Chris Trottier🚨BIG NEWS🚨
Buffer just added Mastodon as one of its supported social networks!
Amongst social media professionals this is HUGE!
See screenshots!
Big thanks to @henshaw for breaking this story.
Also, did you manage to get any Pixelfed or Peertube accounts to work with Buffer?
Buffer adding Mastodon is just another example of the momentum that the Fediverse now has amongst developers -- and how this is going to push adoption forward.
This is the *real* story about Mastodon's growth during the past three months.
Yes, the first wave of Fediverse adoption came from people looking for a Twitter replacement.
But the next wave of adoption is going to come from an ecosystem of apps.
Why?
Because some of those Twitter migrants were developers.
And once they played around with the code, they all remembered how nice it is to build something on an open protocol.
Why are developers supporting the Fediverse even though the Fediverse "only" has 10 million accounts?
Because the Fediverse offers something developers crave: stability.
As Twitter already demonstrated, they can remove API access from developers for many bullshit reasons -- with no explanation.
No company should ever depend on Twitter's API -- or any Big Social API for that matter.
But ActivityPub is a W3C-backed web standard. It is an open protocol. Unlike Twitter, it is more trustworthy.
No, the story about the Fediverse's growth isn't about MAUs -- not that MAUs can be calculated precisely anyway.
The *real* story -- the one that the tech press should be writing about -- is the growth in:
1. Posts
2. Nodes
3. Apps
This is the beginning of a paradigm shift in social media and how it works.
Look, if I'm a social media app developer, I'm going to look for something that offers me two things:
1. Network effect - something people actively use
2. Protocol and API stability - something that won't change due to someone else's whims
This means the Fediverse.
Once developers en masse start developing for a platform, that's when the fun starts.
The iPhone didn't get interesting until developers made apps for it.
Ditto with the web.
We haven't even scratched the full potential for ActivityPub.
Last week, I said that Twitter would regret screwing over developers.
In fact, this is a colossal screw-up by inestimable orders of magnitude.
This will be apparent when all those former Twitter developers start releasing Fediverse apps.
It's not just going to happen -- it's happening!
Eliot Lovell@atomicpoet it certainly is - I’m testing three of them already 😊
Paul Lalonde@atomicpoet "Twitter no longer supports extenal applications, including this one. Would you like our help to migrate to Mastodon?"
Adam Dalliance@atomicpoet Yep. Every programmer who has said to themselves "God damnit, I wish I could do X on my social network, it'd just be a quick script" can now do X on this social network.
Well. Not search maybe. But most things. 😉
@pre I have no doubt that someone's build a real-time search engine for the Fediverse. Perhaps they're even doing this by leveraging RSS.
Whether this will be received well is another question 😆
Martin Vermeer FCD
Steve Ballmer: Developers
Andreas KuckartzNot only software developers and software are needed.
We need people who develop and improve the #ActivityPub standard!
Those interested in such work should join the Social Web Incubator Community Group:
https://www.w3.org/community/socialcg/
Andreas K@atomicpoet
The reminder is that privately owned APIs are exactly that. Privately owned. Any (commercial) success based on such a thing can be taken away at any time.
It's like building your castle on quicksand.
BTW that does not apply only to Web API. Think how many times Android or ios changed what is allowed. And if your use case does not fit the new rules your feudal overlord decreed, though luck.
MikeKYou might as well try to count the number of email users
Karen Strickholm@atomicpoet Totally! Thank you for articulating so well!
Jan@atomicpoet Companies like Buffer using the Mastodon API. ActivityPub is used by Mastodon for network federation. The majority of devs using the Mastodon API not the ActivityPub protocol.
@jan You can't exactly de-couple the Mastodon API from ActivityPub protocol.
No matter, the Mastodon API is also open source.
Other apps, like Pixelfed, use the Mastodon API.
@atomicpoet You can use the Mastodon API without knowing anything about the ActivityPub protocol. That makes life easy for all developers.
No, Pixelfed uses the ActivityPub protocol, not the Mastodon API :)
@jan Pixelfed uses both ActivityPub protocol and Mastodon's API -- although it has recently diverged.
See attached screenshot.
@atomicpoet Where can I find the source code of the Pixelfed app? The Pixelfed repo on Github uses the AP protocol.
Kelson's Sorta Old Account@atomicpoet @jan there are plenty of platforms that use ActivityPub but not the Mastodon API.
AcrivityPub is how all the servers talk to each other.
The Mastodon API is one of many ways they can talk to client-side apps.
@atomicpoet @KelsonV The purpose of an API is to abstract complexity like ActivityPub. You can use the Mastodon API without knowing anything about ActivityPub:
https://docs.joinmastodon.org/client/intro/
For what reason? Simple to publish posts, to read your timeline, etc.
Kevin Karhan 
@atomicpoet Exactly.
Whilst some instances may restrict or ban certain functions, that doesn't mean one can't implement it.
In fact, I know some folks do #SelfHosting of #Mastodon due to extensive blocklists by other instances, and they want 100% control.
Only #MultiVendor / #MultiProvider & #FLOSS - based #Standards can provide that.
That's why #OpenStandards don't die out:
Regardless if Telephony, Fax, SMS, eMail, XMPP, IRC, SIP, SSH or OpenVPN.
@@atomicpoet OStatus was also a W3C standard, but that got supplanted by ActivityPub. Not saying ActivityPub will be replaced in turn, but it could absolutely be either EEE'd or supplanted wholesale, especially if the big corporations apply concentrated pressure.
This is why those companies should be broken up and/or nationalised and/or taken over by the workers and run with a different underlying goal than profit.
@pettter OStatus didn't have nearly the same momentum as ActivityPub. Many more people use it ActivityPub too.
Markus Redeker 🐘@atomicpoet It is not just the W3C backing that makes ActivityPub a much more stable protocol—it is the fact that it is a protocol that is used by several independent parties. All such protocols are very difficult to change (except by extending them) because so many implementers have to agree.
Look a the (Julian/Gregorian) calendar: A very complex interface to communicate dates—and it almost didn't change at all over millennia!
Jeff Jarvis
Neil A. Evans@atomicpoet @knasher that’s you ❤️
Dave N@NeilEvansRocks @atomicpoet Yup! Playing around with the API is a lot of fun, exciting things to come!
CautionWIP 🎃+🇨🇦+🏳️🌈= 
@atomicpoet I’ve been seeing posts and articles to that effect. It’s nice to see people taking so much joy in development, despite having to sort of start fresh with a new system.
@atomicpoet Same for Linux. It's a special feeling when your software is working for you and not for stock value.
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/22/12/25/0114237/stack-overflow-survey-finds-more-developers-now-use-linux-than-macos
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/22/12/25/0114237/stack-overflow-survey-finds-more-developers-now-use-linux-than-macos
Stack Overflow Survey Finds More Developers Now Use Linux Than MacOS - Slashdot
Justin Garrison works at Amazon Web Services on the Kubernetes team (and was senior systems engineer on several animated films). This week he spotted a new milestone for Linux in the 2022 StackOverflow developer survey: [Among the developers surveyed] Linux as a primary operating system had been ...
Frederico@atomicpoet There are 2 factors that will revolutionize the technology world on the next years: 5G and ipv6.
5G will provide abundance of broadband conections and ipv6 will allow everyone to have their own public ip with open ports. Those two features have the potential to give internet back to people allowing everyone to install servers. This will change the world. The onlly intermediary between people will be the routers that find the way from our computer and the others through the Internet.
Facebook, Twitter and every system that interpose between our comunication will become obsolete. They will look like the old telephonists from the begining of the 20 century.
As we have a mobile or telephone number, we'll have a public ip.
So, developers, get down to work, before big techs find a way to frustrate that!
5G will provide abundance of broadband conections and ipv6 will allow everyone to have their own public ip with open ports. Those two features have the potential to give internet back to people allowing everyone to install servers. This will change the world. The onlly intermediary between people will be the routers that find the way from our computer and the others through the Internet.
Facebook, Twitter and every system that interpose between our comunication will become obsolete. They will look like the old telephonists from the begining of the 20 century.
As we have a mobile or telephone number, we'll have a public ip.
So, developers, get down to work, before big techs find a way to frustrate that!
Mikko Alasaarela@atomicpoet Yes! I'm one of those. 👋
Kevin RussellThis is good news, all good news. I had, and assume others too, read this with a trepidation of the dangers being warned of, but it's isn't, at all.
I think it's baked in.
Mastodon is a liferaft, scaling up to a fleet.
Aaron Bailey@atomicpoet Excellent points... but also, there are thousands of recently laid off developers (including from Twitter) who are hacking away at side projects while looking for their next jobs.
Some really great tech came out of the last recession for this same reason.
Hal O’Brien 🇺🇸🇾🇪🇭🇰🏴🏴☠️@atomicpoet The hilarious irony of the Twitter hejira to Mastodon, given Twitter’s alleged newly-found right-wing friendliness:
While the number of people who have moved to Mastodon may be small, as a percentage of Twitter’s total base, the ones who *have* may be said to have… well, um…
“Gone Galt.”
More than that, they’ve done what libertarians have always said customers could do — switched to a better alternative, even if with substantial hurdles.
Theo Schlossnagle@atomicpoet I hope you are right.
Trees@atomicpoet what kind of apps? It's a baseless claim if you don't explain! Please elaborate?
@Deane Look at the beginning of the thread.
@atomicpoet Thanks for clarifying... Still finding my way on Mastodon. Used to use Buffer everyday in the early days of Twitter.
Josh de Lioncourt (author)🏳️🌈@atomicpoet except it isn’t really open. 😔 https://fed.hvn.network/objects/4c2c696c-af6e-4377-a8bf-68eaa5ded850
Jalada (@[email protected])
With one breath, we lament Twitter blocking some third-party client access. Twitter should allow people to access it how they like! Twitter wouldn't have succeeded without them! And in the next br...
@lioncourt You're operating on a different definition of "open" than I am.
@atomicpoet i like a lot about Mastodon. My biggest criticism is the ways in which it tries to lock users into echo chambers, whether they want to be in them or not. A lack of search is one of those ways. RSS is an open protocol. You can build any sort of reader against it, hence the existence of podcasts. If Mastodon regulates what developers can build against the protocol, it isn’t really open. Just my opinion. Not looking for an argument. I understand that some agree and some don’t. 😀
@lioncourt Who is trying to lock users into echo chambers? And who exactly is regulating developers?
Be specific and name some names.
Elfbiter@atomicpoet which means Mastodon will be disrupted by lots of startups with apps of dubious validity. "Disruptive innovation" and so on, remember?
@elfbiter Sorry, I don't do nihilism.
Steve Tanner@atomicpoet I've been testing the Buffer integration as well. Pretty smooth like other networks. And yes, I agree. This opens the door - good or bad - to the bigger players as part of an overall messaging mix. The next step after that would probably be analytics/metrics, I'd guess.
Kelley Graham@atomicpoet been a longtime buffer user. Was considering dropping since I don’t do much outside the fediverse. Now will give it a try when I comes out of beta.