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@Tain05 Welcome to the #Fediverse network!

Firstly, don't forget to post your #intro (with that hashtag), as many fediverse users are following/watching that hashtag. You can also check: https://fediverse.info/explore/people

Secondly, don't be shy in using hashtags in your post and on your profile description. Hashtags will help big time in content discovery.

Now, the technical terms you might encounter, and hopefully won't get confused.

* There are different fediverse software available, for example #Mastodon is the one running on your instance. Each software offers a different set of features.

For example, there is #Firefish (flagship server at https://firefish.social) (bonus: you can attach more than 4 images); there is #Pixelfed (flagship server at https://pixelfed.social) which is geared towards sharing images (you can attach more than 4 images). There is also #BookWyrm (flagship: https://bookwyrm.social), think #GoodReads; and #PeerTube (think #YouTube and #Vimeo); or #Friendica #Hubzilla and #Streams; to mention a few.

* An instance is the same as a server. Each instance is running on one particular fediverse software.

* Different instances are interoperable and interconnected. They do this through the #ActivityPub protocol, which is a #WebStandard managed by the @w3c.

* There are also fediverse group services like https://chirp.social and https://a.gup.pe - Chirp Social allows for moderation but requires creating an admin account. Guppe groups doesn't offer moderation features, however, it is the easiest to create (in case you are interested in starting your own). Both are free-of-charge.

* There are also custom #frontend available. Some instances offer their own custom frontend. This is different from themes/skins. For example, this post, I sent it from the https://phanpy.social frontend for Mastodon. There is also https://trunks.social frontend also for Mastodon. Think #Twitter, but you're accessing it from #TweetDeck.

* There are also mobile apps available. Some can handle different fediverse software, some only made specifically for one particular fediverse software.

For some #history:
* The fediverse was born in 2008-05-18 when Evan Prodromou sent the first message “This is my first post”.

* The term “fediverse” was only coined on 2012-05-25 by Mark Eckenwiler. It was known originally as #Identiverse which was coined by Luke Slater on 2010-03-14.

* The current protocol, ActivityPub, was started on 2014-09-06 and only became a web standard on 2018-01-23. The first protocol was known as #OpenMicroBlogging which later was replaced by #OStatus in 2010-03-04.

For more links and resources:
1: Fediverse software list: https://codeberg.org/fediverse/delightful-fediverse-apps
2: Fediverse apps: https://codeberg.org/fediverse/delightful-fediverse-clients
3: Fediverse history: https://codeberg.org/ddfon/federated-sns/src/branch/main/fediverse-history.markdown

Again, welcome and glad you joined the Fediverse network!