Collecting anecdotes, data, and anecdata on people and orgs who’ve left Twitter and found higher engagement from ostensibly fewer followers. This is in preparation for a renewed pitch to the org I’m in, to begin the process of x-trication. Boosts appreciated!
After a year on Mastodon, I have nearly as many followers as I had on Twitter after 12 years. None of my posts ever got a thousand retweets on Twitter, and that has happened here.
People like to say that "AI" is different from crypto in that there are actual useful applications, and that's true. But the vast majority of people you're expecting to come up with those applications are the same people who were just trying to build products on the blockchain.
@misc The prevailing wisdom on crypto always seemed backward to me: Many people said that yes Bitcoin et al. were silly but the “real” and “serious” applications were in the underlying blockchain tech. In reality, Bitcoin is as useful as the blockchain gets (not very lol), way more practical than using a blockchain for logistics or whatever. “AI” could be similar—maybe ChatGPT is as good as it gets.
I kind of understood this, but it's getting clearer to me. The kind of people who build good thoughtful products are going to be disproportionately put off by AI and the surrounding culture, leaving the field largely to scammers and magical thinkers. And the ensuing flood of shit isn't neutral. Actual good stuff gets lost. I really think this kind of hype is bad for real innovation.
Yes the constant meta (and Meta) discussion here is tedious, and often much worse, but what you have to realize is that this isn’t just a social network, it’s a left/progressive political project. I don’t know how many left/progressive political orgs you’ve been involved in, but let me tell you, they are kind of known for endless, agonizing talk about process, factions, outside threats, inside threats, strategy, grievances, etc. And if you have a solution for that, you just might save the world.
@misc
You may get push back on the idea that the fediverse is an “explicitly left wing” project. But I think you might be right. And it’s already “baked in” to the very structure and concept of an open protocol based network.
We are refusing to automatically aggregate our users and their data to be monetized. We just want to socialize! We aren’t exploiting that human desire to connect to generate ad revenue or data to mine— or a social graph that can be sold and exploited.
This is why there is such a mismatch when trying to fit the fediverse into the “social media company” mould. It’s like if you ran a logging company that never cut down any trees and just planted them instead— because it’s not a logging company— it’s a forest preservation club. “wow you are planting so many trees— when do you harvest?”
“well if we needed some lumber we have some trees marked, but we don’t need any now”
“This place is a failure of a lumber company”
Volunteering to adopt new users who are lost or confused. Meaning I’ll recommend people to follow, and answer questions. I’ll delete this when I’ve reached my capacity, but feel free to boost or copy paste to your own accounts.
@misc Hi. I’m currently using mastodon on the chrome browser on my iPhone. I’d like recommendations for an iPhone app. Also looking for breaking news accounts to follow. Thanks.
@misc I'm new to mastodon and this form of social media in general. I've followed a few people, but I really want to find people who are posting really engaging content. Also breaking news. If you have a recommendation for an android app, that would be cool, too.
If you're in a progressive group that posts to X, volunteer to start accounts on Masto (and if you can stomach it, BlueSky and/or Threads), manually mirror the posts, and engage as needed. It's a little thing we can do to reduce the left's dependence on fascist fuel.
Well, if it isn’t me putting my money where my mouth is. It would mean a lot to me if you followed @ifnotnowboston. Even if you’re not in Boston — I plan to post and boost content that should be relevant to a wide audience. I’m really hoping to make this account succeed enough to convince the national org to get on board. Feedback welcome!
@inquiline I feel like this boost you made ("It's funny seeing people ping pong back and forth between Masto and Bluesky based on where they last got yelled at.") could have applied to Indymedia listservs (or websites, for that matter) some two decades ago.
@boby_biq@Azih@renwillis Oh yeah, my first computer was this handsome feller and I've been a Mac guy ever since. I believe my grandma sold it to my dad when she was like "wtf is this, I'll stick with DOS." I was born in 1984, it was fate.
A lot of people claimed that LLMs were making them 10x more productive, right? So I guess we should expect some pretty amazing things pretty soon. Can't wait to see what they all come up with.
It's well understood that to make the most of a place like this, without juiced up algorithms, you have to follow a lot of people. But I think another thing is that you have to keep following new people because there is a lot of churn. A lot of people have faded out but there are always cool new people to discover.
@misc Also follow back. When someone follows you, follow back. It's a great way to keep your time line fresh.
One other tip, use your mute button. Some content isn't offensive, but it's annoying or repetitive. You don't need to put up with it.
@misc And follow hashtags, which you can do here but not on most (maybe all, but who can say for sure?) social media platforms. So no matter who is discussing a topic, if you're interested in it you'll see it in your feed.
@wx1g It feels hotter to me, but that’s probably mostly because the air conditioning is broken in my car. Also the wildfire smoke, and like you said the humidity, makes the outdoors just feel inhospitable in general. Yuck.
@misc I don't need to visit Steam Works, just step out of my very air-conditioned apartment. It feels like a summer I spent on Virginia's eastern shore.