Notices by Johannes Ernst (j12t@social.coop)

@docpop says "The Fediverse is an alliance of websites". Oh, I like that a lot.

From the first episode of "The Fediverse Files" he produced for WordPress/Automattic.

Go watch! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzYozbNneVc

@jdp23

If you don't believe it's better, why are you here?

For those of you who think there is no money on the fediverse, think again.

From: @heidilifeldman
https://mastodon.social/@heidilifeldman/112848922502057063

@evan I read this as "this is what we do to make the EU happy [right now]" rather than a statement of direction. On the other hand, due to network effects it might actually get "stuck" there which would support your point.

My understanding is that MLS adds a few features to what Signal can do, such as supporting large groups. But it might not be in the business interest of Meta to make interop as capable as possible...

We say that the #Fediverse is better than centralized social media platforms. I obviously believe that as well.

But:

Can we prove it? In ways that are not just anecdotal personal experience or beliefs, but with objective data? I'm looking for pointers.

There are obviously many dimensions, from, say, higher "engagement" to reduced harassment and a thousand things in between. Who has good numbers on any of those? Would it be worthwhile to collect them somewhere?

@jenniferplusplus Many objectives. One obvious one: money. There are currently two not-for-profits out there (one I'm marginally involved in) attempting raise money for some activities that would undoubtedly be good for the Fediverse, from organizations that are in the business of funding things that are good for the world. They are asking, in so many words: you are saying all sorts of good things about the Fediverse, where is the evidence that what you say is true?

@jenniferplusplus You are misunderstanding. I have not made any claims. I'm only attempting to collect what might exist roughly on the subject. So I'm looking for pointers, although I suspect I will end up with an empty set.

@evan MLS is new, so of course it's less implemented. I would expect that adoption grows and assume that due to EU impact it ends up being the most widely used interop protocol for secure one-and-one and group messaging. (That's a bet/belief at this point, we can't know.)

I would expect that developers should not really implement it anyway, but use well-reviewed libraries. Too easy to get security wrong.

Good call this morning about adding end-to-end encryption to the ActivityPub ecosystem. Thanks @evan for spearheading this!

IMHO we should use the latest and greatest open E2E protocols (that's probably the IETF's MLS), be as widely interoperable with other secure messaging systems as possible, invent as little as possible, but make the user experience as seamless as DMs in Twitter.

Who is doing the best work on cross-instance user experience in the Fediverse? Pointers appreciated.

Things like remote follow, share to fediverse, same account for multiple instances etc.

The #Ghost people are doing excellent #ActivityPub marketing with their weekly newsletters, such as today’s. I don’t agree with some of the details of their points of view, but that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, they are doing a great service educating potential users beyond the niche of today’s typical Mastodon users. Recommended.

And you can get the newsletter by following @index

https://activitypub.ghost.org/its-all-about-the-infrastructure/

There are no more open issues in the #ActivityPub issue tracker!

Thanks to all, but mostly to @evan who diligently and tirelessly did much/most/all of the work!!

Onwards!

https://github.com/w3c/activitypub/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+no%3Aassignee+no%3Alabel+

Federation as a feature that helps to compete. This is first I think in the #Fediverse.

That's how I read this #Techcrunch headline about #ghost 's work on #ActivityPub.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/08/substack-rival-ghost-federates-its-first-newsletter/

/cc @Sarahp @index

@laurenshof @stefan IMHO that's because these other systems are in it with a competitive mindset: "let's monitor the competition really closely and make sure they don't have a feature users consider important that we don't have so they won't leave." While the Fediverse so far does not really think that way at all and as a result there is less or no incentive to learn from others at the same speed.

"I wonder whether we end up with a different type of browser ... an ActivityPub browser rather than a web browser ... [with] a different experience based on the way this kind of content evolves and grows" says @johnonolan

IMHO today's web browsers are 30+ years of strictly incremental innovation, what an incredible opportunity for Firefox, Vivaldi, Opera etc for disruptive innovation against the entrenched platform-provided browsers they have been struggling against.

https://flipboard.video/w/sQCNmXx332xi3Y3dVVjd37

The #nostr guys are systematically recruiting independent journalists and creators to their platform. That's a smart idea.

https://preview.mailerlite.io/emails/webview/922604/125152376179917944

I have to think about this one. @caseynewton says:

"The #Fediverse is about giving up on the consumer internet as we know it today — the big walled gardens, the metastasizing #LLMs — and trying to build something different."

https://www.platformer.news/how-to-stop-perplexity-oreilly-ai-publishing/

OH: "it should be possible to make a career on the Fediverse."

Like an actual job that pays market rates, working in a team that also gets paid market rates, where there are prospects for getting promoted etc. A career that has long-term prospects and not just until some one-off funding dries out.

I wonder whether this is a controversial subject. Because this has implications ...

@Flipboard @evan What's the #Fediverse equivalent of OPML?

@dansup An alternate webfinger route from identifier to Actor URI? And then set as preferredUsername or are there some extra conventions?