Notices by Richard MacManus (ricmac@mastodon.social), page 5

I'm looking into the "Threadiverse Working Group", as I'm curious about how forum software is evolving in the #fediverse. At first I thought this was a new WG for Threads compatibility(!), but no this looks to be a really useful group re forum software for fediverse (as opposed to the microblogging federation that Mastodon and Threads are doing). https://fosstodon.org/@julian@community.nodebb.org/112216208232809734

I was listening to a 2016 episode of @zeldman’s The Big Web Show, in which he talked with Glenn Davis. This led me to search Mastodon for his name, and @tchambers’s post came up. I checked verevolf.com, but it’s offline. Browsed some posts via Wayback and enjoyed his personal take on web history. But the last posts seemed troubled and the site is now offline. Anyone know if Glenn is doing ok? https://web.archive.org/web/20230325011328/https://verevolf.com/archives/2128 #InternetHistory https://indieweb.social/@tchambers/108351882704129712

At the end of 2007, ReadWriteWeb unveils our new design — featuring a slash of vibrant red in the header! Also, we co-host the first Crunchies and I meet Mashable’s founder. (part 026 of my Web 2.0 memoir) https://cybercultural.com/p/026-rww-redesign-2007-crunchies/ #InternetHistory

It seems it’s now a trend to disable webmentions. Now, I admit I am late to the webmentions party, but I just enabled them on Cybercultural and the main reason why: it promotes Mastodon to anyone who reads a post on my site as the “write” part of the read/write equation. I.e. I’m promoting the fediverse. The webmentions (hopefully) encourages readers to comment or even just engage (like, repost) with my post via Mastodon. https://mastodon.design/@mikehaynes/112152279963650929

Also, re privacy, if people post publicly on Mastodon, they really have no right to protest about webmentions. If you want total control over what you post on social media, then make your posts private. Also just contact the publisher if you want your comment deleted.

@andypiper It may’ve been your post earlier this week that I’m thinking of. I interviewed @Amir just before Musk swooped in…ironically about the Twitter Dev platform, which was attempting to make a comeback at the time :( https://thenewstack.io/developers-twitter-wants-your-bots-and-other-read-write-apps/

And that’s partly why I’m publishing my RWW memoir now on Cybercultural.com, because I want it to be remembered (if it is at all by others!) as a site that covered Web 2.0 technologies from 2003-2012. That is what RWW was and always will be.

Someone said the other day that what is now known as “X” is *not* the Twitter most of us knew and loved. I totally agree and in fact, I’m glad it’s called X now, because we can remember Twitter for what it was and not what it became over the past year. I actually have similar feelings about ReadWriteWeb, which as far as I’m concerned ended in October 2012 when I left the site and it was re-branded ReadWrite by the new owners. ReadWrite ≠ RWW, even though they inherited my site’s old content.

At #FediForum this week, we saw that the #fediverse encompasses many more applications than just Mastodon (and soon, Threads). In this article for @TheNewStack, I review the event and discuss a few of the more promising apps/services that were demo'ed. I also look at @fedidevs, a new network of enthusiastic fediverse #developers. https://thenewstack.io/fediforum-showcases-new-fediverse-apps-and-developer-network/

Lots of great demos at #FediForum today. Particularly looking forward to Emissary by @benpate, which was described as an "RSS Server", but it seems to be a lot more than that. I like that it brings the indie web and ActivityPub together. https://github.com/EmissarySocial/emissary

1/ Re #webmentions, this post by @robb points out that 3 of the webmention types covered by Bridgy/webmention.io are essentially "Mastodon webmentions": like-of, report-of, in-reply-to. Those seem to be the most useful webmentions to include at the bottom of each Cybercultural post, as they (hopefully) encourage readers to talk about the post on Mastodon...or at the very least, to join Mastodon and follow me (or a commenter) there. https://rknight.me/blog/what-even-is-a-webmention/

Intention > Attention, yep!! An update from Tim Berners-Lee at the 35th birthday of the WWW: "A new paradigm is emerging, one that places individuals’ intention rather than attention at the heart of business models, freeing us from the constraints of the established order and returning control over our data." https://webfoundation.org/2024/03/marking-the-webs-35th-birthday-an-open-letter/

Any chance we can get Sir Tim Berners-Lee on Mastodon? It *is* the most decentralized microblogging platform, after all, and hence the one most aligned with his original vision for the web. Not to mention it uses the W3C's ActivityPub spec. I'm sure he's very busy, but maybe someone at @w3c can help? (cc @seth)

In the latest post in my Web 2.0 memoir, I reflect on the beginnings of "hustle culture." I met Gary Vaynerchuk in Oct 2007, early in his story arc of becoming GaryVee the social media star. Gary had even become a Read/WriteWeb sponsor earlier in 2007, probably to grease the wheels with the insider networks of Silicon Valley — being on RWW helped legitimize him in the tech industry. And it worked! Unfortunately, over time it evolved into 'tech bro' culture in the 2010s. https://cybercultural.com/p/024-readwriteweb-key-hire-hustle-culture/

Unsurprisingly, #Web3 has an astronomical failure rate. 65% of crypto projects have died in 2023, according to this report. It also says that 72% of crypto projects "born in the 2020-2021 (bull run) have died." Not so much 'to the moon' as 'to the morgue'! https://alphaquest.io/blog/dead-coins-report-2024/

Don't know about anyone else, but I'm quite happy to let X battle it out with Substack and see who can do the most epic rugpull of people's articles at the end of it all. Meanwhile, the fediverse will still exist and all of us on it will still own our articles. https://techhub.social/@Techmeme/112057599113531226

Since it's #WorldBookDay, I'd like to draw your attention to serialized books on the web. IMHO this is what eBooks *should* be in 2024, using websites and/or newsletters to serialize a book. And I'd be remiss if I didn't promote my own such effort: “Bubble Blog: From Outsider to Insider in Silicon Valley’s Web 2.0 Revolution” is my memoir/history book that chronicles the rise of the modern internet during the first decade of this century. You can read it here: https://cybercultural.com/

"1995 - At a neighborhood Italian restaurant Rasmus Lerdorf realizes that his plate of spaghetti is an excellent model for understanding the World Wide Web and that web applications should mimic their medium. On the back of his napkin he designs Programmable Hyperlinked Pasta (PHP). PHP documentation remains on that napkin to this day." https://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html?m=1 (h/t @jerryorr)

That said, I have always been an early adopter in the 'new media' world, and so I don't think most people in that industry have grokked the importance of ActivityPub, Mastodon, platforms like Eleventy and Buttondown (both of which are very customizable and web-friendly). This is a *new* new media. Incidentally, one of these podcasts I listen to claims the "open web" is dead, but I don't think they understand what the open web is these days.

I listen to a couple of media podcasts and I think many people in "new media" these days think all the craft has gone out of online publishing — because of newsletter platforms like Substack, the dominance of 'old social' (X, FB, et al), and the decline of webpages in general. But what I've discovered since ditching Substack for an 11ty/Buttondown combo is that I'm *crafting* my own online presence again, similar to what I did with blogging in early Web 2.0. Craft on the web is *back*, not dead.