Notices by Richard MacManus (ricmac@mastodon.social)

I love the Web. Mastodon is cool. TikTok is weird. I don’t trust Meta. I’m probably not cool enough for Bluesky. I’m too cool for Threads. I hate X. I am documenting my prime Web years in my Web 2.0 memoir, on my indie website Cybercultural.com. That is my story and it’s on the Web. It will soon be in a book, living in the Long Tail on the Web. Facebook is for family and real-world friends. Ok, go watch your 1-minute videos. Viva la read/write web, no matter which flavour you enjoy.

At what point will the big Mastodon instances withdraw federation from Threads if Meta fails to implement two-way federation? I would support that move if my instance did it. It’s beyond a joke that Meta continues to boast of being part of the fediverse, but has not yet let Threads users follow Mastodon users.

We’re now in the “Guy on Substack saying Bluesky is a rejection of Big Tech” phase of the hype.

WTF, I just noticed Boing Boing — probably the earliest popular tech blog — has outsourced all its comments to Substack! Note the "comment on Substack" link at the bottom of each post. Talk about #enshittification. https://boingboing.net/2024/10/28/happy-mutants-rejoice-boing-boing-launches-clean-ad-free-experience.html

I’ve found myself being less interested in opening Threads since the election result. Maybe unfair, but I kind of connect Musk with Zuck even more now. More importantly, Threads has never really felt Open Web to me, and I only want to support open web products (I’m giving Bluesky the benefit of the doubt for now). If Meta ever turns on two-way federation, so that Threads users can follow us here, then I’ll be interested again. But until then, I’m OVER Threads.

I looked at Bluesky's AT Protocol from a developer perspective, making some comparisons to ActivityPub. Hat-tip @danabra.mov, @laurenshof & @pluralistic for work that I referenced. In summary: I think ATProto has a compelling identity and content architecture for developers — tbh it's much better than the fediverse from a personal ID and content ownership pov — *but* decentralization remains a major concern. https://thenewstack.io/blueskys-at-protocol-pros-and-cons-for-developers/

This should be Mastodon's next catchphrase: "Not a Trump-inspired billboard".

Remember when we thought the #splinternet was about separate networks for East and West? I think I’m ok putting all my focus on the #OpenWeb and trying to keep the oligarchs (Musk, Zuckerberg, Mullenweg, et al) out of my online life from now on.

Hate to say it, but this guy won too tonight. Fortunately, we can create a new media ecosystem on the open web that routes around his — the beauty of the internet and the web. Ok, our media definitely won’t be mainstream or “elite” (whatever that even means nowadays), but it won’t be owned by corporate overlords. I don’t know about you, but I’m doubling down even harder on the fediverse after this result.

I expect to see a chorus of “well actually” skeets about this post by @pluralistic about Bluesky (https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/), but we have seen this movie before. Remember when the narrative about Twitter was that it was an “open” platform, circa 2007-08? We believed it then, because the API was freely available and didn’t have many restrictions at that time. But when Twitter needed to show more revenue growth, the screws began to be turned. https://cybercultural.com/p/twitter-in-2007-the-open-platform/

Tom Gauld (@tomgauld.bsky.social ) on the ultimate writing machine – cartoon from The Guardian. #AI #writing

Open question for all the #bot builders: which is the better platform for building bots, Mastodon or Bluesky? They both have good APIs and there are some great bots on both platforms (e.g. @256 here, Retro Computing bot on Bluesky). But for bot devs, which is the better platform in your opinion — and why? For context on why bots can be useful and fun, see this interview I did with @darius a couple of years ago: https://thenewstack.io/why-developers-should-experiment-with-the-fediverse/

These are some of the other companies Blockchain Capital — the lead investor in Bluesky’s round — has invested in. I like Bluesky, but the only way this could be worse was if Mark Zuckerberg had led the round. Maybe I’m reading too much into it?

Seeing @jw and @dens talk about the Foursquare City Guides app closing down startled me for a bit, until I remembered there are now 2 separate Foursquare apps: Foursquare Swarm (its “lifelogging” check-in app) and Foursquare City Guide (for “restaurants and bars nearby”). The app we all used in Web 2.0 is the one now called Swarm. That continues, at least for now. I wrote up my Web 2.0 memories of it last year: https://cybercultural.com/p/foursquare-raps-by-the-go-bang-mayor/ #Foursquare

Me: I wish Web 2.0 apps didn't have to die off.
Matt Mullenweg: I'll buy it!
Me: On second thought, all good things must come to end.

This definition of the fediverse as including Bluesky is, I think, a good one. But as with Threads, the true test will be whether Bluesky users can follow someone from Mastodon. Frankly that looks more likely to happen soon with Bluesky than Threads, via bridging tech. Perhaps Mastodon and Bluesky will continue to diverge though in use case — personally I love the usenet / discussion board vibe of Mastodon, but I might use Bluesky to consume memes, etc. https://www.threads.net/@mmccue/post/DBSmyQqp9y-

@Gargron @ThePlant @shadowwwind @gisiger One thing that is obvious once I thought about it and looked at the July post, but perhaps could be clarified in the instructions: you need to add a meta tag to your site, like <meta name="fediverse:creator" content="@Gargron" />

@shadowwwind @gisiger @Gargron one question: if I add thenewstack.io (my employer) will that add my name to just posts I have authored? There are a bunch of writers on the site.

Bloggers / newsletter writers take note: in the new Mastodon 4.3 release, if you go to settings > verification, you can now turn on "Author attribution". So when someone posts a link to Cybercultural, I think they now see my Mastodon profile alongside the link. Very cool. https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/10/mastodon-4.3/

Don’t ever let anyone tell you what blogging is or isn’t, or what you can or can’t do with WordPress, or what “indie web” means, or even what the fediverse is. YOU can do whatever you like with open source software, and YOU can use whatever labels you want on the open web, and define them how it suits you.