Mastodawn

Renaud Chaput Sep 19, 2025

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Mastodon/115230366976982724

After a lot of work and discussions, I am very happy that we are finally announcing our hosting and support offerings to help institutions (cities, government, universities, corporations, non-profits…) get on Mastodon and into the Fediverse.

It will help the Mastodon organisation become more sustainable in the long run, but also provide an easy (easier?) path for those entities to come onboard and embrace open social media.

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Renaud Chaput Sep 19, 2025

After many interviews with such organisations, the main roadblocks for them to join the Fediverse are:
- understanding what it is
- figure out their strategy (number of accounts, do they want their own server, define related policies…)
- figure out with their IT department if they want to host it (and if yet, how to do so), or delegate the technical parts to a 3rd party
- be able to open support tickets and know they will get an answer.

Now we can provide all of that 🎉

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Mike Fraser Sep 19, 2025

@renchap 1) The main roadblock is reach and analytics. During the great migration I offered to Sheppard organizations on to their own instances for free. I had no takers. The social media/marketing managers had no way of measuring eyeballs and the total MAU of the fediverse, even at that time wasn't enough to justify the effort. I pitched them HARD, because it's something I believe in. I applaud you for putting in the effort as I think it's essential but those are the roadblocks I faced.

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Mike Fraser Sep 19, 2025

@renchap 2) Basically fedi isn't a great broadcast platform due to the lack of algorithm and large parts of it are hostile to even benevolent corporate interests. I always thought however fedi is perfect for outreach and would lend itself well to government and NGO's. Especially with issues around social media and data sovereignty.

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Paul Chambers🚧Sep 20, 2025

@mike I hope we can get government off Facebook and Twitter and posting on open, fediverse platforms. So many in my area ONLY post on Facebook, with emergency depts. posting on Twitter in real time events.

My village used to add a little note on the water bill of important things and events, mail out a bulletin / newsletter every three months, etc. Now the water bill says "Check out our Facebook page for...." and they don't send out the newsletter. I don't use Facebook or Twitter, so we miss out. @renchap

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patricos

@paul @mike @renchap i have worked in puplic sector and i have seen how much they waste on stupid paid services that their own IT and communication teams could run for free (well they get paid theor salaries but you know what i mean). They even pay for facebook and instagram adds and other services! What a waste...