There’s a new playbook being written right now when it comes to the future of social media. The early-mover advantage is still in effect, and there’s a lot to figure out. Gone are opaque algorithms and the whims of any single company.
The fediverse represents a chance for quality journalism to shine again.
We talked to two leaders at fedi-forward publications — @TheConversationUS's @BostonAbrams, and @404mediaco's @jasonkoebler — about why they’re investing in the open social web, what they’ve learned so far, and their advice for other publishers just getting started.
We'd love to get the #NewstodonFriday hashtag going again. This, as far as we can remember, was started by @gbhnews, and is an initiative to feature work from newsrooms that have an active presence in the #fediverse
If you're a news organization, share your handle and your favorite story of the week in the comments to this! And if there's a publication in the fediverse that you love, let us know about that in the comments too.
We ran a webinar on April 18 for creators and curators who are curious about the fediverse, have a federated Flipboard account, and don't know what to do next. Here's a link to the recording, plus the TL;DR bullet points if you don't have time to watch it.
Yesterday, we announced our federation of 400 Flipboard curators and curators, so today, we're highlighting just a few you can follow on subjects like food, leadership, basketball, and sustainable food systems.
Allen Westly, technology enthusiast, cybersecurity practitioner, and diversity advocate — @West1118
Brian Fanzo, digital futurist, podcaster and ADHD advocate — @iSocialFanz
Camille Styles, lifestyle writer passionate about plant-based cooking and design and beauty — @CamilleStyles
Christie Vanover, champion pitmaster and creator of Girls Can Grill — @GirlsCanGrill
Daniel Hakimi, style curator and men’s fashion writer — @DanHakimi
Darryl Benjamin, educator and advocate for sustainable food systems — @Kafkaturtle
Janette Speyer, professional marketer passionate about cooking, travel, fashion and connecting the Flipboard community — @JanetteSpeyer
Jennifer Petoff, travel writer and creator of Sidewalk Safari — @sidewalksafari
Jessica Bethel, Los Angeles-based photographer — @4eyedgirl
Ken Yeung, journalist and author of "The AI Economy" newsletter — @thekenyeung
Louisa Moje, pharmacist, fashionista and foodie — @foodpluswords_
Marco Secchi, visual storyteller and photographer — @msecchi
Markus Weber, sustainable agriculture and agtech — @Maakusi
Maurizo Leo, bestselling cookbook author and creator of The Perfect Loaf — @theperfectloaf
Pete Gleason, PhD, professor, psychologist and innovator — @pgleason
Phil McKinney, technologist, author and podcaster — @philmckinney
Scott Kleinberg, OG Flipboarder and proud Apple fanboy — @scottkleinberg
Scott Monty, business leader, executive coach and podcaster — @scottmonty
Tayo Oredola, food writer and creator of Low Carb Africa — @lowcarbafrica
WBB Daily — curator who specializes in women’s basketball, passionate about growing the game — @smrice
Wesley Fryer, STEM educator and media literacy advocate — @wfryer
In December, we started to federate the accounts of some Flipboard publishers and in February, we introduced Magazines to the fediverse. Now, we’re taking two important steps: federating the accounts of 400 creators and expert curators; and enabling two-way communication so that new followers and fediverse activity are visible and actionable in the Flipboard app.
To learn more about this, take a look at our blogpost:
Thanks so much to everyone who has given feedback on what we’ve done so far. We welcome your thoughts and comments as we continue on our journey to fully federate Flipboard.
Last month, Meta's Threads took its first step into the fediverse. @quillmatiq, aka @quillmatiq took that as his cue to experiment with how his Threads feed would look like on Mastodon. Here's what he discovered about organizing the chaos, different clients (hello @phanpy) and whether he'll cut the Threads cord when federation is complete.
What does it mean to federate your Flipboard profile? In the simplest terms, it means that whatever you curate (aka share) on Flipboard will be "syndicated" out to the fediverse with no extra effort. @miaq tests it out and breaks it down.
"As Flipboard’s head of creator community, I’m often explaining WTF the fediverse is and trying to convince creators to set up camp there. (Flipboard believes this is the future of social media.)," writes @miaq in the latest edition of our Fedi Curious newsletter. "If I’m lucky, the person is open to it, able to figure out how to get set up, and gives it a try. But more often than not, I get the digital equivalent of a blank stare and a groan — not another social platform?!" Here's her post about why creators should pay attention to what's happening here, and why the fediverse is not the same as all those other platforms.
I agree with @gruber. Not federating is certainly a choice admins can make, but it's unlikely to have an impact considering that Threads is being bootstrapped off the Instagram social graph.
Would you rather keep the fediverse restricted to its current population of ~8M people or scale it to ~2.35B+?