mike

mike, 5 months ago to fediverse

The network effect for #ActivityPub is gaining some serious momentum right now. As more services adopt the protocol, more people, more communities and more content are added to the network making it increasingly more valuable for everyone. This will only accelerate in the coming months as Threads, Wordpress, Tumblr, Flipboard and others federate.

We're still in early innings but there's no way to put this genie back in the bottle. The open social Web / the #Fediverse is going to be huge.

mike, 1 year ago to random

Hello Fediverse!

@Flipboard is currently a walled garden.

It's a beautiful, highly curated walled garden filled with content from the worlds best publishers and creators curated by Flipboard's editorial team as well as our community of magazine makers.

But it's still a walled garden. Today that begins to change.

We've moved four of our most popular #curation desks into the Fediverse for you to enjoy.

@NewsDesk
@TechDesk
@CultureDesk
@ScienceDesk

Details below:

https://about.flipboard.com/inside-flipboard/flipboards-editorial-curation-comes-to-mastodon/

mike, 11 months ago to random

Hello Fediverse.

Today we’re announcing the addition of PixelFed and Bluesky to our social web integrations on Flipboard.

Now you can see posts from Mastodon, PixelFed, Bluesky and, of course, Flipboard all in the same user experience. You can favorite, reply to, and boost any post. You can follow any user. You can explore any hashtag. And you can post text, photos and links to any timeline. Bluesky is available today for Flipboard on iOS and Android. PixelFed will be live in a few days.

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mike, 1 year ago to random

The only feature that matters for any social media experience is the people who are on it. I'm amazed at how many technology leaders forget this and get distracted by the underlying tech, protocols, features, etc.

Elon is a great example. He thinks he bought a platform. But what he really bought was a community. And of the two, the community has degraded far more than the platform.

mike, 1 month ago to fediverse

Today was a huge milestone in our quest to federate #Flipboard and tear down the walls around our own walled garden.

First, we launched a new version of Flipboard for iOS and Android which brings the promise of two way federation to life. Now when a federated Flipboard user curates, people in the fediverse can reply, favorite, boost or follow those Flipboard users who will in turn see that activity in their usual notifications tab. Even better, Flipboard users can directly reply to people in the fediverse -- and very soon they will also be able to follow each other.

Second, we federated some of our best curators today who are actively curating more than 10,000 magazines about everything from climate change to kale smoothie recipes. I'm grateful to our many curators and the service they provide to so many others who want to find the best content about a shared interest. I know our curators are excited to have millions more people who could potentially benefit from their curation. I also know that people in the fediverse will give a warm welcome to these curators. Especially now that everyone can hear and talk to each other over what was once two totally separate networks but now increasingly are in one and the same #fediverse.

mike, 15 days ago to random

Well, I got my first white supremacist reply from the fediverse after posting an article about Elon from Flipboard.

I reported and blocked the account. I also looked at the instance admin's account and it's clear he's also a white supremacist. So that instance will be blocked on flipboard.com and flipboard.social as well as shared with other instance admins as a problematic instance for them to take action if they also deem appropriate. Took all of 2 minutes to help make the fediverse a bit better for everyone.

And the best thing is that anyone in the fediverse can do this too. Decentralized moderation FTW.

mike, 5 months ago to random

Here's a condensed list of the accounts we are federating today:

@AfarMedia
@TheRoot
@pitchfork
@thecollector
@LGBTQNation
@Refinery29
@Smithsonianmag
@SPINMag
@IndieWire
@Semafor
@Joysauce @mental_floss
@ConversationUS
@theverge
@polygon
@NewsLitProject
@csmonitor
@The74
@FastCompany
@Digiday
@Medium
@Kotaku
@ScienceAlert
@NatObserver
@Photowalks
@ErinBrockovich

You can also follow me on Flipboard
@mike

You can learn more from my Medium post: https://medium.com/@mmccue/flipboard-begins-to-federate-4a80d6bdc209

mike, 5 months ago to fediverse

Hello Fediverse!

I'm excited to let you know that we have stood up our very own #PeerTube instance. This is so cool. We've posted all the videos for my Dot Social podcast. We also posted our original Flipboard launch video for fun.

You can check out our PeerTube instance here:

http://flipboard.video

You can follow the Dot Social channel on our PeerTube instance here:

@dot_social

I'm super impressed with PeerTube. It's quite a capable platform and it is fully federated via ActivityPub.

mike, 5 months ago to fediverse

I think that fully integrating #ActivityPub into Flipboard's backend is going to be one of the best things we've done since we started the company.

There are three phases:

Phase 1 (Today): Federate 25 accounts to test and learn

Phase 2 (January): Enable anyone in the Fediverse to engage with any public curator on Flipboard

Phase 3 (April): Enable anyone on Flipboard to follow and engage with any public account in the #Fediverse

Check out my Medium post for more

https://medium.com/@mmccue/flipboard-begins-to-federate-4a80d6bdc209

mike, 3 months ago to fediverse

Hello Fediverse!

Today we're taking another important step in our journey to fully federate Flipboard.

This morning we federated 1,000 Flipboard Magazines curated by the publishers we have been testing federation with in addition to 20 new publishers we are federating today. These include magazines like Adventure Travel by Outside, Eater DC by Eater, Explore NYC by Thrillist, Throwbacks by SPIN, and Climate Tech by Bloomberg.

Flipboard Magazines are a simple way to curate articles, images, videos and podcasts into a thematic feed. This powerful curation tool has been at the heart of Flipboard since 2012 with millions of magazines curated since about recipes, road trips, architecture, books, tech trends and so much more.

Federated magazines become native #ActivityPub feeds and can be followed by anyone on Mastodon. For example, check out my Following the Fediverse magazine @following

I believe that thoughtfully curated feeds have the power to make social media a lot more effective and inspiring so I'm excited to bring millions of these magazines to the #Fediverse as we federate all public curators in the next few weeks.

Check out my Medium post for more details along with a list of some of the great magazines we federated today.

https://medium.com/@mmccue/federating-flipboard-magazines-575a18297bd6

mike, 5 months ago to random

While I personally stopped tweeting in May, it was clear that now was the time for Flipboard to stop tweeting as well.

This is a sad outcome given that Twitter was the platform we got started on in 2010 and I was a board member there with Jack, Ev and Dick. But that Twitter is gone now. And the future is the open social web.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/21/flipboard-stops-tweeting-launches-new-podcast-about-decentralized-social-apps/

mike, 4 months ago to random

A thread on some tenets regarding open systems I feel compelled to relay:

• It’s extremely hard for open to ever compete with closed. It almost never succeeds.

• Every now and then open is given a chance due to unprecedented external events or pressures.

• In the rare event that open gains momentum, any actor can adopt it. That’s the point.

• The actors who adopt open will inevitably range from good to indifferent to bad.

1/

mike, 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to fediverse

The last 10 days have been a whirlwind for the #fediverse. Important new versions of @mammoth and @ivory launched. Wordpress and Tumblr reaffirmed their commitment to ActivityPub. And Threads and Flipboard began to federate. What does this all mean for the fediverse? How will moderation work? Who will be next to federate?

I asked @Gargron the founder and CEO of Mastodon.

Check out this very special interview which notably is hosted on our #PeerTube instance.

https://flipboard.video/w/cTBu4HusskGTuPBahqm6WY

mike, 9 months ago to random

Anyone using Twitter to get info on #HurricaneHilary is bound to be misinformed right now. The hashtag is littered with fake videos and reports. There are also a ton of conspiracy theory and climate change denier posts. And of course these are all accompanied with the usual screaming and fighting you see on Twitter now. Toxic. Useless. Misleading.

Mastodon is far better than Twitter for knowing what is truly happening on the ground and why.

mike, 5 days ago to random

The antidote to AI destroying the web is to strengthen human connection and to make those connections a fundamental part of the open web. Quickly.

mike, 7 months ago to fediverse

I'm so excited about federating #Flipboard to the #Fediverse! We are getting closer every day.

I just recently saw a demo from our engineering team of a Flipboard account being fully federated and followable from #Mastodon. Now we need to interpret all the engagement signals (commenting, favoriting, etc) properly. This includes designing what Flipboard users should see when they click on Mastodon users who reply to them and vice versa. A bunch more to do but we are making serious progress.

mike, 4 days ago to fediverse

Molly White is one of the most thoughtful writers and thinkers on the web today. In addition to being a high functioning crypto critic, @molly0xfff is a believer and practitioner in crafting the next era of the web.

Molly believes that human connections are an inextricable part of the web and sees a bright future ahead as those connections move from walled gardens to the open web.

Check out this fantastic conversation with her on the latest episode of #DotSocial on our #PeerTube instance or wherever you get your #podcasts.

https://flipboard.video/w/ovAsDRovkgbihkZa3wMcUA

mike, 1 year ago to random

Unreal. Elon just posted this on Twitter.

mike, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to random

I'm surprised at how few retail websites have implemented Apple Pay for checkout. It's a pleasure to use a site that implements this and when they do I'm happy to buy directly from them instead of through Amazon. Sites that make you manually enter all your shipping and credit card information while navigating thru last minute check out popups is a big reason why it's so much more convenient to buy the same thing thru amazon.

There are a lot of things we can do to improve the web and make it more resilient to big tech. Optimizing web sites for rapid checkout with modern Apple and Google pay mechanics is one of them.

Edit: Some of you correctly point out that this is actually just trading reliance on one big tech entity for another. I agree and would love to see a better approach for convenient online payments but that future seems very far off. Ironically, Apple and Google Pay can help smaller merchants level the playing field with Amazon today while we await a better payment future.

mike, 1 month ago to fediverse

The problem with building a closed social network is that it sets up an all or nothing premise for users. They might like some of the signature features but they'll leave if there's not enough people to network with. That's a shame and a huge barrier to innovation and new social products.

The #fediverse changes that forever. People can now use the features they like from a mix of apps across a common network of people. This means we can take a whole new approach to how "social" and "media" should work including discovery, user experience and monetization that will be far healthier than anything we've had in the past.

mike, 1 year ago to random

Hello fellow Fediversians!

What are your favorite @pixelfed accounts to follow?

What are your favorite #Friendica accounts or groups to follow?

mike, 5 months ago to fediverse

One of the big things @Gargron talks about in this interview is his experience with #XMPP and whether or not the embrace, extend, extinguish playbook would work in the #fediverse. This discussion happens at minute 41

https://flipboard.video/w/cTBu4HusskGTuPBahqm6WY

mike, 3 months ago to random

Here are Mastodon links to some of the Flipboard Magazines I am actively curating these days:

FOLLOWING THE FEDIVERSE
Covering the rise of the Fediverse and the decline of the walled gardens as social media transitions from closed to open.
@following

THE INSIGHT
Stories I've read which enlightened me.
@the

NONTRIVIAL
Breakthroughs, insights and ideas that change everything.
@nontrivial

FOUNDER'S FORUM
Startup stories and perspectives curated by founders, for founders.
@founder

AC/DC AI
When electricity and artificial intelligence intersect.
@ac

VULCANITE
The art and science of picture taking
@vulcanite

JOURNALISM
Curating important stories about the past, present and future of journalism
@journalism

SAILOR'S LOG
Videos, articles and podcasts for sailors recommended by sailors.
@sailor

FINAL FRONTIER
Space awesomeness.
@final

WAYPOINTS
Beautiful places I want to explore someday.
@waypoints

BOOKS THAT INSPIRED ME
@books

For the full list, check out my Flipboard profile at https://flipboard.com/@mike

mike, 8 months ago to random

There are so many cool things about mastodon but the best thing by far is the people who are here.

mike, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

So much energy going into AI chatbots. I'm curious what you think. Do you find AI chatbots useful? Are they useful enough that you are willing to pay to use them? Or do you think they are over hyped and not useful to you at all?