I’m excited to announce that Beeper has been acquired by Automattic. This acquisition marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter as we continue our mission to create the best chat app on earth.
Pour info, beeper est une app qui permet de creer facilement des ponts sur les messagerie comme telegram, signal, whatsapp, sms. Sous Element (app matrix), l'option etait un peu technique ou il faut avoir un abo sur Element One...enfin toute les étapes qu'une personne normale ne ferait pas. Beeper simplifie cela.
En tout cas, c'est un gros changement dans le paysage des tchats. Automattic (wordpress) était déjà interessé par Matrix en 2020 :
Et je me disais qu'Element allait gagner en maturité, fonctionalités et je l'avais suggéré à mon équipe pour un résultat en demi-teinte, trop tot car pas super aboutti.
Et je pense que cette acquisition va bousculer un peu le paysage, nottament pour whatsapp. Reste que matrix a encore besoin de finition.
It’s Happening! https://edfoc.org.uk/2024/04/25/its-happening/ With this year’s printed programmes (all 10,000 of them) due to arrive this afternoon, we can definitely say that “It’s Happening!” the Edinburgh Festival of Cycling is back!!
I had hoped this would appear on @edfoc, but the #WordPress ActivityPub plugin doesn't want to play. It is almost as if #Automattic have given up on making it work
TIL about the #WordPress Block Data API - used for retrieving block editor posts structured as #JSON data, with integrations for both the official WordPress REST API and #WPGraphQL.
Primarily designed for use in decoupled WordPress.
We need to better incorporate our Mastodon feed into the CoffeeGeek.com website.
Part of the problem is, in the platform we use (Wordpress / Elementor), there's almost zero support for Mastodon in our share, follow, and embed tools. So either we have to write something from scratch and make it work with our existing share tools, or... well if there is an Elementor / WP friendly share plugin out there that actively supports mastodon, I want to know about it.
Any thoughts? Ideas? Guides? Step by step to make it happen? The research I've done so far shows it's tricky to have a proper share popup for Masto like you can have for Facebook, for eg (second screen cap below) because of the decentralized nature of mastodon.
For instance, I want to have a Mastodon share button in this cluster, which is created via a convenient widget in Elementor:
A few items, but for the tl;dr please scroll down towards the end. The first few appear to be precisely what you asked for, the third is my rather enthusiastic recommendation.
I believe this first one is the plugin I mentioned, and was found to be quite lacking, further, frustrating to most - This showcases the glaring problem associated with conflating mastodon with that of the #Fediverse - most things break, early and often, over and over again.
A simple share button that breaks about a fourth of share attempts:
Here's Terrence Eden's article on the Share on Mastodon plugin. I thought a link to this article best, as it leaves you lots of breadcrumbs to pick up along the way to the plugins page at WordPress. Including Jan's blog article. I believe this was the one with the least utility, that caused the most problems with people, which is quite a bit more than frustrating for a lot of people, angering many. masto isn't even the big man on campus anymore - those days have passed, and are in the past; it's just one of many increasingly popular platforms that people use in the ActivityPub portion of the Fediverse.
I believe Jan is incorrect on the number of images that masto can accommodate - yes it used to be four, but lately, when authoring articles in the Fediverse with platforms that accommodate inline media in the posts, I've noticed that masto actually will include 5 images, the rest it summarily discards, making for an even more confusing event for those on masto (NGI Zero funding has just been secured BTW, to at least bring masto into the 21st century withQuote Posts- like pretty much everyone else has had for a long time,some for a decade now).
Perhaps in time this will improve, or you can get into it with the aid of some of the others below, or just move past all that and install the plugin at the end of it all which performs famously ;)
Conflating mastopub with the Fediverse is a Bad thing:
I've heard a few good testimonies of how well the Fediverse share button performs. Note that no where in the description or documentation is the word mastodon used; no one is mislead to believe that there is such a thing as a mastodon network - because there isn't.
People should be offered the opportunity to share interesting content into (and throughout) the Fediverse, not some small slice of the available platform choices existing there:
This next option was heavily inspired by the old AddToAny plugin back when a kazillion different silos were popular and extant. I remember using that plugin to support sharing across upwards of 30 or so various social networking, bookmarking, link aggregation, and other types of obscure sites in far flung places of the world. I've also heard some good things about this solution too - please take note of all the certified platforms that it supports, and yes, mastopub is one of those ;)
If you do choose this method, do please join us in the Fediverse-City Matrix room to offer a review / evaluation as to how well Fediverse Share works for you. Several project leads there are always interested in viable solutions that are inclusive and accommodate the wider community at large without any marginalization through misleading brand recognition.
Either through simple naivety or conscious exclusionary arrogance, here's some other masto branded share options, at least one, IIRC, was much less than satisfactory, but I typically don't traffic mastodon branded things anymore when the insinuation is that the product represents the Fediverse. You may find, however, that one of these is just what you need, and that with a little bit of tweaking will fit nicely into your website's business processes. A little branding can go a long way, but sometimes a solution depends on, for example, a "share API endpoint", not strictly compliant with the W3C's published specifications, that serves to marginalize all other platforms by excluding them (that's commonly regarded as EEE). I'll just post the links w/o commentary:
There's another utility by Nikita Karamov (creator of the Toot Proxy above) that doesn't embrace the predatory branding of a diluted trademark:
Share₂Fedi - Share₂Fedi isn't a button, exactly, but the functionality is there and it is inclusive of the larger diaspora of the ActivityPub powered portions of the Fediverse, avoiding any sort of marginalization as a result of marketing through leveraging overt, and predatory branding campaigns.
Alright, I know you're interested in getting to the good part. Yes, I'm guilty of that same sort of mindset that makes you scroll down to the bottom of the ToS before you can click on the submit button. But before we get to the tl;dr:, we have one more which in spirit at the very least, is promising, I encourage you to read it:
Honorable mention goes to shareOnFediverse, which works even with GNU Social, Diaspora, PixelFed, Hubzilla, Lemmy, Friendica, Kbin, Misskey, Pleroma, Etc.
tl;dr:
That bit of markdown above (the H1) may not show up on your platform, depending. Regardless, you've arrived. Here's the solution that I personally recommend, a very fine solution that not only allows one to share their content into the Fediverse by providing links back to their website, but providing the gateway for people in the Fediverse, #Fedizens, if you will, to engage the authors of news and blog and lifestyle and cookbook style tutorial and HowTo sites, directly, with two way commenting and sharing of dialog in true open and participatory fashion:
First, (and it has indeed come a long way since the post of this article), a page on how exceedingly simple it is to install and configure this, the WordPress ActivityPub Plugin:
Bear in mind that the plugin was in beta at the time, so never mind the sourpusses in the comments who wanted it, and yet couldn't have it because they weren't self-hosting #WordPress. I must reiterate that development has come a long way, the plugin is in general production release and available for any WordPress site, managed, self-hosted, or otherwise, and it's got a powerful feature set.
Posting links back to clear-net websites on the open Internet is fine, it's not like clicking a share to Faceplant or InstaSPAM button when you share an article that you like into the Fediverse, After all, it's every blogger's mission to drive traffic to their own site (not Faceplant or InstaSPAM), but then your visitors are limited to offering comment replies in the manner of a form submission on the site that really only allows you to subscribe your email for subsequent comment notifications for the article or thread that your commenters spawned.
What the #ActivityPub plugin enables for those who engage with you, is to provide an instant audience of several million MAU (monthly active users) throughout the Fediverse who will be able to directly participate and engage in the conversation from their own native Fediverse platforms, receiving replies as well.
I've called this, A Game Changer, before. A few times, actually. @matthias@pfefferle and his small team of developers created and curated this plugin that enables this hitherto (mostly) inaccessible feature set for the masses. Literally anyone in the ActivityPub portion of the Fediverse can now comment and reply to the comments of others on WordPress sites, which is pretty much like 40% of the entire word wide web nowadays, and you can check this out for yourself right now by visiting his blog at https://notiz.blog/ in the comment section of any one of his articles.
There were some issues, which could be attributed to the predatory marketing practices by Mastodon gGmbH, whereby a lot of what is actually ActivityPub or Fediverse centric was being referred to, and worse, attributed to mastodon in one sense or another, further diluting their trademark which places it in jeopardy of losing its registration (the first item in mastodon's general guidelines states, "Only use the Mastodon marks to accurately identify those goods or services that are built using the Mastodon software." - but the defense of trademarks themselves is another matter entirely, although the discussion has come up many times with the responsible parties, often, in very heated, public, forums.
Anyway, Mattias and his team have become incrementally more mindful of placing emphasis upon #Fediverse, the brand, instead of masto, the brand, and that's a good thing because it goes a long way toward correcting the existing confusion that exists due to the abuse certain marketing personalities have, and continue to pursue. Indeed, the plugin itself is named ActivityPub, which is appropriate - and it certainly is not an exclusive tool for mastopub.
You can download the latest and greatest version of the WordPress ActivityPub Plugin HERE, which was released just 3 days ago, and I know because I was on the periphery of an issue that was resolved, making this an even more relevant and quickly becoming (IMO) essential tool for #DeSoC and Fediverse aware bloggers, journalists, chefs, and anyone else that knows they can benefit from deploying their own WordPress site for business or personal use in communicating with the world beyond the walls of the deprecated, proprietary, privacy mining monolithic silos.
In wrapping things up here, it goes without saying that one of the very most powerful aspects of the #WordPress_ActivityPub_Plugin isn't actually that people can respond to your published articles from the comfort of myriad clients such as #FediLab, #Husky, #Phanpy, or the native web or desktop interface for their Fediverse instance, but the reality that they can simply follow you, on your blog, and receive your blog or news or HowTo articles in their streams whenever you publish a new item. From there, they can boost (more exposure for your published works), reply (of course), and even offer a bit of narrative introducing your work with a #Quote_Post. It's like a butterfly affect, or concentric circles emanating from one little plop of a pebble into a pond.
Oh, one more thing, there's nothing preventing you from including one of the pretty little Fediverse Share buttons either, in conjunction with the ActivityPub plugin. After all, some folks like to comment and let you know their thoughts, while others prefer to simply share it with others who will also tell two friends or themselves offer comments to your articles - it's a win win for everyone on both sides of the line that divides the Fediverse from those so-called Big Tech institutions comprising the walled gardens of subjugation by the #Sunnyvale_Syndrome.
I hope you've found this helpful, I didn't want to send you on an errand of discovery without making sure that there's been some decent coverage of several different alternatives currently available for you.
Quote from Automattic founder in @gruber writeup on Automattic buying Beeper:
"I have zero interest in fighting with Apple, I think instead it’s best to focus on messaging networks that want more engagement from power-user clients"
Good writeup, helped make sense of why this move makes sense.
How do you feel about #Beeper, #Automattic and Automattic acquiring Beeper?
TBH credit is due where credit is due. Nobody can predict the real intentions of a company, least of all engineers, but Beeper has from day 1 built its product on top of #Matrix, it has made it much easier to install and configure messaging bridges (even to those less likely to go through the hassle of configuring a full Synapse server and install bridges with huge configuration files), and it has challenged Apple head-to-head with the iMessage bridge.
I feel that Beeper joining forces with Automattic will give the company both:
Stronger shoulders to defend themselves from lawsuits coming from the likes of Apple and anybody who has made it their business mission to oppose inter-operability as long as they can - Apple can’t simply take down a Github repo with a snap of their fingers if that Github repo is owned by the same company that also owns Wordpress, at least not without a lengthy legal battle on the blueprint of Epic v Apple. Moreover, sclerotic corporate scum with an outdated business model like Apple will just never understand how big of a favour they do to small companies like Beeper when they attack them. Beeper was in beta until recently. Then it got a lot of attention after Apple declared war to its iMessage bridge. Consequence: the largest company on earth suddenly put a relatively small product like Beeper under the spotlight, its user-base went up by an order of magnitude or so within a short time frame, they rushed their way out of beta, and now Automattic is acquiring them. There’s no better publicity than an aggressive rent-seeking parasite waging war against your product.
More opportunities to sit at a table with the likes of Google, Meta etc. and get them to actually build the open alternatives together, instead of reverse engineering their closed garden and play and endless catch-up game with them.
The timing of this announcement is also perfect, as the EU’s #DMA is just about to make inter-operability a requirement for messaging gatekeepers - and Beeper seems to be eager to capitalize on its opportunity of being at the right place at the right time.
Let’s keep an eye on how this product develops. I see a lot of potential for growth, and I’ll be looking for all the signals of early-exit/lock-in/enshittification.
@downey OK, I just checked year later, and at least #Beeper included #Matrix on home page this time, waitlist is gone. I'm not current enough with Beeper's development, so I have to assume it's related to acquirement by #Automattic.
Does anyone know how to report abuse on #Gravatar? Someone, possibly a spammer, created a profile impersonating me. There is no "report abuse" option on the Gravatar site. And https://wordpress.com/abuse/ doesn't accept Gravatar links.
This is a post I probably should have made weeks ago but, well, life has refused to let me remain uninvolved the past few months, sadly.
With the influx of new users to the Fediverse from #Tumblr, I wanted to be a good neighbor and, at least, welcome you. When Tumblr had, first, been bought my #Automattic and there was a sort of revival going on over there, I was preoccupied with how to get attention for my alternative but, nevertheless, hopeful it might follow WordPress and become open-source.
So if anyone thought the entire #Automattic#AIPartnership shanda was going to reflect badly on Automattic's other products, after reading through dozens of Toots and blog posts, the answer is a resounding YES.
🧵 Ça fait quelques jours, depuis le début de "l'affaire" #tumblr que ça me trotte dans la tête. Ce thread va mélanger éléments techniques, un peu de vie pro et de vie perso donc désolé par avance. #tumblr appartient au groupe #automattic, une société connue notamment pour son #CMS#Wordpress. Aussi loin que je me rappelle déjà en 2021 en BTS, #Wordpress était LE CMS, l'incontournable. Mais comme tout logiciel #wordpress à des défauts, des gros défuts 1/?
En tant que developpeur / passioné d'informatique l'#IA devrait un sujet que je trouve passionnant, non ? Oui en partie, quand elle résout des problèmes de science comme la compréhension du génome humain. Pas quand elle nourie de données volées au nom du progrés,, d'ailleurs ca faisait partie des choses que je voulais abordées sur le le labo :D. Mais pour en revenir au point de ruputre, #automattic à récement décidé, à l'instar de #reddit, de partager leurs données avec ... 5/?
Stripped out the Automattic plugins I had running on my wordpress site, and then pulled all the other bullshit plugins trying to tell me how to optimize ("The title "Horrors and Abominations" does not have enough emotional or surprising words in it."). My posting experience is already improved.
@miriamrobern Jumping back into this conversation about preventing the #Automattic#Jetpack plugin for self-hosted #WordPress sites from phoning home to power new AI bullshit.
Turns out the AI will get your information from what is called the "Firehose" and that's been enabled by default for years. 🤦♀️
But it's easy to disable once you know how to find the fucking option.
The irony of Wordpress, the self-described guardian of the open web, causing anyone who gives a shit to pull down their old Tumblrs and blogs to avoid getting sucked into the AI bullshit machine, is really something.
Well, food for thought: selling access to works they don't own is the point of online #literaryJournals (for ex). But--they do it with permission & contracts, & sell to individual readers, not to for-profit businesses.
Unless they're using WPdotcom!
Lit & news sites provide a service for #writers to be seen by readers, but I agree wholeheartedly: #Automattic (for ex) has no right to then take those written works & resell. Esp if lit/#news sites are PAYING WPdotcom to host!