Yes, the company went public. No, it is not a financial success—or even a lifeboat.
Debuting on the charts w/a “DJT” ticker, #TrumpMedia saw a 55% surge in valuation right after markets opened.
Huge influx of cash, right? w/Trump holding ~79M shares, equating to 58% of available stock, the #SPAC debut balloons his #NetWorth by nearly $5B; there were ~136M shares outstanding post-merger.
All these lackeys running the show means a lot of (feigned) confidence from folks in charge. + the most eager #shareholders aren’t in this for high returns, but to support their king…in their own words…in the #DWAC “groups” on #TruthSocial: “I’m holding & plan on being part of the greatest #SocialNetwork there is & support fmr & future President #Trump” (the anthem of the aforementioned retail-level #suckers.) This all means that $DJT is basically…the #political equivalent of a #MemeStock.
@kubikpixel @ploum is absolutely right here. A community's success cannot be measured in terms of dominance or the numbers of billionaires it generates or the amount of VC money thrown at it. It is measured by the value the tool offers to the users, no matter how many there are.
My favourite in person communities have ten to fifty people in them - I don't need to broadcast my thoughts to potential billions - I can't comprehend that many people.
Idea: An app that uses your device location to update your current city on a public webpage with a map and an Activity Pub feed. Completely hands off way to keep friends and family update on your current travels, with the potential to grow into a federated network of nomads.
Would you want something like this? #digitalnomad#nomad#opensource#activitypub#socialnetwork#travel
Samuel De Rome publie une nouvelle chronique sur #GabGca!
#Reddit vs #Apollo : quand une communauté se tourne contre sa plateforme (et que ladite plateforme s'en prend ensuite à ses utilisateurs aguerris). 🤦♂️
Discord, Twitter, Reddit, and Tumblr have something in common and it’s not good
When looking at the recent history of many popular and highly successful online sites, there tends to be a certain trend they’re all following: rampant corporate greed butting heads with its original core mission and its user base, all of which eventually leads to major issues for the site.
Several sites in question — Discord, Twitter, Reddit, and Tumblr — all share that same fate, despite having very different purposes and suffering through a dissimilar series of events that led to their downfall or tipping point. And, they’re proof that most businesses will eventually hit a point in which management will decide to push profit margins and use bizarre and brutal methods to squeeze money out of it. The horrors of capitalism.
I love programming and thinking and talking about thinking. I have an education (BS, MS, PhD) focused on artificial intelligence and neuroscience.
I'm an advocate of the public academic pursuit of knowledge, the scientific process, peer review, and I see open source software and hardware as an essential part of the scientific process.
I see software user rights, including security and privacy, to be protected mainly by free and open source software.
I see the democratizing effects of the Internet, including distributed journalism and social networking, to be largely the effect of the collaborative development of free and open source software.
I am interested in free and open source manufacturing, including open source 3D printers and CNC machines. I believe open source manufacturing will be important for distributed manufacturing, allowing local manufacturing and local labor.
I see worker-owned coops as the way to safely transition from a non-democratic authoritarian top-down power structure of a traditional corporation to a democratic work environment, where the workers own the company and elect the board of directors, transitioning to democracy in the workplace.
I believe that socialism is a regulatory response to capitalism.
I believe that laws, money, corporations, and government are social agreements, and I'm in favor of democratic social agreements.
I believe in the organized non-violent boycott as a way to control capitalists and change corrupt systems.
I try to eat plant-based / vegan foods to boycott the animal industry, to help with the climate crisis, to improve my health, to avoid animal cruelty, and to avoid the extinction of species of plants, animals and ecosystems.
I have been diagnosed with Retinitus Pigmentosa, which is a disease of progressive retinal degeneration. I am legally blind, although I have about 5-degrees of vision remaining in my fovea. I'm interested in researching and developing BCIs (Brain-Computer Interfaces), specifically BCIs that function as vision prostheses that may help with conditions like RP, or the more common degenerative retinal disease AMD (Age-related Macular Degeneration).
I enjoy playing computer games like Age of Empires and Rimworld. I used to program computer games when I was younger and would like to get back to it one day.
I love playing music, especially bass guitar. I've been listening to a lot of Rage Against the Machine and Enya recently.
I enjoy reading books, mostly non-fiction.
I enjoy studying religions. I've found a lot of value in Buddhism, and I meditate often daily.
Nina and I have recently had our first baby, a boy we named Tyoma.
I'm currently working at Apple on the Vision Pro headset team.
No one culture, or country, is superior to another. You can not force your sensibilities, or culture, on other people—especially not online and while you are in their country.
The evolution of social networking: NPR visits a museum for self-described tech nerds, where they're preserving the machines that inspired inventors to create today's essential communication tech. "It's a Willy Wonka's factory of clattering gizmos, many invented by steam age eccentrics and tinkerers who managed to connect an entire world.” says writer Brian Mann.
I like #Calckey and all, but what will decide if I spend more time here is how American-centric it will be.
One thing I love about #Mastodon is how for the first time since the dawn of social media/networks with have a tool that is not American, where Americans are not the majority of users (at least they were not until recently), and where most conversations do not revolve around American issues.
And... I just don't want to go back to that American-centric internet ever again.
Here? So far, I'm not too sure. Of course, it depends on who I follow, but the public timelines are a bit too on the wrong side of that issue... 🤔
The University of Manchester is now recruiting students for its 2024 intake in the MSc Social Network Analysis :fediverse: :igraph: :rstats: - run by the wonderful Dr Elisa Bellotti, a friend and dear conference buddy of mine