Mastodawn

Jason Kottke Jul 6, 2023

In the mid-2000s, the blogosphere was vibrant, open, and had massive potential but lacked discoverability, easy networking, and ease of use. Facebook came along, supplied those things, privatized a huge chunk of that potential, and in just a few years, more or less *became* the blogosphere.

Today, the fediverse is vibrant, open, and has massive potential but lacks discoverability, easy networking, and ease of use. With Threads, can FB pull the same trick? I wouldn't bet against them trying.

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Jason Kottke Jul 6, 2023

Humans hate friction. If Threads can offer fediverse search, quote-posting (they already do), easy discoverability of friends (got this part mostly done), multiple timelines (a la Bluesky), ditch the weird Masto reply vibe, etc., people will use it over other apps/instances. And then make it easier to stay than to switch to something else. It'll be interesting to see if FB plays the long game and doesn’t overload Threads with ads too quickly (major friction for many).

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Ole Dirty Rice

@jkottke This may be their goal but a lot of what they do nowadays reeks of desperation. To me, they really have a TikTok problem, not a Fediverse problem. Young people aren’t repulsed by Instagram yet but they aren’t making content for it, at least not exclusive content.

So, I think this is also an “Engage with your fans and reach whole new audiences.” play to attract creators. ActivityPub syndication is a selling point. “Anyone can subscribe if you post here.”