I have some very exciting news to share - or at least they are exciting to me! Drumroll... we've started working with @namekuji on a new #fediverse project! It will be based on #firefish but the idea is not to create an "improved firefish" (or #misskey), but more or less a new platform. We wanna get creative with it! That's all I can say at this point - we'll have more info to share soon. I can tell you one thing: This will be an amazing ride!
This is good news for the growth of the #Fediverse, but there's a caveat.
Other than on mastodon.social, Mastodon sign-ups are slowing down. In my own estimation, the majority of Mastodon servers aren't experiencing any growth -- and many are losing users too.
At one point, https://joinmastodon.org was critical for driving sign-ups amongst many Mastodon servers. But from what numerous admins tell me, sign-ups from there have slowed to a trickle.
With https://home.social closing down soon, I fear this is a harbinger for more big server shutdowns. That is, unless something is done.
However, Mastodon isn't the entirety of the story.
It looks like *key apps are spurring more user adoption.
#Misskey is now the 2nd most used Fediverse software after Mastodon.
And within a month, #Calckey has nearly doubled in size -- despite the flagship server (which I admin) overcoming a few key challenges.
Of course, the arrival of #Barcelona will change everything. How? I don't entirely know.
But now with 12 million Mastodon accounts, it's time for the next chapter of the Fediverse.
Today, there's been lots of conversations about "Advertisements" in #Calckey's admin settings.
This feature has been available in #Misskey for years. As we all know, Calckey is a fork of Misskey.
Now I don't know of a current Calckey server that displays ads. However, one unique difference between Calckey and Misskey is that people who use Calckey can opt out of them should they never want to see them.
Another important thing to know about advertisements on Calckey is that they don't federate. They're local to a server, and are not displayed elsewhere.
That said, just because this feature is called "Advertisements" doesn't mean it needs to be used for traditional ads.
One potential use could be for crowd-funding. Presently, most Fediverse servers don't have an easy way to direct their users to a crowdfunding platform. Calckey's advertisements function could be one way to alleviate this.
Another potential use could be for mutual aid. If a particular Calckey user falls on hard times, advertisements could be a way for the server to help them out financially.
Finally, another use for ads could be... ads! One big problem that the Fediverse currently has is that artists are having a hard time selling their artworks. Well, if those artists put up an ad, this is less of a problem.
That said, https://calckey.social does not display ads. We have no plans to display ads. The goal of this server is to let people try out Calckey, and to that end, ads distract from that purpose.
If you want to play with this feature yourselves, you can start up your own Calckey server and play with it.
In fact, why not play with Calckey's many, many interesting features on your own server?
Alternatively, if you just want to know what Advertisements look like in the admin control panel, see the screenshot posted below.
Misskey, the fediverse microblogging platform that’s popular in Japan, has provided a recap of 2023, and it has been a big year for Misskey. The platform saw massive growth, the main server Misskey.io incorporated itself, and a number of new features and performance improvements.
The flagship server Misskey.io grew from 500 daily active users in January to 28k daily active users in December. They grew from around 20k registered accounts at the beginning of the year to over 400k accounts now. As with most social networks, growth happened in bursts, with a major increase in March and July, while the other months grew much slower.
With the growth came other changes as well: the server misskey.io incorporated itself, and main developer Syuilo became a director of the organisation as well. Donations and sponsorships also grew significantly. For the future, Syuilo says that “there are limits to relying solely on donations from everyone, so I would like to find a way to monetize the project.”
Misskey Pages allow users to create custom web pages on the platform that they can share. It can be programmed as well, and Misskey created a custom scripting language AiScript so people can safely add code to their Misskey Pages as well.
Other updates include refactoring of code and performance improvements, more information on that can be found here and here.
Misskey’s vision for fediverse servers is visible in their updates on moderation; every user can be assigned different roles that control permissions of the user in detail. In the update they say that this has greatly affected the operation of the Misskey server. This implies a vision for Misskey of larger servers, with a more complex structure for administration and moderation.
The future plans for Misskey focus heavily on the playful aspect of social communities: two games will be added that can be played on Misskey; Misskey Room as a way to play with other users in 3D space, as well as a chat interface. This puts Misskey further it’s unique place in the fediverse.
#firefish and #misskey seem to have problems with the WordPress Plugin. Could be the signature maybe!?! Is there someone who can help me debug this issue?
Some #bluesky users are very afraid of federation and even 10% of the posts being non-indexed for whatever reasons scare them. They want to see the full graph and index everything.
On the other side some #mastodon users are very scared that non-mastodon servers have basic text search to find public posts that are locally visible.
MFM-enabled emoji animations have given me a "Eureka!" moment over the past few days -- and I think this might be the Fediverse's killer feature.
"But they seem so inconsequential!" some of you might protest.
Yes, but inconsequence often turns into consequence. 140 characters were once considered inconsquential. Ditto photo filters. The same is true for video loops on Vine and TikTok. And yet they all prove to be impactful.
But before I talk further, for those who aren't aware, what is MFM?
MFM stands for Misskey Flavored Markdown. It's a custom flavor of the Markdown syntax tailored specifically for the #Misskey social network platform, but has since been adopted on #Calckey and #Akkoma. And I have no doubt that other server software will plan their own compatibility soon.
MFM extends standard Markdown syntax with additional features and customizations to enhance the user experience. Here's some unique features:
Additional text formatting options, such as font size and color, allowing users to extend customization of text
Flexible syntax for links, quotes, code, and math
Custom emoji support, and animation thereof
It's this last feature that might be the Fediverse's killer feature. Why do I say that?
They are attention grabbing. When someone sees an animated emoji, they cause a post to stand out.
They're also incredibly expressive. More so than mere text-based communication, emojis by themselves convey so much in one character. When you add animation into the mix, they add motion and dynamism, which enables people to express themselves vividly and creatively.
MFM animations invite unique customizations allowing for unique expressions. This fosters a sense of belonging and identity amongst people who share this unique form of art, enabling opportunities for in-jokes and unique community symbols.
They are instantly shareable, which creates buzz and draws more people to the Fediverse.
In my own observations, MFM-enabled emoji animations draw more engagement and reactions which leads to more activity -- as has been the case with calckey.social.
They are novel. While emojis may be available on all platforms, MFM-enabled emojis provide a unique and fresh experience -- attracting even more people who are drawn to this innovative feature.
MFM-enabled emojis result in the decentralized nature of the Fediverse having a more cohesive community. Because they can be shared amongst multiple servers and multiple server software, this gives the Fediverse that's presently not duplicated on Big Social.
This may foster a sense of belonging, building close-knit communities empowered by this unique means of communication. Inevitably, this may attract more newcomers to try their hand at this niche-for-now feature. This will help the Fediverse differentiate itself from the mainstream social media platforms.
But of course, the biggest reason MFM-enabled emoji animations could be the Fediverse's killer feature is simply because of stuff like this:
Unfortunately, Mastodon does not display MFM-enabled emoji animations. But to really appreciate this demo, visit this link: https://calckey.social/notes/9eqm90uxjg
curate your feed
there is no algorithm so you are in control
:foxjump: find accounts you want to follow to start
:foxjump: try to find the creators or artists you already follow
:foxjump: look for who they are following
follow their renotes to discover new artists and creators that may be similar that they like
:foxjump: tune in to your homepage feed which is only people you follow and follow through their remotes and interactions to discover more accounts that you may like.
:foxjump: if you spend most of your time on your home feed you should be seeing the content that you want
:foxjump: the local timeline has all the contents from this servers users, and the global timeline has contents from all servers that are associated, which means a lot of content very fast. chances are you will not be able to view all of this content, you'll notice that the feed loads continuously and you will want to catch the timeline and scroll if you see something you like
:foxjump: set up antennas to create custom fees of certain keywords you want to pay attention to
:foxjump: set up channels as a little community or club and share the link for people to join and post in, and you can follow this as well
:foxjump: set up lists which is a private feed of certain users you pick for yourself, add them by their profile options menu or in the lists
:foxjump: as I mentioned in user tips #1 you can set these into your navigation bar settings so you can easily access them
:foxjump: you can also check your settings for muted or blocked users and muted words, set up a muted word filters for anything you don't want to see
interact and make friends and build your following
:foxjump: first ensure that your bio is built and has accurate descriptions, ensure that you have introduction, content or portfolio that people will see immediately
:foxjump: highlight the things you are interested in and show what you do so people will want to connect
:foxjump: you can add emojis to your name such as my illustrator role that helps people identify me quicker when they see me on their notifications, you can find the emoji code by making a post and searching and selecting the emoji you want
:foxjump: if you see a post you like check out their profile, react, renote, comment
:foxjump: pro tip during this new period when a lot of Twitter users are joining misskey, looking for a new and better home, many have lower following counts than they do on their established Twitter, and this allows people to interact easily since their notifications are not too busy,
:foxjump: please note that the original community is Japanese, Japanese users will have much longer history of their accounts, so English speakers learn to interact together nicely and politely, making friends with one another will be great for everyone!
Calckey is not the only kind of Fediverse server software I operate, and it won't be the last.
Currently, I also run a Pleroma server (atomicpoet.org) and a Pixelfed server (peerverse.space).
And when #SpaceHost gets off the ground, I plan on running Lemmy, Friendica, Castopod, and Mastodon servers.
However, I know exactly where the wind is blowing, and that's with *key apps.
#Misskey is already taking Japan by storm. And #Calckey is gaining popularity here in the West.
I've also heard that a few more *key apps are in development: one for organizations, the other one specialized for the African-American community.
Here's what I've realized.
For the Fediverse to truly take off, there needs to be more than just Mastodon. There needs to be something else that shows what else is possible on the Fediverse, and it looks like that realization of possibilities will be from the *key apps.
If you asked me a year ago what I thought would take off next from the Fediverse, I would have said it will be Pixelfed or PeerTube. That might still be possible, but based on trends since February, it's more likely to be the *key apps.
This is ultimately a good thing. For one thing, the popularity of *key apps will finally mean that Mastodon will not longer be synonymous with the Fediverse to the general public.
But this also benefits Mastodon because this means that one of the best features of Mastodon will finally be demonstrated: interoperability with other apps.
Once people see Mastodon talking with *key -- and vice versa -- they will finally appreciate the true promise of the Fediverse.
Special shoutout to our administrator @chikorita157 who has been doing a good job keeping our Sharkey instance (server) running smoothly.
Being a system admin is can seem like a thankless job sometimes, and sometimes it means tracking down minor issues, going over logs, and occasionally dealing with user drama too (I do that for a living, it's not fun).
A friendly reminder that the Fediverse instance (server) is run by a volunteer who does not get paid, does not host ads, and is often paying things out of their own pocket. - All so complete strangers can share their random thoughts, views, beliefs, rants, or sometimes just sh*tpost.
"Omg... Joe Biden is the 1st President posting in the Fediverse"
No, Joe Biden is using mainstream social media, owned by Meta (Facebook), which most of the Fediverse blocked a while back. If POTUS (President of the United States) wants to join the Fediverse correctly and hold that claim, they need to join a true Fediverse instance such as Misskey, Sharkey, Mastodon, or something else not government a large corporation which avoid paying taxes.