Friendica's marketing is terrible. - Lemmy.World

It seems like it should be sort of a priority for the fediverse to create a high quality alternative to Facebook, which is one of the largest platforms out there, and probably what a lot of people think of when they think of “social media”, and yet, the marketing and overall adoption of Friendica is simply abysmal, to put it bluntly. Issue 1: The super bland and basic on-boarding. When you visit the main website for friendica, you are greeted with “friendica: a decentralized social media network” followed by a “try it” button. Then when you scroll down, there is basic black text on a white background, explaining things like decentralization, privacy, and interoperability. Do you think that this sort of intro is really going to draw people in? It gives off the vibe of “it is your birthday”, a la dwight from the office. If you click on the “try it” button, you get scrolled to a part of the site that says “Try Friendica” with two sentences that basically say “this website is really complex overall, but don’t worry, you can click another button below to browse a list of servers (yes, servers, we are not explaining what that means, just click the button)”. The actual server list has a single filter option, language, and if you filter by english, the top server right now is a furry server. If any normie has somehow managed to get this far, they are sure to nope the fuck out at this point. Assuming you do manage to get past this point, the actual sign up form has way too much information for the average person. The first field is “openID”. I’m sure that’s useful for those who use it, but why is it the first field? There is also a check box to be added to the public directory, which is checked no by default. What does this mean? It is certainly not explained here. You’re not asking for a password? Why not? Oh, because you are making a random password for me I have to copy and paste and then save or change. That’s not inconvenient at all. Yet another step of friction for me. Compare this on-boarding process to other sites on the fediverse. Mastodon has a catchy and succinct explainer on why their site is worth joining followed by a “join mastodon.social” button, or a “pick another server” button. If you go to the servers button, you get several different filtering options, region, interest, sign up process, legal structure, and very notably, a disclaimer that all of these servers have signed a safety agreement. Upon signing up, you first agree to some terms of service, which is very reassuring for those looking for a safe and welcoming platform, followed by entering username, e-mail, password and date of birth. All very straight forward. Lemmy is similarly streamlined and polished, and you don’t even need an e-mail to sign up for some servers. Super easy and convenient. Issue 2: Terrible mascot. Mastodon has their mastodon carrying a knapsack. Lemmy has the lemming face. Pixelfed has a cute red panda. Friendica has…some kind of demented looking rabbit with bugged out eyes? Seriously, what the hell is this? Issue 3: Super basic blog style website. As alluded to in issue 1, the website is super basic, with almost no polish to it. It looks like someone made it on wordpress. The home page does have some clip art type images and background stuff thrown in here and there, but outside of that, it looks very unprofessional. Again, comparing to sites like Mastodon and Lemmy, which have much more polished and professional looking web design. The clearly put time into making sure new users get a good impression. Friendica puts almost no effort whatsoever. So these three issues, just from an outsiders glance, are in my opinion some of the biggest things holding back what could potentially be one of the most used sites on the fediverse, at least on the marketing side of things. I do not know how the overall team behind the site is structured, but suffice to say, it needs work.

Pixelfed user count has gone vertical. - Lemmy.World

Lemmy

The one thing missing from the fediverse (or why Facebook is not going anywhere anytime soon). - Lemmy.World

I know this has been a regular topic of discussion lately, as Facebook users are looking for alternatives, but there is a harsh reality I think netizens of the fediverse need to acknowledge that will keep the majority of Facebook users locked in. That is the personal social graph that Facebook has built up for users over the years. No other site on the web has a way to find nearly anyone you have ever known, from high school friends to long lost family members. The reason for this is because of the format of Facebook being “you” on the web. Your profile is your name, your personal info, and it is even linked to your phone number and contacts, making social networking incredibly easy. The closest that exists for this on the fediverse is Friendica, but it is more of a reddit/twitter hybrid imo, and while you can make your profile page personal, the posts you make will go to the entire fediverse. This lack of privacy and tailoring of your messages to a particular audience is what is going to make Facebook unbeatable for the foreseeable future. People want alternatives, but these alternatives simply do not exist. I would be very curious to hear about efforts to make sites on the fediverse more personalized and enabling of people to control their audience, because this (along with improving user experience) is the biggest thing I think is keeping people from making the switch.

Abbey crossed the rainbow bridge earlier this week. She was such a good girl. - Lemmy.World

Lemmy

Friendica/Facebook Alternative Development - Lemmy.World

It seems that the time for a facebook replacement is now, just based on the sense I have gotten. A lot of my friends, who would previously have clung onto facebook through all the terrible things it did over the years, are now looking for alternatives. The current consensus for most is joining Bluesky. I would love to be able to recommend them to the fediverse equivalent, Friendica, but it is nowhere close to ready for primetime. So my question is this. How can we work to make friendica more user friendly and develop it’s features to a point that it can be a true facebook alternative? Or, do we need to come up with a new platform entirely, possibly one that is forked from Friendica, that has the required features. Specifically, these are the things I think need work: - Simply user sign up. No one cares about servers, and I think this is one of the biggest thorns in the side of the fediverse in general. Make a single landing page, where you type in your location and will be auto assigned to a server based on the closest one to you. If one does not exist within a certain radius, a server is instantly created (details of this mechanism tbd), and a member of a dedicated team of admins will be assigned as a moderator of that server. This is just an idea, but we need to greatly simply the user sign up process and make scaling easier. - A working mobile app. There is only one app I know of that is not even in beta, and I couldn’t get it work at all. Most people will not use a site if it doesn’t have an app. - Clean up of basic functionalities. Default to the most intuitive and user friendly options (no delete box enabled on posts/comments that aren’t yours, infinite feed on by default, prominent option dropdown to turn on darkmode or different styles, etc). I should not be taken to someone’s page when I click the “follow” button. Following should also be a two way street, and require constent. You cannot see someone’s content on facebook unless they approve your friend request. This is how it should be on friendica. Improve groups. I see they exist, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to browse or search for them. Stop notifying me after I make a post. I know I made the post, I don’t need to be notified. Develop more appealing UI/UX overall that is easy for a layman to understand and use. Allow editing to show updates without needing to refresh the page. Etc, etc, etc. - Add expected functionalities. Tagging users, live videos, gifs, reaction emojis, marketplace, public events, unshare, reshare with commentary, recommend friends from contacts, etc. I know this is a lot, but this is my honest assessment of the situation. This is why I mentioned potentially creating a new platform. What do people think? Are these changes doable within the friendica framework, or should we start from scratch? What are the thoughts on a facebook alternative in general? I definitely think there is value in enabling people to have a page on the internet that is “them”, that people can add and keep up with their life. That is the value that facebook provides, but the existing fediverse doesn’t really have such capabilities right now. How can we change that?

Hamster Dance - Lemmy.world

Hamster Dance - Lemmy.world

Why are people against big companies joining the fediverse? - Lemmy.world

Tl:dr: Perhaps I am just uninformed on the issues, but I don’t see what the big deal is with a company like Meta joining the fediverse. If anything, I think it is a very good thing, as it puts more attention and dev time into making it a more functional and better place. So what is the issue? I personally joined the fediverse because of the structure of it. It cannot be owned by a single company or person, and there will always be a lot of diversity and customizability to how you interact with people and control your data. If people don’t like a particular platform, they don’t have to use it. They can join platforms that defederate from areas of the fediverse they wish to stay away from. That cannot and will not change, just because of how it is built from the ground up. So enter Threads, and I am starting to see a lot of fear and concern over this. I don’t get why this is. It’s not like the fediverse is owned by Meta now. They are just one more player in hopefully an ever growing list of major organizations joining the fediverse. Ideally, I would like to see as much of the internet using the fediverse as possible. It is how the internet should work overall, and I think the specific issues with a company should not detract from the benefits of them joining. However, maybe I’m missing something. Is there good reason to be concerned or warry of a company like meta starting an app like threads? What are the major drawbacks and concerns here? Is it being blown out of proportion, or is there actually something to worry about?