@docpop I usually say the fediverse is built on ActivityPub, an "open standard" for social media. (Then I might go into how html is the technology that drives the web, but all the different browsers implement various "open standards" for rendering html, or websites would look different between Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.) Mastodon is just one open source implementation of this standard, but there are lots of others! And lots of websites host mastodon, just like word press.

@docpop the fediverse is a community of independent internet spaces running similar software so that they can interact with each other

@docpop Nerdy twitter-ish place, a touch janky, plenty of interesting people & things to fill your timeline (and time!) with.

@docpop I just like to compare it to email. It lets you connect with anyone regardless of their email address/username.

https://jointhefediverse.net

But the best part about it is that it lets you join and create communities that can be as independent or as interconnected as you want.

@docpop@mastodon.social maybe like this?
https://invidious.drgns.space/watch?v=pX_agVMr2r0

@docpop Fediverse is people power, hopefully.

@docpop
I like to hit ‘em with this, and gauge the reaction to all. the. words.

It’s very instructive.

https://inaniludibrio.com/2024/02/13/mastodon-is-for-old-school-neophiles/

@docpop My go to is: Ad free. Community funded. No algorithms. Open source software. Over 20,000 servers. Sometimes managed by one person, sometimes by many. Each has its own rules. Some have themes like art, politics, literature. Some have a few users, some have hundreds of thousands. Close to 14M users total. All can be connected via the fediverse. Some have created functionality that allows connections to other platforms, like Threads, or that is similar to other platforms, like Youtube.

@docpop

My line: It's what the Internet was BEFORE the corporate takeover.

@docpop I'm pretty sure Meredith is old enough to understand this one: Fedi is the WWW to the old social networks' AOL/Compuserve. (But we're still in 1996, and people haven't really figured out what to do with it yet.)

(Also, hi Meredith, you should join us here!)

@docpop “it’s the only social media site not owned by a corporation” is my short response. If they show interest I go into the distributed architecture and set of services offered.

@docpop I try not to use words like fediverse or activity pub at first—you can see people’s eyes quickly gloss over as those terms are used.

Instead I try to start broadly “a new protocol that lets people communicate with each other independent of application or service… similar to how email works: such that you can have Gmail and still communicate with someone using Outlook.”

Often this brings up loads more questions… because many people haven’t even thought about this as a concept. LOL

@docpop@mastodon.social The simplest way I would describe it is that it is similar to how email works. You can make an account at a host and can interact with others that are using different hosts.

I know this doesn't work everywhere or perfectly though, like Mastodon is different from Lemmy, etc.