🆕 blog! “Rebuilding FourSquare for ActivityPub using OpenStreetMap”
I used to like the original FourSquare. The "mayor" stuff was a bit silly, and my friends never left that many reviews, but I loved being able to signal to my friends "I am at this cool museum" or "We're at this pub if you want to meet" or "Spendi…
I and others have talked a lot about the #Facebook / #Meta#FediVerse issue over the past few days, analyzing their strategy, and possible responses, and why pre-emptive blocking isn't an effective measure.
This leaves the question of "what should we do?" So....
ITT: actually effective measures for building the resilience of the FediVerse and #ActivityPub, informed by the experience of the #OSS movement.
#Barcelona, #Meta's Twitter competitor, will be ready by summer.
And lest you believe #ActivityPub integration was just some rumour, think again. In a slide, Meta confirms that Barcelona will indeed be decentralized and will be compatible with Mastodon.
Everyone who thought that AT protocol would easily win over ActivityPub, and that #Bluesky would kill Mastodon just because a few influencers joined doesn't understand the sheer marketing power and pull that Meta has at its disposal.
But believe me, I'm not exactly cheering on Meta here. Generally, where Meta goes, shenanigans happen. I simply don't think Meta is capable of releasing a product without dark patterns.
Nevertheless, I don't think the Fediverse is even close to preparing for what will happen once Barcelona starts federating.
Actively pushing against others to adopt your protocol is how you ensure that your protocol won't "win." I'm a firm believer that a decentralized protocol will be the future of social networks/feeds as we know them. I don't know if it is going to be #ActivityPub or #ATProto or something else. But I believe a decentralized protocol will be the future. But the winner will be the one that centralized-acting services adopt. That's a good thing for everyone. It means users have data portability. 🧵
what do we have to do to make the #ActivityPub plugin attractive to more #WordPress users? We are currently at 4000+ active users on WordPress.org + the WordPress.com users.
So its done! I finally released a fairly easy to install (from scratch) Hugo based Static Site generator with full ActivityPub support.
It has step-by-step instructions on how to set it up for your own blog or static website.
One of the coolest features for me, other than having your static site blog posts show up as posts in the Fediverse is the support for interacting with those posts. Any replies you leave, likes, or boosts will show up in the "comments" section of the website on the page associated with the post. How cool is that!
For #ActivityPub the question of "Why use #LinkedData?" has never been answered. There should be clear merits to wade through all the complexity that this choice brings, right?
Yes, its ultra flexible, and you can define your own semantic #ontologies, and theoretically it could provide a robust extension mechanism to AP protocol. Except that right now it doesn't.
What's the vision of a Linked Data #Fediverse? What great innovative #SocialNetworking#UX would it bring, that makes it worthwhile?
Threads now has a Supplemental Privacy Policy (https://help.instagram.com/515230437301944) regarding "Third Party Services" like Mastodon. Should Threads interconnect with Mastodon via #ActivityPub, this addresses what they will do with our data.
Note that they will collect information from anyone "allowing Threads users to follow you or interact with your content". The information they collect will include your profile, your content, and your interactions.
It always amazes me in how in discussions of the future of #ActivityPub services that moderation is generally an afterthought.
Okay, we add nomadic identity, how does that impact the ability for servers to moderate, given all moderation tooling is built on user + server identity?
Okay, we add the ability to put people on lists without following, how does that impact moderation and privacy?
The one thing I do think the AT Protocol is better at than #ActivityPub is data portability. Being built-in at the protocol layer so that you don’t have to do the migration shit (which doesn’t bring your posts) is better. It just is. I think ActivityPub has more potential overall for the social web beyond just Twitter clones, but that part of #ARProtocol is better.
Meta joining the Fediverse is like AOL joining the internet: something that will bring a mass amount of people in, create some friction, but ultimately make the net better as more people federating on #Mastodon, #kbin, #lemmy, #pixelfed and other parts of the Fediverse make open protocols that much stronger.
#Bluesky now allows you to “choose your own algorithm”.
Which sounds “incredible” and “sci-fi”—but it really isn’t.
What it essentially does is give a Twitter-like service Reddit-like features.
As an aside, now I’m wondering why Reddit doesn’t offer an alternative web front-end to make it more Twitter-like!
But how does this apply to the #ActivityPub flavour of the #Fediverse? This feature now makes me realize how big a deal Fediverse groups are going to be, and if I were @Gargron, I’d be even more excited about rolling out Mastodon’s group functionality.
Because while groups aren’t exactly relevancy algorithms, once you add a “New”, “Hot”, “Best”, etc. feed to groups, now you’re in business.
I don’t know if choosing your own algorithm is the killer feature that Bluesky thinks it is. My experience is that most people hate choice. Nevertheless, I still thinks it’s important.
They go on to imagine some wonderful or awful scenario where the floodgates are open and #Threads becomes another #ActivityPub app like #CalcKey or #Plemora.
Maybe.... but what you are envisioning is really very unlikely. Threads is entirely algorithm driven. How's that going to work? Plus they have no interest in letting their captured users escape.
I just had a look at #Meta's recent press release about #Threads, and something caught my attention right away.
For the very first time, they're acknowledging another #Fediverse platform alongside #Mastodon. Specifically, they're highlighting that #WordPress can now connect through #ActivityPub.
Now, you know Meta's PR department doesn't say things by accident. So here's why this is a big deal. Last time I checked, WordPress powers a whopping 43% of the Internet. Yeah, you heard that right! If you visit a website, there's a good chance it's using WordPress as its CMS.
Now, if even a fraction of those WordPress sites start federating, it could have a huge impact on the network effect of the Fediverse. Of course, Meta isn't oblivious to this. I've been talking about the potential of WordPress and ActivityPub for quite some time now.
But if you're particularly observant, you might also notice that they mention #Tumblr. We've known for a while that Tumblr is likely to integrate ActivityPub into their platform.
But here's an interesting tidbit: Did you know that one company, Automattic, not only owns Tumblr but is also the driving force behind WordPress?
I don't want to jump to conclusions, but once again, PR departments don't just drop hints randomly. I have a strong feeling that Meta has been having some high-level discussions with Automattic about the future of ActivityPub. It wouldn't surprise me if Meta has some insights into Automattic's upcoming plans for the 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.
iOS AppStore privacy preview for Meta’s upcoming ActivityPub-based app Threads