threads content and profiles will be viewable on Mastodon and other ActivityPub-based social...
new.blicio.us
Move Over Twitter, Threads is Going Fediverse
new.blicio.usFollow
Dec 13, 2023 · 2 mins read
In a surprise announcement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared that Threads, the company’s Twitter-competitor app, will soon become interoperable with the fediverse via decentralized protocols. This means Threads content and profiles will be viewable on Mastodon and other ActivityPub-based social platforms.
“Making Threads interoperable will give people more choice over how they interact and it will help content reach more people. I’m pretty optimistic about this,” said Zuckerberg.
For those thinking “fedi-whatsit?”, here’s a quick explainer. The fediverse refers to a collection of independent, decentralized social media servers. Together, they facilitate open access and data portability across platforms. Power comes from the collective, not a centralized authority like Meta.
By tapping into the fediverse, Threads plugs into a network of millions of users across thousands of servers. It divides Meta’s dominance and lets users decide where and how to engage. Of course, Meta still profits from all the Threads activity, so maybe it’s not feeling too altruistic.
Understandably, some fediverse mods aren’t thrilled by a Meta invasion. But most see it as a step toward data liberation from walled gardens. Users get more control over their content rather than being locked in Zuckerberg’s kingdom.
For now, Mastodon users can follow Threads profiles but not vice versa. It’s a start, and the plan is for full interoperability. Back in August, Threads also added Mastodon profile verification. Slowly but surely, Meta is decentralizing Threads.
What Does This Mean for You?
As a Threads user, your content and profile may suddenly gain a whole new audience on the fediverse. Mastodon alone has millions of monthly users. This unlocks serious exposure potential.Your posts made on Threads could end up displayed to a indie bookshop owner in Edinburgh or a goat farmer in Peru - not the usual crowd for polished, blue-checkmarked metaverse citizens. But it does expand horizons.
You also gain more control over your data. If you ever leave Threads, your content comes with you and remains visible. Things you share, like photos and comments won’t disappear into a Meta void. Portability is freedom.
For Meta, embracing federation signals they are serious about decentralization and open ecosystems. They see the backlash against data exploitation and loss of privacy. The fediverse aligns incentives around user needs, not profit.
Maybe Meta is changing its ways or just paying lip service; the coming months will tell. Butconnecting Threads to the fediverse is a trailblazing move, no matter the motivation.
Other Fediverse Platforms to Watch
Threads will exchange ActivityPub data with Mastodon first but that’s just one fediverse server. The concept transcends individual platforms. Other notable fediverse apps include:- PeerTube: Video sharing alternative to YouTube
- PixelFed: Photo feed and galleries, like Instagram
- Friendica: Facebook-style profiles and timelines
- Lemmy: An alternative to Reddit hosted in various places.
Notice that I did not mention Hive or Steemit, which are simply frontends to single blockchain backends.
In time, Threads could integrate with many or all of these. For now it’s Mastodon, but the possibilities span gaming, events, messaging, video - anything communication-related.
As they say, the fediverse is the limit. This initial bridging from Threads is only the beginning as the next era of social interaction takes shape.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25170996/pasted_image_0.png)
Flipboard is pivoting to ActivityPub and the fediverse
Another walled garden is opening up to the new social web.
www.theverge.com
Flipboard is pivoting to ActivityPub and the fediverse
If you have a Flipboard account, you’ll soon have an account everywhere in the open social web.
By David Pierce, editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.
Dec 18, 2023, 11:00 AM EST|13 Comments / 13 New
Share this story
If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25170996/pasted_image_0.png "Four screenshots of Mastodon posts, on Flipboard.")
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25170996/pasted_image_0.png)
Flipboard has been experimenting with fediverse integration for months now.
Image: Flipboard
Flipboard is taking its biggest step yet into the fediverse. The company announced on Monday that it is beginning to switch its user accounts to ActivityPub, which means that everyone curating stuff on Flipboard is now doing so in a way that apps like Mastodon can see and interact with.
Right now, only 25 accounts (including The Verge’s) have been federated with ActivityPub, but by March Flipboard says it plans to allow anyone on the platform to open their account to the fediverse and allow any Flipboard user to follow any fediverse account from within the Flipboard app. At that point, Flipboard will essentially be an ActivityPub-based platform like Mastodon or Pixelfed but with an interface designed for reading articles instead of bite-sized posts. It’ll be the biggest thing in the fediverse — at least until Threads shows up for real.
“Basically, we’re in the process of replacing our whole social back-end with ActivityPub,” says Flipboard CEO Mike McCue. “I think Flipboard is going to be the first mainstream consumer service that existed in a walled garden that switches over to ActivityPub.”
That’s a lot of technical jargon, I know. Let’s use The Verge’s account to try to figure out what it means. Starting today, every time we add something to one of our magazines on Flipboard, we’ll also be automatically creating a post that includes a link to the story we’re adding, a link to the Flipboard magazine, and any commentary that goes with it. That post is a standard ActivityPub post, like anything you’d see on Mastodon. From now on, you can follow our magazines on Flipboard or follow our Flipboard account in Mastodon or anywhere else you get fediverse content, and you’ll get the same feed of content either way. The only difference? Flipboard will look more like the reading app it is, and Mastodon will feel more like a timeline.
In spirit, a federated Flipboard shouldn’t feel all that different from, say, one of those Twitter users who would obsessively curate news or information around a specific topic. Flipboard has always relied on curators to find good stuff for users to read — the only difference is that now those curators can post to Flipboard and everywhere else in one fell swoop. Flipboard’s bet is that it can build the best reading and discovery tools, without forcing users to only operate inside its platform.
At first, these posts only go one way. The promise of the fediverse is that if you like or respond to a post, that is also compiled and synced across apps and services, but Flipboard hasn’t quite finished that yet. McCue says that’s coming in January.
McCue has spent the last year telling anyone who will listen (including The Verge) that ActivityPub, Mastodon, and the federated social internet are the future. Flipboard launched a Mastodon instance called flipboard.social earlier this year, and recently announced it’s no longer integrating with X and focusing instead on open platforms.
McCue is still careful to note that there is a lot left to figure out. Flipboard has a long history with content moderation tools and optimizing reading experiences, but there’s so much new stuff here. Should people curate articles through their Flipboard account, or should they also keep a Mastodon account for more standard posting? McCue says he’s keeping all his accounts for now, but says that “I think how these accounts relate to each other is an interesting question.” So much about the culture and interface of the fediverse is still unsolved, and McCue is convinced now’s the time to dive in and figure it out.
Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub | TechCrunch
Instagram Threads isn't the only app joining the decentralized social web, which includes Twitter/X rival Mastodon and other apps, with its newly added
techcrunch.com
Flipboard becomes a federated app with support for ActivityPub
Sarah Perez@sarahpereztc / 11:00 AM EST•December 18, 2023
Image Credits: Flipboard
Instagram Threads isn’t the only app joining the decentralized social web, which includes Twitter/X rival Mastodon and other apps, with its newly added support for the networking protocol ActivityPub. Today, the social magazine app Flipboard is announcing it has also now integrated with ActityPub. In its initial phase, select Flipboard accounts will be discoverable and can be followed by the millions of users of decentralized social apps, including Mastodon. Over time, all profiles on Flipboard will be available in the fediverse, as this network of decentralized social apps is known.
The company announced its intention earlier this year to participate in the fediverse. It began by integrating its app with Mastodon via an API and setting up its own Mastodon server, flipboard.social, ahead of full ActivityPub integration. This allowed Flipboard to get a feel for the world of decentralized social media, and learn how its users would respond. It also gave Flipboard a way to stay connected to social media after Twitter/X increased its API fees for third-party developers, making it unsustainable for many developers to continue to work with the company.
The Flipboard app’s primary purpose has been to curate news and information found on the web into social “magazines,” including links to articles, photos, and other social posts. As a result, it had relied on Twitter as one of its sources of information. That changed this year, when Flipboard shifted its Twitter integration over to Mastodon and another alternative social app, Bluesky. It also set up its own Mastodon server and began curating news across the fediverse via editorial “desks” focused on improving the discovery of news on Mastodon.
All this was in the lead-up to making Flipboard itself a federated social app, a process that’s kicking off today.
Initially, Flipboard is testing the integration with select accounts, including publishers like Semafor, Pitchfork, Fast Company, Medium, LGBTQ Nation, Refinery 29, Digiday, Polygon, SPIN, Kotaku, Frommer’s, The Verge, Smithsonian Magazine, Refinery 29, The Root, ScienceAlert, AFAR Media, and others. While many are focused on news, there are also some non-profits like The News Literacy Project and education-focused news site The 74, in this debut list.
Image Credits: Flipboard
“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. 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.
Image Credits: Flipboard
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.
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 backend 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. “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.