{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@reillypascal",
        "url": "https://hachyderm.io/@reillypascal",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://hachyderm.io/@reillypascal/111755397146482517",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>New blog post! This one's about making a comment section for my static site using Netlify and Supabase for backend, and vanilla JavaScript for the frontend.</p><p><a href=\"https://reillyspitzfaden.com/blogposts/01-14-2024\"><span>https://</span><span>reillyspitzfaden.com/blogposts</span><span>/01-14-2024</span></a></p><p><a href=\"https://hachyderm.io/tags/webdev\">#<span>webdev</span></a> <a href=\"https://hachyderm.io/tags/blog\">#<span>blog</span></a> <a href=\"https://hachyderm.io/tags/developer\">#<span>developer</span></a> <a href=\"https://hachyderm.io/tags/javascript\">#<span>javascript</span></a> <a href=\"https://hachyderm.io/tags/netlify\">#<span>netlify</span></a> <a href=\"https://hachyderm.io/tags/supabase\">#<span>supabase</span></a> <a href=\"https://hachyderm.io/tags/postgres\">#<span>postgres</span></a> <a href=\"https://hachyderm.io/tags/staticsite\">#<span>staticsite</span></a> <a href=\"https://hachyderm.io/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a></p>",
        "text": "New blog post! This one's about making a comment section for my static site using Netlify and Supabase for backend, and vanilla JavaScript for the frontend.https://reillyspitzfaden.com/blogposts/01-14-2024#webdev #blog #developer #javascript #netlify #supabase #postgres #staticsite #indieweb"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-14T17:07:11+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39991667",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@mstrkapowski",
        "url": "https://mastodon.online/@mstrkapowski",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://mastodon.online/@mstrkapowski/111755553300410950",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>back down the debugging rabbit-hole I go\u2026 <a href=\"https://mastodon.online/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a></p>",
        "text": "back down the debugging rabbit-hole I go\u2026 #indieweb"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-14T17:46:54+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39990431",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@jszym",
        "url": "https://cosocial.ca/@jszym",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://cosocial.ca/@jszym/111755537712365504",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>Everything on the <a href=\"https://cosocial.ca/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> wiki looks insanely cool, and there is a lot of documentation, but am I the only one who hasn't a clue how to adopt 99% of what is on there?</p><p><a href=\"https://cosocial.ca/tags/ActivityPub\">#<span>ActivityPub</span></a> and <a href=\"https://cosocial.ca/tags/Fedi\">#<span>Fedi</span></a> might be hard for folks to grok at first, but the on-ramp for <a href=\"https://cosocial.ca/tags/WebMentions\">#<span>WebMentions</span></a> for me looks like the Cliff's of Dover.</p><p>That said, I am acknowledging that plenty of folks are using IndieWeb to make truly insane things. I just want in! :P</p>",
        "text": "Everything on the #IndieWeb wiki looks insanely cool, and there is a lot of documentation, but am I the only one who hasn't a clue how to adopt 99% of what is on there?#ActivityPub and #Fedi might be hard for folks to grok at first, but the on-ramp for #WebMentions for me looks like the Cliff's of Dover.That said, I am acknowledging that plenty of folks are using IndieWeb to make truly insane things. I just want in! :P"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-14T17:42:56+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39990432",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@inautilo",
        "url": "https://mastodon.social/@inautilo",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://mastodon.social/@inautilo/111755483902161483",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Development\">#<span>Development</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Challenges\">#<span>Challenges</span></a><br />Let\u2019s make the indie web easier \u00b7 \u201cWe need more than WordPress.\u201d <a href=\"https://ilo.im/15xm2z\"><span>https://</span><span>ilo.im/15xm2z</span><span></span></a></p><p>_____<br /><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Website\">#<span>Website</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Blog\">#<span>Blog</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/OpenWeb\">#<span>OpenWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/SmallWeb\">#<span>SmallWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/WebDev\">#<span>WebDev</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Frontend\">#<span>Frontend</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Backend\">#<span>Backend</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/CMS\">#<span>CMS</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/WebsiteTool\">#<span>WebsiteTool</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Hosting\">#<span>Hosting</span></a></p>",
        "text": "#Development #Challenges\nLet\u2019s make the indie web easier \u00b7 \u201cWe need more than WordPress.\u201d https://ilo.im/15xm2z_____\n#Website #Blog #OpenWeb #IndieWeb #SmallWeb #WebDev #Frontend #Backend #CMS #WebsiteTool #Hosting"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-14T17:29:15+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39990293",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

The fediverse for media organizations

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2024-01-14T16:24:13+00:00",
    "url": "https://werd.io/2024/the-fediverse-for-media-organizations",
    "name": "The fediverse for media organizations",
    "content": {
        "text": "Given all the talk lately of Threads, Mastodon, and\u00a0ways that people can publish on their own sites, I thought it might be worth revisiting what the fediverse actually is \u2014 and why an organization might want to integrate with it.My focus is on media organizations, but remember that just about every company is, in some sense, a media organization: newsrooms, for sure, but also marketing organizations, engineering teams hoping to hire great talent, non-profits that need to spread their message and make an impact, creatives who want to promote their work, and so on.Here\u2019s the summary: the fediverse allows media organizations to directly own their relationships with their audiences in a way that they\u2019ve previously only been able to approximate with email newsletters. It gives them full, deep analytics about what their audiences care about in a way that can\u2019t be achieved with newsletters or news aggregators, allows publishers to reach them directly, and will grow to a potential audience of at least 172 million people by the end of the year.How did I come to those conclusions? I\u2019ll break it down.Really simple syndicationIt all started with syndication feeds. The word \u201csyndication\u201d here is actually misleading: they\u2019re a way to subscribe to the content put out by a publisher, such that if you subscribe to a publisher\u2019s feed in your feed reader, you will receive every article they publish in your reader.You already know about RSS (Really Simple Syndication), which is one open format for feeds, used by readers like Feedly and Reeder. RSS is also what powers podcasts behind the scenes.RSS isn\u2019t the only kind of syndication feed, however. For example, if you\u2019re on a Mac or an iPhone, you might use Apple News, which is a feed reader that\u2019s been optimized for a curated set of news publishers. Its underlying technology is not a million miles away from an RSS reader.Each reader application performs the following steps:Load the feeds for all the publishers a user has subscribed to, directly from the publishers\u2019 websites\nCheck for any new articles in each of the feeds that the user hasn\u2019t seen before\nPlace these articles in an inbox for the user to read\nA feed reader is a one-directional broadcast relationship. Once you subscribe to a feed, you will receive newly-published articles from that publisher. What you can\u2019t do is reply to those articles, and there\u2019s also no standard way to re-share them. Syndication feeds are for reading only: you receive articles from the publisher but have no way of sending anything back to them.It\u2019s worth adding that I\u2019m using \u201carticles\u201d here as a shorthand: feeds can contain any kind of content. A podcast is just a syndication feed that happens to contain audio; a podcast player is a feed reader optimized to play audio. It\u2019s also perfectly possible for a feed to contain video or even interactive applications. It just so happens that most feeds are text and audio, but they don\u2019t have to be that way.While curated apps like Apple News do let publishers know how many people are reading their content (which is often multiples of the number of people who read the publisher\u2019s website directly), this is almost impossible to achieve with RSS. In most cases, if a publisher is producing a feed, they have no idea how many people are subscribed to it \u2014 let alone who they are, what else they\u2019re interested in, and who else they\u2019re subscribed to.Email newslettersPublishers don\u2019t know who is subscribing to their RSS feeds, or how effective those feeds are. Meanwhile, while they try and reach their audiences via social media, companies like Meta have long since been intermediating between publishers and their followers, often charging publishers to be seen by more of the people who already opted in to following them.Increasingly, the response has been to establish email newsletters:Publishers can be reasonably sure that emails will be received by readers\nThey can change email providers without losing email subscriptions\nEmail open rates can usually be measured\nEmail subscribers are more likely to donate or become pad subscribers\nIt\u2019s considered to be a direct relationship because email providers don\u2019t intermediate. The publisher receives the subscriber\u2019s email details, and the reader knows they\u2019ll receive all of a publisher\u2019s emails.However, publishers really only know three things about email subscribers:Their email address\nWhether they open their mail\nWhether they click on anything in their mail\nIn particular, they don\u2019t know who those people are, what they\u2019re interested in, and who else they\u2019re subscribed to. Often they\u2019ll run an annual survey to get a stronger sense of that information \u2014 primarily so they can figure out how to serve that audience with content tailored for them, but also so they can figure out if they\u2019re reaching a diverse enough audience, and so on. However, publishers are not likely to get any other information about them, save for an occasional email reply from around 2% of the most-engaged subscribers.What\u2019s different on the fediverseThe fediverse is a decentralized social layer for the whole web. One way to think of it is if the entire web was a social network, with profiles, content, and actions on that content.It\u2019s the best of the worlds I\u2019ve discussed in the following ways:Publishers know who is subscribing to their content\nEveryone has a profile, where their other subscriptions can be traversed, so publishers can understand what their readers are interested in\nIt\u2019s incredibly easy for a reader to respond to, or interact with, content, making their opinions and preferences known\nAll of the above happens in a direct, non-intermediated way: content is published on the publisher\u2019s website, and it is subscribed to directly and received by the reader on publication (at least, most of the time; more on this in a moment)\nLike pure syndication, the fediverse is essentially based on feeds. Here, rather than just publishers having a feed, everyone gets one.Not everyone wants to publish articles of their own, but you possibly might want to \u201clike\u201d or re-share something that someone else published. When feeds contain actions as well as content, we call them activity streams. \u201cBen Werdmuller liked Evan Prodromou\u2019s article\u201d is an example of an activity.In the above example, it\u2019s not particularly useful for me to like Evan\u2019s article if he doesn\u2019t get to know about it. So in the fediverse, each reader can receive other peoples\u2019 actions to its inbox, even if the user hasn\u2019t subscribed to them. Evan might not subscribe to me, but if I click to \u201clike\u201d one of his articles, my reader will send that activity to his inbox, and he\u2019ll be notified.There is, of course, much more to it technically behind the scenes. But at its core, the fediverse really is just feeds of content and activities, with a little bit of magic to let people know when people are talking about them. (You might have heard of ActivityPub: this is the protocol used to enable this magic, as well as to help readers find a publisher\u2019s feed to begin with.)Remember that syndication feeds have a uni-directional relationship: the publisher creates content and the user subscribes and reads. In contrast, fediverse feeds have a bi-directional relationship: the publisher creates content and the user can subscribe, read, like, re-share, quote, and more.Every fediverse application is just a feed reader that lets you respond to content, perform activities like \u201cliking\u201d and \u201cre-sharing\u201d it, and publish your own.This means that, yes, Mastodon is, at its core, a feed reader. Threads will also be a feed reader once it fully supports ActivityPub. It just so happens that most of these feeds tend to contain short Twitter-style content right now, but they don\u2019t have to. They can contain articles, audio, video, interactive content \u2014 all the same content possibilities as syndication feeds, as well as a range of activities on that content.Importantly for media companies, whereas a publisher doesn\u2019t really know who might be subscribing to their syndication feeds, a publisher knows exactly who is subscribing to their fediverse feeds. Subscriptions are just another activity that they\u2019re notified about \u2014 which allows them to measure growth over time, and even reach out to their individual subscribers directly if they want. Each subscriber has a profile that lists who else they\u2019re following, allowing their interests to be measured in aggregate.Okay, but who\u2019s going to use it?The fediverse does not provide identity portability. That is to say, if you have an account on Threads and you want to move to Mastodon, there\u2019s no standard way to move from one to the other. While any application on the fediverse allows users to interact with content produced by any other application on the fediverse, there\u2019s nothing to prevent users from being locked in to any one of these applications. If I build a following on Threads, I can\u2019t move that following to Mastodon.While that might seem like a bug, it\u2019s a characteristic that can help platforms like Threads feel comfortable supporting the fediverse. It allows their users to read and interact with an expanding world of content, but it\u2019s not an offramp for those users to more easily leave the platform. Finally, although content can be consumed using any fediverse reader, a lot of it will look better on the platform it originated from, so platforms may gain users who discover them through reshared fediverse content.So the benefits for platforms are:Platforms have a world of content and users they can plug into from day one, so they solve the cold start problem where a platform seems empty before lots of people have joined\nUsers are incentivized to stay on a platform once they\u2019ve joined it\nUsers can discover new platforms through content that\u2019s been shared on the fediverse\nThe result should be that more platforms support the fediverse over time. Currently the biggest platforms are Mastodon, at 12 million users across many installations across the web. Over the next year it will be joined by Threads, who has over 160 million users. Unlike many of the decentralized social web efforts in the past, the fediverse will have hundreds of millions of users as a baseline.Publishers who are there and ready when Threads fully plugs in its fediverse connectivity will be at a distinct advantage.About those direct connectionsI mentioned that the fediverse wasn\u2019t intermediated: a publisher can be reasonably sure that a reader will receive its content.While a publisher\u2019s website can be plugged into the fediverse so that a reader can subscribe directly, whether that reader actually gets to see the content does depend on the platform they\u2019re is using. In particular, it\u2019s reasonable to assume that Threads, which is owned by Meta, is more likely to create intermediation between the publisher and the reader. Meta has form for this: Facebook Page owners famously need to pay to promote posts if they want to be sure their communities can see them. It\u2019s not clear how Threads will monetize, but it\u2019s possible that this sort of content promotion will be part of its strategy.The good news is that the underlying protocols are open and anybody can build something new on top of them. While Mastodon and Threads are both optimized for short-form content, other platforms already exist: Pixelfed is optimized for photographs, for example, and Lemmy for Reddit-style conversations. It\u2019s highly likely that we\u2019ll see fediverse software that works more closely to Apple News or a traditional feed reader, optimized for longer-form web content. Meta isn\u2019t the only game in town and can\u2019t dictate how the wider fediverse network functions.How hard is it for a publisher to plug in?The effort required to connect a website to the fediverse is very low. Publishers that use WordPress as their underlying CMS can add an existing ActivityPub plugin that is also available to hosted WordPress clients. Ghost has indicated that it\u2019s exploring integrating with ActivityPub. Bridgy Fed also helps connects websites to the fediverse. (Known, which my website is built on, has contracted to build ActivityPub support in the first few months of this year.)This support will only increase over the next year, particularly as Threads gets closer to releasing its full fediverse compatibility. It\u2019ll only become easier and easier to plug in.So should I, as a publisher, experiment with it?Yes.Don\u2019t throw all your eggs into this basket, but the barrier to experimentation is so low, and the potential upside is so high, that it\u2019s absolutely worth your time to experiment.So should I, as a software developer, experiment with it?Also yes. As you\u2019ve read, there are lots of opportunities for use cases on the fediverse that haven\u2019t quite been seen to fruition yet. There is a lot of potential here for both new and existing teams to create tools that provide a lot of value to an already-established and growing audience.More libraries and APIs are becoming available every day to help you build fediverse compatibility. The barrier to entry is only getting lower \u2014 so the time to get established is now.",
        "html": "<p><img src=\"https://werd.io/file/65a40aa07d38fc01d50bcd62/thumb.jpg\" alt=\"Many be-suited people holding cellphones\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" /></p><p>Given all the talk lately of Threads, Mastodon, and\u00a0<a href=\"https://werd.io/2024/running-your-own-site-is-painful-hosting-nazis-is-worse\">ways that people can publish on their own sites</a>, I thought it might be worth revisiting what the fediverse actually is \u2014 and why an organization might want to integrate with it.</p><p>My focus is on media organizations, but remember that just about every company is, in some sense, a media organization: newsrooms, for sure, but also marketing organizations, engineering teams hoping to hire great talent, non-profits that need to spread their message and make an impact, creatives who want to promote their work, and so on.</p><p><strong>Here\u2019s the summary:</strong> the fediverse allows media organizations to directly own their relationships with their audiences in a way that they\u2019ve previously only been able to approximate with email newsletters. It gives them full, deep analytics about what their audiences care about in a way that can\u2019t be achieved with newsletters or news aggregators, allows publishers to reach them directly, and will grow to a potential audience of at least 172 million people by the end of the year.</p><p>How did I come to those conclusions? I\u2019ll break it down.</p><h3>Really simple syndication</h3><p>It all started with syndication feeds. The word \u201csyndication\u201d here is actually misleading: they\u2019re a way to subscribe to the content put out by a publisher, such that if you subscribe to a publisher\u2019s feed in your feed reader, you will receive every article they publish in your reader.</p><p><a href=\"https://aboutfeeds.com/\">You already know about RSS (Really Simple Syndication)</a>, which is one open format for feeds, used by readers like <a href=\"https://feedly.com\">Feedly</a> and <a href=\"https://reederapp.com/\">Reeder</a>. RSS is also what powers podcasts behind the scenes.</p><p>RSS isn\u2019t the only kind of syndication feed, however. For example, if you\u2019re on a Mac or an iPhone, you might use Apple News, which is a feed reader that\u2019s been optimized for a curated set of news publishers. Its underlying technology is not a million miles away from an RSS reader.</p><p>Each reader application performs the following steps:</p><ol><li>Load the feeds for all the publishers a user has subscribed to, directly from the publishers\u2019 websites</li>\n<li>Check for any new articles in each of the feeds that the user hasn\u2019t seen before</li>\n<li>Place these articles in an inbox for the user to read</li>\n</ol><p>A feed reader is a one-directional broadcast relationship. Once you subscribe to a feed, you will receive newly-published articles from that publisher. What you can\u2019t do is <em>reply</em> to those articles, and there\u2019s also no standard way to <em>re-share</em> them. Syndication feeds are for reading only: you receive articles from the publisher but have no way of sending anything back to them.</p><p>It\u2019s worth adding that I\u2019m using \u201carticles\u201d here as a shorthand: feeds can contain any kind of content. A podcast is just a syndication feed that happens to contain audio; a podcast player is a feed reader optimized to play audio. It\u2019s also perfectly possible for a feed to contain video or even interactive applications. It just so happens that most feeds are text and audio, but they don\u2019t <em>have</em> to be that way.</p><p>While curated apps like Apple News do let publishers know how many people are reading their content (which is often multiples of the number of people who read the publisher\u2019s website directly), this is almost impossible to achieve with RSS. In most cases, if a publisher is producing a feed, they have no idea how many people are subscribed to it \u2014 let alone <em>who</em> they are, what else they\u2019re interested in, and who else they\u2019re subscribed to.</p><h3>Email newsletters</h3><p>Publishers don\u2019t know who is subscribing to their RSS feeds, or how effective those feeds are. Meanwhile, while they try and reach their audiences via social media, companies like Meta have long since been intermediating between publishers and their followers, often charging publishers to be seen by more of the people who already opted in to following them.</p><p>Increasingly, the response has been to establish email newsletters:</p><ul><li>Publishers can be reasonably sure that emails will be received by readers</li>\n<li>They can change email providers without losing email subscriptions</li>\n<li>Email open rates can usually be measured</li>\n<li>Email subscribers are more likely to donate or become pad subscribers</li>\n</ul><p>It\u2019s considered to be a direct relationship because email providers don\u2019t intermediate. The publisher receives the subscriber\u2019s email details, and the reader knows they\u2019ll receive all of a publisher\u2019s emails.</p><p>However, publishers really only know three things about email subscribers:</p><ol><li>Their email address</li>\n<li>Whether they open their mail</li>\n<li>Whether they click on anything in their mail</li>\n</ol><p>In particular, they don\u2019t know who those people are, what they\u2019re interested in, and who else they\u2019re subscribed to. Often they\u2019ll run an annual survey to get a stronger sense of that information \u2014 primarily so they can figure out how to serve that audience with content tailored for them, but also so they can figure out if they\u2019re reaching a diverse enough audience, and so on. However, publishers are not likely to get any <em>other</em> information about them, save for an occasional email reply from around 2% of the most-engaged subscribers.</p><h3>What\u2019s different on the fediverse</h3><p>The fediverse is a decentralized social layer for the whole web. One way to think of it is if the entire web was a social network, with profiles, content, and actions on that content.</p><p>It\u2019s the best of the worlds I\u2019ve discussed in the following ways:</p><ul><li>Publishers know who is subscribing to their content</li>\n<li>Everyone has a profile, where their other subscriptions can be traversed, so publishers can understand what their readers are interested in</li>\n<li>It\u2019s incredibly easy for a reader to respond to, or interact with, content, making their opinions and preferences known</li>\n<li>All of the above happens in a direct, non-intermediated way: content is published on the publisher\u2019s website, and it is subscribed to directly and received by the reader on publication (at least, most of the time; more on this in a moment)</li>\n</ul><p>Like pure syndication, the fediverse is essentially based on feeds. Here, rather than just publishers having a feed, <em>everyone</em> gets one.</p><p>Not everyone wants to publish articles of their own, but you possibly might want to \u201clike\u201d or re-share something that someone else published. When feeds contain actions as well as content, we call them activity streams. \u201c<em>Ben Werdmuller liked Evan Prodromou\u2019s article</em>\u201d is an example of an activity.</p><p>In the above example, it\u2019s not particularly useful for me to like Evan\u2019s article if he doesn\u2019t get to know about it. So in the fediverse, each reader can receive other peoples\u2019 actions to its inbox, even if the user hasn\u2019t subscribed to them. Evan might not subscribe to me, but if I click to \u201clike\u201d one of his articles, my reader will send that activity to his inbox, and he\u2019ll be notified.</p><p>There is, of course, much more to it technically behind the scenes. But at its core, the fediverse really is just feeds of content and activities, with a little bit of magic to let people know when people are talking about them. (You might have heard of <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub\">ActivityPub</a>: this is the protocol used to enable this magic, as well as to help readers find a publisher\u2019s feed to begin with.)</p><p>Remember that syndication feeds have a uni-directional relationship: the publisher creates content and the user subscribes and reads. In contrast, fediverse feeds have a bi-directional relationship: the publisher creates content and the user can subscribe, read, like, re-share, quote, and more.</p><p>Every fediverse application is just a feed reader that lets you respond to content, perform activities like \u201cliking\u201d and \u201cre-sharing\u201d it, and publish your own.</p><p>This means that, yes, Mastodon is, at its core, a feed reader. Threads will also be a feed reader once it fully supports ActivityPub. It just so happens that most of these feeds tend to contain short Twitter-style content right now, but they don\u2019t have to. They can contain articles, audio, video, interactive content \u2014 all the same content possibilities as syndication feeds, as well as a range of activities <em>on</em> that content.</p><p>Importantly for media companies, whereas a publisher doesn\u2019t really know who might be subscribing to their syndication feeds, a publisher knows <em>exactly</em> who is subscribing to their fediverse feeds. Subscriptions are just another activity that they\u2019re notified about \u2014 which allows them to measure growth over time, and even reach out to their individual subscribers directly if they want. Each subscriber has a profile that lists who else they\u2019re following, allowing their interests to be measured in aggregate.</p><h3>Okay, but who\u2019s going to use it?</h3><p>The fediverse does not provide identity portability. That is to say, if you have an account on Threads and you want to move to Mastodon, there\u2019s no standard way to move from one to the other. While any application on the fediverse allows users to interact with content produced by any other application on the fediverse, there\u2019s nothing to prevent users from being locked in to any one of these applications. If I build a following on Threads, I can\u2019t move that following to Mastodon.</p><p>While that might seem like a bug, it\u2019s a characteristic that can help platforms like Threads feel comfortable supporting the fediverse. It allows their users to read and interact with an expanding world of content, but it\u2019s not an offramp for those users to more easily leave the platform. Finally, although content can be consumed using any fediverse reader, a lot of it will look better on the platform it originated from, so platforms may gain users who discover them through reshared fediverse content.</p><p>So the benefits for platforms are:</p><ul><li>Platforms have a world of content and users they can plug into from day one, so they solve the cold start problem where a platform seems empty before lots of people have joined</li>\n<li>Users are incentivized to stay on a platform once they\u2019ve joined it</li>\n<li>Users can discover new platforms through content that\u2019s been shared on the fediverse</li>\n</ul><p>The result should be that more platforms support the fediverse over time. Currently the biggest platforms are Mastodon, at 12 million users across many installations across the web. Over the next year it will be joined by Threads, who has over 160 million users. Unlike many of the decentralized social web efforts in the past, the fediverse will have hundreds of millions of users as a baseline.</p><p>Publishers who are there and ready when Threads fully plugs in its fediverse connectivity will be at a distinct advantage.</p><h3>About those direct connections</h3><p>I mentioned that the fediverse wasn\u2019t intermediated: a publisher can be reasonably sure that a reader will receive its content.</p><p>While a publisher\u2019s website can be plugged into the fediverse so that a reader can subscribe directly, whether that reader actually gets to see the content does depend on the platform they\u2019re is using. In particular, it\u2019s reasonable to assume that Threads, which is owned by Meta, is more likely to create intermediation between the publisher and the reader. Meta has form for this: Facebook Page owners famously need to pay to promote posts if they want to be sure their communities can see them. It\u2019s not clear how Threads will monetize, but it\u2019s possible that this sort of content promotion will be part of its strategy.</p><p>The good news is that the underlying protocols are open and anybody can build something new on top of them. While Mastodon and Threads are both optimized for short-form content, other platforms already exist: Pixelfed is optimized for photographs, for example, and Lemmy for Reddit-style conversations. It\u2019s highly likely that we\u2019ll see fediverse software that works more closely to Apple News or a traditional feed reader, optimized for longer-form web content. Meta isn\u2019t the only game in town and can\u2019t dictate how the wider fediverse network functions.</p><h3>How hard is it for a publisher to plug in?</h3><p>The effort required to connect a website to the fediverse is very low. Publishers that use WordPress as their underlying CMS can add an existing <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/\">ActivityPub plugin</a> that is also available to hosted WordPress clients. Ghost has indicated that it\u2019s exploring integrating with ActivityPub. <a href=\"https://fed.brid.gy/\">Bridgy Fed</a> also helps connects websites to the fediverse. (Known, which my website is built on, has contracted to build ActivityPub support in the first few months of this year.)</p><p>This support will only increase over the next year, particularly as Threads gets closer to releasing its full fediverse compatibility. It\u2019ll only become easier and easier to plug in.</p><h3>So should I, as a publisher, experiment with it?</h3><p>Yes.</p><p>Don\u2019t throw all your eggs into this basket, but the barrier to experimentation is so low, and the potential upside is so high, that it\u2019s absolutely worth your time to experiment.</p><h3>So should I, as a software developer, experiment with it?</h3><p>Also yes. As you\u2019ve read, there are lots of opportunities for use cases on the fediverse that haven\u2019t quite been seen to fruition yet. There is a lot of potential here for both new and existing teams to create tools that provide a lot of value to an already-established and growing audience.</p><p>More libraries and APIs are becoming available every day to help you build fediverse compatibility. The barrier to entry is only getting lower \u2014 so the time to get established is now.</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Ben Werdmuller",
        "url": "https://werd.io/profile/benwerd",
        "photo": "https://werd.io/file/5d388c5fb16ea14aac640912/thumb.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "article",
    "_id": "39990252",
    "_source": "191",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@jsit",
        "url": "https://social.coop/@jsit",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://social.coop/@jsit/111755053750758608",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p><span class=\"h-card\"><a class=\"u-url\" href=\"https://mastodon.me.uk/@gilest\">@<span>gilest</span></a></span> I haven't seen MacPaw's RapidWeaver mentioned in these replies: <a href=\"https://www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/\"><span>https://www.</span><span>realmacsoftware.com/rapidweave</span><span>r/</span></a></p><p><a href=\"https://social.coop/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a></p>",
        "text": "@gilest I haven't seen MacPaw's RapidWeaver mentioned in these replies: https://www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/#IndieWeb"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-14T15:39:51+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39989356",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@tmichellemoore",
        "url": "https://mastodon.social/@tmichellemoore",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://mastodon.social/@tmichellemoore/111754781197796058",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>One of the first videos that I watched when I decided that I wanted to learn to watercolor paint was \"The Complete Beginner's Guide to Watercolor\". <br />This is post 4 of <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/100Posts\">#<span>100Posts</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/100Days\">#<span>100Days</span></a> of my 2024 <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/100DaysofIndieWeb\">#<span>100DaysofIndieWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> project. <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/watercolor\">#<span>watercolor</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/watercolorpainting\">#<span>watercolorpainting</span></a><br /><a href=\"https://tmichellemoore.com/blog/watched-the-complete-beginners-guide-to-watercolor/\"><span>https://</span><span>tmichellemoore.com/blog/watche</span><span>d-the-complete-beginners-guide-to-watercolor/</span></a><br /><a href=\"https://tmichellemoore.com/blog/watched-the-complete-beginners-guide-to-watercolor/\"><span>https://</span><span>tmichellemoore.com/blog/watche</span><span>d-the-complete-beginners-guide-to-watercolor/</span></a></p>",
        "text": "One of the first videos that I watched when I decided that I wanted to learn to watercolor paint was \"The Complete Beginner's Guide to Watercolor\". \nThis is post 4 of #100Posts #100Days of my 2024 #100DaysofIndieWeb #IndieWeb project. #watercolor #watercolorpainting\nhttps://tmichellemoore.com/blog/watched-the-complete-beginners-guide-to-watercolor/\nhttps://tmichellemoore.com/blog/watched-the-complete-beginners-guide-to-watercolor/"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-14T14:30:33+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39988828",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@jcrabapple",
        "url": "https://dmv.community/@jcrabapple",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://dmv.community/@jcrabapple/111754724671157080",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>Based on the 3+ days of likes and boosts my post about <a href=\"https://dmv.community/tags/StreetPass\">#<span>StreetPass</span></a> is getting, I think a lot more people will be using that extension and hopefully discovering all the great <a href=\"https://dmv.community/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a> blogs on the <a href=\"https://dmv.community/tags/fediverse\">#<span>fediverse</span></a>!</p>",
        "text": "Based on the 3+ days of likes and boosts my post about #StreetPass is getting, I think a lot more people will be using that extension and hopefully discovering all the great #indieweb blogs on the #fediverse!"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-14T14:16:10+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39988712",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@EvanHahn",
        "url": "https://bigshoulders.city/@EvanHahn",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://bigshoulders.city/@EvanHahn/111754470594881840",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>\"If we seriously, truly want the independent, non-enshittified personal web to flourish, we need to make it easier for people to join in.\" <a href=\"https://gilest.org/indie-easy.html\"><span>https://</span><span>gilest.org/indie-easy.html</span><span></span></a></p><p><a href=\"https://bigshoulders.city/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://bigshoulders.city/tags/SmallWeb\">#<span>SmallWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://bigshoulders.city/tags/programming\">#<span>programming</span></a> <a href=\"https://bigshoulders.city/tags/design\">#<span>design</span></a></p>",
        "text": "\"If we seriously, truly want the independent, non-enshittified personal web to flourish, we need to make it easier for people to join in.\" https://gilest.org/indie-easy.html#IndieWeb #SmallWeb #programming #design"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-14T13:11:33+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39988330",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@inautilo",
        "url": "https://mastodon.social/@inautilo",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://mastodon.social/@inautilo/111753974004004069",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Business\">#<span>Business</span></a> <br />Where have all the websites gone? \u00b7 Why are we so unhappy with the state of the web? <a href=\"https://ilo.im/15xmm6\"><span>https://</span><span>ilo.im/15xmm6</span><span></span></a></p><p>_____<br /><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Web\">#<span>Web</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/SocialMedia\">#<span>SocialMedia</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Curation\">#<span>Curation</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Website\">#<span>Website</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Blog\">#<span>Blog</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/OpenWeb\">#<span>OpenWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/SmallWeb\">#<span>SmallWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Design\">#<span>Design</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Development\">#<span>Development</span></a></p>",
        "text": "#Business \nWhere have all the websites gone? \u00b7 Why are we so unhappy with the state of the web? https://ilo.im/15xmm6_____\n#Web #SocialMedia #Curation #Website #Blog #OpenWeb #IndieWeb #SmallWeb #Design #Development"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-14T11:05:16+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39987816",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@mvyrmnd",
        "url": "https://aus.social/@mvyrmnd",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://aus.social/@mvyrmnd/111753770206223615",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>So i just started a dumb <a href=\"https://aus.social/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a> blog, putting into action my desire to see the <a href=\"https://aus.social/tags/smallweb\">#<span>smallweb</span></a> come back in 2024. It's all done in a text editor, as light as possible. It's entirely self hosted and even better I just got RSS working!</p>",
        "text": "So i just started a dumb #indieweb blog, putting into action my desire to see the #smallweb come back in 2024. It's all done in a text editor, as light as possible. It's entirely self hosted and even better I just got RSS working!"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-14T10:13:26+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39987558",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "#indieweb",
        "url": "https://mastodon.social/tags/indieweb",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://pleroma.envs.net/objects/4047e2dd-96c8-49b3-b6cd-a06fc2c0b07b",
    "content": {
        "html": "Hello fediverse,<br />because it's common in this space, this is a little <a href=\"https://pleroma.envs.net/tag/introduction\">#introduction</a><br /><br />I'm completely new to all this Social Media stuff and I was very skeptical about it in the past. Due to the evil nature of their corporations, I avoid Facebook and Twitter like the plague. But because ActivityPub is a free protocol and not bound to corporate interests it seems interesting. I'm not sure if I'll like it or post frequently - I'm just trying it out.<br /><br />I'm an enthusiastic computer, GNU/Linux and *BSD hobbyist. I like to tinker around with hard- and software in my little homelab. I'm in no way a professional or expert of any kind in the IT field. Just doing things for fun.<br /><br />Also interested in Gemini and the smolnet/indieweb. The way the internet is heading these days isn't very promising. When I discovered the gemini protocol in 2021 I was imediately intrigued. So I set up my own little capsule which I now regard as my private home in the online world (link in profile).<br /><br />I hope we have a good time together!<br /><br /><a href=\"https://pleroma.envs.net/tag/gemini\">#Gemini</a> <a href=\"https://pleroma.envs.net/tag/geminiprotocol\">#GeminiProtocol</a> <a href=\"https://pleroma.envs.net/tag/smolnet\">#Smolnet</a> <a href=\"https://pleroma.envs.net/tag/indieweb\">#Indieweb</a> <a href=\"https://pleroma.envs.net/tag/privacy\">#Privacy</a> <a href=\"https://pleroma.envs.net/tag/selfhosting\">#SelfHosting</a> <a href=\"https://pleroma.envs.net/tag/homelab\">#HomeLab</a> <a href=\"https://pleroma.envs.net/tag/homeserver\">#HomeServer</a>",
        "text": "Hello fediverse,\nbecause it's common in this space, this is a little #introduction\n\nI'm completely new to all this Social Media stuff and I was very skeptical about it in the past. Due to the evil nature of their corporations, I avoid Facebook and Twitter like the plague. But because ActivityPub is a free protocol and not bound to corporate interests it seems interesting. I'm not sure if I'll like it or post frequently - I'm just trying it out.\n\nI'm an enthusiastic computer, GNU/Linux and *BSD hobbyist. I like to tinker around with hard- and software in my little homelab. I'm in no way a professional or expert of any kind in the IT field. Just doing things for fun.\n\nAlso interested in Gemini and the smolnet/indieweb. The way the internet is heading these days isn't very promising. When I discovered the gemini protocol in 2021 I was imediately intrigued. So I set up my own little capsule which I now regard as my private home in the online world (link in profile).\n\nI hope we have a good time together!\n\n#Gemini #GeminiProtocol #Smolnet #Indieweb #Privacy #SelfHosting #HomeLab #HomeServer"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-14T08:18:55+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39987559",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@gilest",
        "url": "https://mastodon.me.uk/@gilest",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://mastodon.me.uk/@gilest/111753390489803701",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>hey look Elliott's been working on something cool</p><p><a href=\"https://elliott.computer/palm/intro.html\"><span>https://</span><span>elliott.computer/palm/intro.ht</span><span>ml</span></a></p><p><a href=\"https://mastodon.me.uk/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a></p>",
        "text": "hey look Elliott's been working on something coolhttps://elliott.computer/palm/intro.html#indieweb"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-14T08:36:52+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39987225",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@malte",
        "url": "https://graeber.social/@malte",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://graeber.social/@malte/111751292999251354",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>What method would you recommend someone to make a small, self-hosted homepage if they had almost none coding skills? <a href=\"https://graeber.social/tags/smallweb\">#<span>smallweb</span></a> <a href=\"https://graeber.social/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a></p>",
        "text": "What method would you recommend someone to make a small, self-hosted homepage if they had almost none coding skills? #smallweb #indieweb"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-13T23:43:27+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39985155",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@weirdwriter",
        "url": "https://tweesecake.social/@weirdwriter",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://tweesecake.social/@weirdwriter/111751218304543053",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>An alternative to linktree is LinkStack <a href=\"https://linkstack.org/instances/\"><span>https://</span><span>linkstack.org/instances/</span><span></span></a> <a href=\"https://tweesecake.social/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://tweesecake.social/tags/SmallWeb\">#<span>SmallWeb</span></a></p>",
        "text": "An alternative to linktree is LinkStack https://linkstack.org/instances/ #IndieWeb #SmallWeb"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-13T23:24:27+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39985088",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@inautilo",
        "url": "https://mastodon.social/@inautilo",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://mastodon.social/@inautilo/111750671027148830",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Business\">#<span>Business</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Collections\">#<span>Collections</span></a><br />People and blogs \u00b7 Where people talk about themselves and their blogs.  <a href=\"https://ilo.im/15xo2f\"><span>https://</span><span>ilo.im/15xo2f</span><span></span></a></p><p>_____<br /><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Web\">#<span>Web</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Website\">#<span>Website</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Blog\">#<span>Blog</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/OpenWeb\">#<span>OpenWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/IndieWeb\">#<span>IndieWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/SmallWeb\">#<span>SmallWeb</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Design\">#<span>Design</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/Development\">#<span>Development</span></a></p>",
        "text": "#Business #Collections\nPeople and blogs \u00b7 Where people talk about themselves and their blogs.  https://ilo.im/15xo2f_____\n#Web #Website #Blog #OpenWeb #IndieWeb #SmallWeb #Design #Development"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-13T21:05:16+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39984108",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@lyonsinbeta",
        "url": "https://mastodon.social/@lyonsinbeta",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://mastodon.social/@lyonsinbeta/111750201376130345",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>Redirects are still acting the fool but I have pagination, the contact page, and most importantly the subscribe buttons all working on <a href=\"http://nogog.show\"><span>http://</span><span>nogog.show</span><span></span></a> now!</p><p><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/podcast\">#<span>podcast</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/webdev\">#<span>webdev</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a></p>",
        "text": "Redirects are still acting the fool but I have pagination, the contact page, and most importantly the subscribe buttons all working on http://nogog.show now!#podcast #webdev #indieweb"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-13T19:05:50+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39983336",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Manton Reece",
        "url": "https://www.manton.org/",
        "photo": "https://micro.blog/manton/avatar.jpg"
    },
    "url": "https://www.manton.org/2024/01/13/rolled-out-several.html",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>Rolled out several behind-the-scenes improvements this morning to cross-posting and ActivityPub. This from <a href=\"https://micro.blog/news\">@news</a> may be helpful:</p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https://news.micro.blog/2024/01/13/added-some-new.html\"><p>Added some new logging to help troubleshoot potential cross-posting issues. Now before cross-posting, Micro.blog logs which external services the post was configured to send to.</p>\nMicro.blog News <a href=\"https://news.micro.blog/2024/01/13/added-some-new.html\" class=\"u-in-reply-to\">https://news.micro.blog/2024/01/13/added-some-new.html</a></blockquote>",
        "text": "Rolled out several behind-the-scenes improvements this morning to cross-posting and ActivityPub. This from @news may be helpful:\nAdded some new logging to help troubleshoot potential cross-posting issues. Now before cross-posting, Micro.blog logs which external services the post was configured to send to.\nMicro.blog News https://news.micro.blog/2024/01/13/added-some-new.html"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-13T12:14:11-06:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39983212",
    "_source": "12",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@schalkneethling",
        "url": "https://hachyderm.io/@schalkneethling",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://hachyderm.io/@schalkneethling/111749836172194582",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>On Leaving Substack - Evolving Our Platform, The Indie Web, and Staying True to Our Values <a href=\"https://schalkneethling.substack.com/p/on-leaving-substack-evolving-our?utm_source=twitter&amp;sd=pf\"><span>https://</span><span>schalkneethling.substack.com/p</span><span>/on-leaving-substack-evolving-our?utm_source=twitter&amp;sd=pf</span></a> <a href=\"https://hachyderm.io/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a> <a href=\"https://hachyderm.io/tags/transition\">#<span>transition</span></a></p>",
        "text": "On Leaving Substack - Evolving Our Platform, The Indie Web, and Staying True to Our Values https://schalkneethling.substack.com/p/on-leaving-substack-evolving-our?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf #indieweb #transition"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-13T17:32:57+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39982764",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "@readbeanicecream",
        "url": "https://mastodon.social/@readbeanicecream",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://mastodon.social/@readbeanicecream/111749772466546408",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p><span class=\"h-card\"><a class=\"u-url\" href=\"https://mstdn.social/@990000\">@<span>990000</span></a></span> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/indieweb\">#<span>indieweb</span></a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/smallweb\">#<span>smallweb</span></a></p>",
        "text": "@990000 #indieweb #smallweb"
    },
    "published": "2024-01-13T17:16:45+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "39982510",
    "_source": "7235",
    "_is_read": false
}