Mastodawn

I struggled for over six months to get the newsroom I worked for onto Mastodon. There were lots of reasons why not. And now they’re on Threads with ~10K followers, the engagement they need, and the tools they need to understand their audience. And their content starts conversations and is reaching people who need to see it. This stuff matters.

Matt DeSiena Jul 13, 2023

@ben I remember this same statement being made in 2014. “We have to get on Facebook.” Then “We have to pivot to video.”

You know the rest. There is no one more of a glutton for punishment than news media. There is no rake they won’t step on.

Matt DeSiena Jul 13, 2023

@ben I’m enjoying Threads as a user. But knowing what we know: building a strategy on third party ad networks should - in 2023 - get you fired.

Ben Werdmuller Jul 13, 2023

@theinstantwin I actually think it’s the Mastodon project that stepped on this rake. Everyone was aligned - they just didn’t have the tools they needed to be able to sign on, and the journalists who did sign up had a terrible time onboarding (including choosing instances that turned out to be problematic).

Matt DeSiena Jul 13, 2023

@ben @theinstantwin There’s no doubt the Mastodon onboarding process is harder than Meta made it. But if the main goal is engagement and distribution, we already know how this story ends.

And in 2016 i could blame Facebook. But now? I’d squarely blame the pub if I saw even one layoff as a result of “The algorithm is reducing our reach.”

Ben Werdmuller Jul 13, 2023

@theinstantwin I mean, what else would the goal be for a publication?

Charles Roper Jul 13, 2023

@ben @theinstantwin The added dimension to this is that those same journalists tell the stories that people listen to. So if they have a hard time with Mastodon and it doesn't meet their needs (quite different needs from most of us - massive engagement being a must), then the narrative forms that Mastodon is not good enough (too technical, low engagement, wrong tone), which makes a vicious cycle. Journalists writing stories about Mastodon is somewhat like a fish telling stories about fresh air.

Charles Roper Jul 13, 2023

@ben @theinstantwin But that's not to say Mastodon doesn't have the problems. It's just those problems are sink or swim for a journalist. It's never going to work if they can't get engagement fast.

Charles Roper Jul 13, 2023

@ben @theinstantwin I'm going through a fresh alt-account start up in a non-tech domain (sport) and what I've found is that signing up is the least of the problems. The biggest problem is finding other people to follow and be followed by. A huge majority it seems sign up, do the intro post, get absolutely ZERO engagement, then are never seen again. It's excruciatingly hard following people on different instances. It's hard, slow work. I think I'll get there in the end, but it takes so much time.

Ben Werdmuller Jul 13, 2023

@charlesroper @theinstantwin THIS. And ignoring the problems or saying the equivalent of “works fine for me” does not help the platform improve.

Andre Jul 13, 2023

@charlesroper @theinstantwin

Agree. The algorithms bootstrap people into a community in other places... The only value. Instead perhaps mastodon instance Admins should nominate welcome committees alongside mods as a role to ensure joiners get plugged in.

maegul Jul 13, 2023

@ben @charlesroper @theinstantwin

Just to add my small opinion to all of this.

I think, in a few ways, the "rake" here was many presuming, rather lazily, that Mastodon is a Twitter replacement. It's a substitute at best, with its own distinct motivations that are notably anti-viral or engagement.

The fediverse or AP protocol at large however is rich with potential, which has been missed in all of this. Beyond masto we can have algorithms, search, etc. Someone needs to build it though.

Jon Jul 13, 2023

@maegul But that just reinforces
@ben He described what the newsroom was looking for and you characterized it as "presuming, rather lazily, that it's a Twitter replacement". They're looking for something that lets them do the job and made an accurate assessment that the tools here aren't sufficient. It's true that Mastodon devs have made conscious choices that limit virality and engagement for most people, but that's what journalists and other content creators and craftspeople supporting themselves online -- and activists -- want.

@charlesroper @theinstantwin

maegul Jul 13, 2023

@jdp23 @ben @charlesroper @theinstantwin

Not sure we're disagreeing here ... ?

What I'm saying is that the broader "rake" was expecting or demanding a platform that wasn't here, and then, depending on how much you expect of news media, bailing wholsesale on the fediverse rather than building within it.

Jon Jul 13, 2023

@maegul I think we're disagreeing in our framing, although maybe I'm wrong. It sounds to me like you're saying that the rake was on news media's side, and Ben (and I) are saying that the rake is on Mastodon and the fediverse's side.

@ben @charlesroper @theinstantwin

maegul Jul 13, 2023

@jdp23 @ben @charlesroper @theinstantwin

Maybe. I think I was not so interested in blaming anyone but pointing out that there was/is a cultural moment with deficiencies/misunderstandings.

I'm personally happy to criticise mastodon for things you'd know much more about. But they're also doing well and I'm seeing other platforms struggle with basic things like scaling to moderate sizes. So I'm also inclined to think we expect too much of masto and not enough of the ecosystem.

maegul Jul 13, 2023

@jdp23 @ben @charlesroper @theinstantwin

A little like the Stroustrup line about programming languages: there are only two kinds, those which people complain about and those which nobody uses.

At some point someone just needs to show what mastodon could do differently, successfully and at scale.

And, getting back to news media, it would have been interesting if they tried something.

Ben Werdmuller Jul 13, 2023

@maegul @jdp23 @charlesroper @theinstantwin I strongly believe that we need another interoperable project that takes a different approach. We can’t expect most users to be contributors to the ecosystem but for those that are able, there’s much to do. Which is not actually a criticism of Mastodon - they’ve got further than anyone else ever has.

Laurens Hof Jul 13, 2023

@ben @maegul @jdp23 @charlesroper @theinstantwin

yeah for sure. My eyes are on Lemmy and Kbin for this. Sustained growth, and seems likely they crossed the threshhold in size for multiple communities that can sustain itself.

Plus little to no entrenched culture allowing for quick expirementation and building. I've noticed that in my weekly newsletter update more and more size is devoted with news around lemmy and kbin.

maegul Jul 13, 2023

@laurenshof @ben @theinstantwin @charlesroper @jdp23

Yea, there are some interesting factors there too, as you say. No established culture. Two separate platforms with a degree of symbiosis that are also kinda the underdogs against masto.

In lemmy's case, the core devs didn't want to have the flagship instance, and so there appears to be a flatter organisation amongst admins and contributors.

And they've both survived scaling to a moderate size with decent performance.

Gabriel Pettier Jul 13, 2023

@charlesroper @ben @theinstantwin i advise following tags, as a starting point, just search them and click the follow button, it’s a gem feature, but almost impossible to discover if nobody tells you about it, of course, you might need to mute a few accounts abusing tags, but that’s less of a problem than i expected, and it gets you people that are actually talking about your subject in the TL, so you can follow the interesting ones, or just keep the tag search.

Charles Roper Jul 13, 2023

@tshirtman @ben @theinstantwin Yeah, you can follow hashtags and join groups. But there's a chicken and egg element to this. Unless people actually *use* the hashtags in their posts, and unless people actually join and post to groups, then following these things doesn't help. The hashtags and groups need a critical mass of people using them to become effective, and that seems to be part of the problem, especially for people used to Twitter's algorithm, which surfaces content as if by magic.

Gabriel Pettier Jul 13, 2023

@charlesroper @ben @theinstantwin yep, it doesn’t exactly replace an algorithm that tries to guess your interests and push them to your feed, some like that total control, some are disappointed by it, there has been a few services proposal to help, but nothing really caught on i think.
A lot of improvements would start with a better search, but there is also some fundamental opposition to that, people don’t want to, well... work.

Matt DeSiena Jul 13, 2023

@charlesroper @ben I actually see the challenge in a bit more (admittedly cynical) way. Not to paint a broad brush, but journalism in 2023 is deeply and destructively lazy. (See: Any and all pubs who covered Amazon Prime Day as a news story.)

One of the best ways to boost reach for journalists is - and this is basic - making embedding Toots in WordPress dead simple.

Matt DeSiena Jul 13, 2023

@charlesroper @ben Then quoting a source directly and rewarming whatever the source said (This is what passed for "#journalism" in the #Twitter era) would be as simple as it was before.

That's the biggest mystery to me. Why not work with the #WordPress core team to embed toots right now?

Reach would explode.

Matt DeSiena Jul 13, 2023

@charlesroper @ben Developing reach and sourcing content are the most expensive parts of #journalism.

The second one seems to be such an easy solve for #mastodon . That's a miss.

Charles Roper Jul 13, 2023

@theinstantwin @ben This was announced a couple of days ago:

https://jetpack.com/blog/automatically-share-content-to-instagram-mastodon-with-jetpack-social/

So they're actively working on it. This looks like a way to make it easier to publish stuff. But it's progress.

Automatically share content to Instagram & Mastodon with Jetpack Social

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Matt DeSiena Jul 13, 2023

@charlesroper @ben but can you embed? That’s the killer feature for journalists. Love that this is going on.

Otto Jul 13, 2023

@theinstantwin @charlesroper @ben You can in fact. in the block editor, create an embed block, and paste your URL to the post on mastodon in, and it will embed it.

While WordPress has various blocks for embedding from social networks and such, the general embed block uses oEmbed, and it can embed anything that supports the oEmbed protocol. Of which, mastodon is one.

Matt DeSiena Jul 13, 2023

@otto42 @charlesroper @ben Wild. Let me try it now. It would be doubly nuts if that was seamlessly integrated and news media wasn't using that, but using Twitter instead.

Matt DeSiena Jul 13, 2023

@otto42 @charlesroper @ben Not sure if it's my theme, a plugin, etc... but this is what happens

With Twitter, Spotify, etc. -- the embed looks beautiful and works well out of the box and is theme agnostic.

Otto Jul 13, 2023

@theinstantwin @charlesroper @ben Yeah, unfortunately, that's a mastodon problem. Basically, it's falling afoul of the same origin problem. And the mastodon server needs to return a Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * header for embedded resources to allow other sites to properly embed stuff like CSS, JS, etc..

If you look in the browser console, you'll find a whole slew of different things it's trying to load, but can't because CORS/Same-Origin policy.

Matt DeSiena Jul 13, 2023

@otto42 @charlesroper @ben Is it something they could fix across all instances or is it my instance (and perhaps others) specifically?

Otto Jul 13, 2023

@theinstantwin @charlesroper @ben Unfortunately, I know very little about the server software and how it is configured for Mastodon. It may be possible to fix across all instances by adjusting the software, or depending on the methods used, it may be much harder than that. Whoever makes the server software would know better than I.

Ben Werdmuller Jul 13, 2023

@theinstantwin @charlesroper I think this really depends on the newsroom. I tend to work with non-profit investigative newsrooms rather than clickbait pubs that depend on ad views. But I take your point.

Mark Tomczak Jul 13, 2023

@ben @theinstantwin Precisely.

Ideally, the way Mastodon is designed, a newsroom “onboards” their journalists by hosting a node and setting up their journalists on it.

… I’m building a node now and, lemme tell ya, this is not something I expect just any random newsroom to have the in-house competency to do. It’s getting better, but I think it’s easy for tech folk in particular to underestimate how much “just one sysadmin” costs, or how overworked they are the minute they sign up to the average not-tech-focused firm. So with no additional information, I would assume that “Meta sets it up, all you have to do is have your team sign up for it” is a huge value-add for newsrooms and journalists by itself.

This problem will continue until we stop building tools for regular folks to use that are monuments to all our sins (seriously… four package managers? And curl-to-bash? And pulling github repos? Or you could “just use Docker” which is a whole other can of worms? And that’s just setup; God knows I’m about to throw myself to the lions when I turn this thing on and have to self-admin it).

Matt DeSiena Jul 13, 2023

@mtomczak @ben I don't disagree about the node, especially since the entire point of federation from the news side would be going vertical and owning your instance/distribution.

I think they aren't estimating the true cost of the project though. Investing in a hidden algorithm you don't own and then praying it doesn't change is demonstrably not working.

I suspect it's more $ long term to over-invest in someone else's distribution/platform then pay a sysadmin.

Bill Cromie Jul 13, 2023

How would you do it differently if you could? I may be advising some local newspapers on how to join the fediverse.

I *think* the right way is to have their own instance, own domain, that publishes an activitypub stream.

Many of them run Wordpress.

No “what instance do I join”, no reliance on other infra, same login credentials and website, etc.

Maria Bustillos Jul 13, 2023

It's a poisoned chalice and will do more harm than good, as Facebook always has.

Jon Jul 13, 2023

@maria I suspect the newsroom @ben realizes that. The same was true with Twitter. But, you use the tools that are available.

Maria Bustillos Jul 13, 2023

Unless we gang up and build better tools (here, for instance) we'll just be strengthening a bunch of jackals who have no sense of responsibility to the commons, or to democracy even.

What readers see or can see is tightly controlled by Meta, and with zero transparency. Not good.

Ben Werdmuller Jul 13, 2023

@maria @jdp23 And this is what I was trying to call for with my original post: we NEED better tools, and we need to work together to build them. I couldn't agree more.

Maria Bustillos Jul 13, 2023

I'm around, and eager to help!

RMcNeely Jul 13, 2023

@ben they do a really great job at 19th News. Hope it works out for them on Threads

Ben Werdmuller Jul 13, 2023

@mcneely I think they’ll differentiate and build audience across multiple platforms - so far it looks like it’s going well.

Damon Kiesow Jul 13, 2023

@ben After reading the comments, seems there is a general misunderstanding of the difference between intentional friction (so no quote tweets maybe) and just awful UX (inability to discover/follow) with defenders arguing basically “take it or leave it.”

Damon Kiesow Jul 13, 2023

@ben That is a negatively deterministic attitude and I am just hoping the platform recognizes they can fix the UX without abandoning their principles.

Hughster Jul 13, 2023

@dkiesow @ben It could be that now Threads has assumed the role of Twitter heir apparent the voices calling for this place not to change may once again be the loudest.

Loukas (They/Them) 🏳️‍⚧️Jul 13, 2023

@ben I think it's great they've broken their twitter addiction, and I think media finding a new home on threads will also help more journalists and news desks to Mastodon as well, over time.

I don't think Mastodon of 2022-23 could offer what news desks need right now.

Pelle Wessman Jul 13, 2023

@ben Thing is: They shouldn’t “get onto Mastodon”, they should self-host the conversations on their site in a Mastodon-compatible way.

Newsrooms love to own their interaction with their readers and not having to rely on third parties.

As a third party, it’s probably true that Mastodon is a worse option for them, but as a first party solution it has potential.

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)Jul 13, 2023

@ben As an indie game developer I had 13k followers on twitter and even before musk got a fraction of the engagement I got here with less than half that number. If I got on threads I wouldn't have thousands of followers and nobody would ever see a damn thing I said and if they did they wouldn't care. Here on mastodon I can reach people and start conversations

Ben Werdmuller Jul 13, 2023

@eniko Yep. The engagement is definitely better here. And don't get me wrong - I prefer it here. But there are real business reasons and metrics that are a blocker for some kinds of organizations.

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)Jul 13, 2023

@ben I really find that baffling given mastodon works an order of magnitude better for me than anything else has, so I'll have to take your word for it

Ben Werdmuller Jul 13, 2023

@eniko It was a learning experience for me too!

Cookie Mumbles Jul 13, 2023

@ben i really don’t understand what’s the hang up here. Just make an account and post the stuff you already post to other platforms. Potential low to medium impact with really low investment is still a great deal

@ben That's because how #corporate #journalism owrks and how they want to #microtarget their audience rather than grow organic followers - like @TexasObserver did...

Kit⚔Kendrick Jul 13, 2023

@ben The only thing Threads has is the entire Instagram userbase imported essentially at launch. As far as usability and features go, it's worse to use than any of the short form social media platforms. That said, I suspect that critical mass is going to make a difference.

Ben Werdmuller Jul 13, 2023

@kitkendrick Yeah, unfortunately having tons and tons of people to talk to makes a huge difference in a social platform. I deeply wish Meta wasn’t such a horrible company and that Threads wasn’t packed with brands.

Dr. Ramesh Glückler Jul 14, 2023

@ben Germany's popular news outlet @tagesschau is on Mastodon with their own instance and ca 30k followers. People understand the benefits of having your own, self-controlled instance. #Mastodon is not #Threads, and I think it's good that way.