Notices by Michael Foster (michael@backend.newsmast.org)

#COSCUP Social Web track kicking off with insightful and stimulating presentations from Roro Park and @jihyeok - plus an impromptu session from @jaz as a bonus!

@bartknubben @bjoernsta @michael Thanks Bart, those are good resources. Yes, will work through this. We just topped 400 signatures from all over Europe which is great!

Overnight the @newsmast backed Find Out Social added 3,000 users in a few hours, onboarding one user every second at times. All driven by a Mr Global Facebook post. Let’s go!

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/17TaRGWXVP/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Check this out! Find Out Social on TikTok

#Fediverse

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8pYnJ1m/

Growth has slowed on the open social web. We can’t win fighting Big Tech on their own turf: we need to move sideways. New ‘holdfasts’ won’t grow from protocols alone: we need to build communities.

There are no concrete answers yet. Only emerging ones.

#Fediverse #FediForum

https://www.blog-pat.ch/moving-sideways-paths-to-growth/

It’s almost time to say goodbye to the @newsmast home for the last two days - the #ONA26 Midway.

We’ve had lots of conversations about audience engagement, community, and building social networks for #journalism.

We look forward to rolling out pilots in the US over the coming year. If you know a small, indie newsroom who’d be interested, send them our way!

#NoKings Chicago - this is big!

Post #FediMTL - poutine and beer !

A great conference with lots of insights. Huge thanks to all the organisers @info

Last week I hooked up with @jaz from Tŵt Cymru, the community-owned Welsh social network. We’re combining forces to launch the first Tŵt app on March 1st, Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant (St David’s Day).

The Tŵt mobile app is vibrantly Welsh, easily accessible for new users, and a model for social communities worldwide. Reflecting the Pethau Bychain (Little Things) campaign behind the app. It’s all about building a digital commons from small acts of hospitality and kindness.

https://jaz.co.uk/2026/01/13/there-is-one-fediverse-there-are-a-thousand-ways-to-join-it/

Futility or hope: pink flowers, crowbars and compost.

On New Year’s Eve @tchambers shared a link to John Green’s review of Auld Lang Syne, resurfacing Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s question: how do we perceive a bright pink flower growing in an alley?

Looking back through the lens of 2025, a rough year in so many ways, the flower can look like futility. A tiny plant crushed by dark forces. Looking forward to 2026, it’s a symbol of hope.

Here’s why I’m excited about 2026.

https://www.blog-pat.ch/futility-or-hope-pink-flowers-crowbars-compost/

#SilentSunday #Photography #Venezia

#FediDayBerlin merch reunited at #SFSCon!!

Thanks @samvie for a stimulating presentation!

A brilliant, timely LSE blog by @brembs

“…the Fediverse’ provides tools and technologies that are ideally suited to bring scholarly societies out of their digital caves and into the 21st century.”

“The root of their names contains their essential function, as described in 1660 for one of the first such societies, the Royal Society:

“Their first purpose was no more, then onely the satisfaction of breathing a freer air, and of conversing in quiet one with another, without being ingag’d in the passions, and madness of that dismal Age”.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2023/11/30/the-fediverse-is-an-opportunity-learned-societies-cant-ignore/
#academia #research #academicchatter #socialmedia

@bart @tchambers @rolle yes love it too, algo + smart lists - excited for the 2.0 launch