Skip to main content

in reply to Jesse Skinner

twitter, threads, mySpace, Facebook: all will fall

Mastodon will be the little rodents with the little whiskers, hiding in the debris...

in reply to Jesse Skinner

Fedi exclusively. I’ll never trust a corporate/venture capital funded platform again. A profit motive immediately compromises their users even if they are well intended in the beginning.
in reply to Jesse Skinner

Mastodon is great, but to make it even better for professional use it might help if something like the "top-links" in the "catch-up" (Beta) window of #phanpy (phanpy.social/ ) is the home page by default for all users. These top-links are sorted by the number of times boosted by the ones *you follow*. This could be useful for #science, to highlight most important developments (e.g. publications) in your network. Now you easily miss them, causing some colleagues to leave.

Nyan Max reshared this.

in reply to Geert Aarts

@geertaarts
> Mastodon is great, but to make it even better for professional use

Using Mastodon is only one way to participate in the fediverse. It wasn't even the first. There have always been a range of apps you can use, many of which have features Mastodon lacks;

fediverse.party/en/miscellaneo…

Existing professional tools can be modified to communicate over ActivityPub too, see;

socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/…

@JesseSkinner

in reply to Dreaming of dad jazz.

@michaelcoyote I think keeping Mastodon as a main account and also building a community on BS that could be ported here if the enshitification of BS hits, might not be an awful idea. it might also be a way to educate people about the fediverse. #Mastodon #BlueSky
in reply to Jesse Skinner

Bridging to bluesky should be enough. I still enjoy a non-algorithm view more than chasing a computer algorithm to boost things for me!
in reply to Toni Aittoniemi

@gimulnautti

I just wish the bridge operated by opt out rather than opt in. So many Bluesky non-techies don’t understand how it works or why they should do it.

@JesseSkinner

in reply to Bam

(1/2)

@Bam
> I just wish the bridge operated by opt out rather than opt in

AFAIK it was. Then the Mastodon Homeowners Association dogpiled @snarfed.org until he made it opt-in. What I'd like to see him do is make the opt-in itself opt-in. So it's up to server admins to decide whether they want BS interop with their server to be opt-in or opt-out.

I suspect our server's community would prefer opt-out.

@gimulnautti @JesseSkinner

in reply to Strypey

(2/2)

Having said that, there's some benefits to people effectively having to choose either;

* actually decentralised social networks like the fediverse (or Nostr)

OR

* pseudo-decentralised social platforms like BS (or Meta's Chains)

It spares us having to deal with "influencer" types who think volume of noise is more important than quality of signal.

This entry was edited (1 month ago)
Unknown parent

Strypey

@alexisbushnell
> the reason quantity over quality is important on other platforms is because of the algorithms on them

That explains how the habit develops. But not why people pick replacements that supply the habit, rather than liberating them from it.

While I'm glad you shared this, your reply is somewhat out of context. I was referring more to some people choosing a Xitter replacement on the basis of total population to be reached (quantity), over the values encoded in the tech (quality).

Unknown parent

Strypey

@alexisbushnell
> when your business model depends on reaching the most people, the decision is made for you based on where the most people are

That logic makes sense in a broadcast world, where channels have fairly consistent audiences. But it totally breaks down in social media.

Total population tells you nothing useful. FarceBook still has a higher total population that anywhere. But there's no guarantee anyone will see your stuff there - even if they follow you - unless you pay to play.

in reply to Strypey

(2/?)

Speaking here as an activist, writer and advocacy journalist for about 3 decades. If you think I don't want lots of people to read and share my stuff, you're imagining someone much more enlightened than me ; )

in reply to Strypey

(3/3)

I first got active on the fediverse on Quitter.se. They ran a GNU social server, which could automatically crosspost to a Titter account. I set one up for that purpose.

Every now and then I'd login to respond to any comments that merited a reply, and compare the level of engagement with what I was getting in the verse. Despite the total population of Titter being massively higher, both the quantity and quality of engagement here was consistently higher.

#SocialMedia #fediverse

This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
Unknown parent

Strypey

@alexisbushnell
> an amazing Fedi following won't get you paid

I beg to differ. I recently got my first paid subscription from a shameless self-promotion here. I regularly see people posting jobs wanted and jobs offered ads. As well as begposts along the lines of 'can't pay my rent this week, please drop cash money in this digital bucket'.

Will an amazing BlueSky following get you paid in similar ways? Probably. But it has nothing to do with the relative size of their total population.

Unknown parent

Strypey

@alexisbushnell
> I meant in the way influencers make money - by selling ad space on their content

Is it mean to say that I simply don't care what happens to people who make money that way? Just like I don't care about what happens to any bacteria on my hands when I wash them?

Like the bacteria, this style of "influencer" floods the zone with shit simply by existing. If BlueSky is keeping away from the fediverse for a bit longer, that's the best argument I've seen so far for BS existing ; )