Ben SandofskyDec 12, 2022

Experimented with reach on Twitter vs Mastodon by sending the same “canary” post on both platforms. I saw about the same engagement on both, despite having 4% the followers here.

Feels like the value of Twitter’s network is overestimated. If you’ve been there 10+ years, I bet most of your followers are inactive, and it’s harder than ever to get your tweets viewed because of the algorithmic timeline. Mastodon might be at the point where it delivers the same value. At least in my circles.

Show threadDonncha Ó CaoimhDec 12, 2022
@sandofsky I get way more people engaging with me here. Hardly anyone ever noticed my daily photos on Twitter but I have nice conversations with people here!
Show threadWhyamihereDec 12, 2022
@donncha @sandofsky Twitter is a permanent equation: source creates divisive content retweeted by gazillions of #bots from Far East and #russian bot farms. 10 years ago people still believed in the ‘algorithm’ story, but we’ve had Cambridge Analytica since. #mastodon will never reach that definitive blueprint because of its #infrastructure (though the risk of illegal servers is high). With this said, #indexation needs to become a thing soon if mastodon is to last.
Show threadFredlDec 13, 2022
@whyamihere @donncha @sandofsky good points, what is indexation in this context?
Show threadDonncha Ó Caoimh

@fredl @whyamihere @sandofsky he probably means full text searches of Madison posts instead of just hashtags. I don't think that is necessary at all and it's one of the strengths of the system.

That said, I bet someone has hooked the federated timeline to an elastic search database and can look up keywords now. They'd have to keep it secret or risk being blocked.

Dec 13, 2022 at 10:24amWeb