Today was a huge milestone in our quest to federate #Flipboard and tear down the walls around our own walled garden.
First, we launched a new version of Flipboard for iOS and Android which brings the promise of two way federation to life. Now when a federated Flipboard user curates, people in the fediverse can reply, favorite, boost or follow those Flipboard users who will in turn see that activity in their usual notifications tab. Even better, Flipboard users can directly reply to people in the fediverse -- and very soon they will also be able to follow each other.
Second, we federated some of our best curators today who are actively curating more than 10,000 magazines about everything from climate change to kale smoothie recipes. I'm grateful to our many curators and the service they provide to so many others who want to find the best content about a shared interest. I know our curators are excited to have millions more people who could potentially benefit from their curation. I also know that people in the fediverse will give a warm welcome to these curators. Especially now that everyone can hear and talk to each other over what was once two totally separate networks but now increasingly are in one and the same #fediverse.
Today was a huge milestone in our quest to federate #Flipboard and tear down the walls around our own walled garden.
First, we launched a new version of Flipboard for iOS and Android which brings the promise of two way federation to life. Now when a federated Flipboard user curates, people in the fediverse can reply, favorite, boost or follow those Flipboard users who will in turn see that activity in their usual notifications tab. Even better, Flipboard users can directly reply to people in the...
Chief problems for me are the fact they gather and store data of non-users, they gather location data, they sell that to third-parties for reasons not related to their service, they buy data about you from third-parties, they force binding arbitration, they limit liability to ludicrous levels.
Chief problems for me are the fact they gather and store data of non-users, they gather location data, they sell that to third-parties for reasons not related to their service, they buy data about you from third-parties, they force binding arbitration, they limit liability to ludicrous levels.
Next week is FediForum week and I’m excited. There’s a lot on tap in the coming months so I’m sure there will be no shortage of interesting demos and discussions.
To get warmed up here’s a helpful conversation with @J12t , co-founder of FediForum, on the latest episode of Dot Social. We discuss the hot topics that are likely to come up and Johannes goes deep on some of the most important things needed to help the #Fediverse “cross the chasm”.
Enjoy and hope to see you at #FediForum on the 19th!
Next week is FediForum week and I’m excited. There’s a lot on tap in the coming months so I’m sure there will be no shortage of interesting demos and discussions.
To get warmed up here’s a helpful conversation with @J12t , co-founder of FediForum, on the latest episode of Dot Social. We discuss the hot topics that are likely to come up and Johannes goes deep on some of the most important things needed to help the #Fediverse “cross the chasm”.
Thanks @mike for having me on the podcast, and just in time for #FediForum! Good conversation, I had fun!!
P.S. Everybody listen to the other episodes as well, Mike has been hosting some really good conversations with smart and knowledgeable people discussing the Fediverse.
- There need to be mechanisms to prevent the bad actors from screwing things up, to reward the good actors, and to educate the indifferent so they appreciate their new found openness.
- Most people outside the tech industry don’t understand open and aren’t motivated to switch to something just because it’s open.
- If open looks and feels the same as closed, closed will win.
- If open is more confusing than closed, closed will win.
- If those who have been working on open revert to closed in the name of preventing bad actors, closed will win.
- If open wins we get things like the web. Imperfect but far greater for humanity than most everyone being online via AOL.
- We’re at a precious moment in time for the fediverse. When it comes to social media, open has a real chance right now. And closed is on the ropes. Let’s not blow it.
One of the fascinating things we are all learning together is what happens as different networks with the same users federate into the Fediverse.
I curate content about my interests into magazines on Flipboard. I post and converse about tech on Mastodon. I post photos I’m proud of on PixelFed. There are 3 dimensions of me you can follow in the fediverse. Publishers, creators, et al will be multi-dimensional too and will use different services in the fediverse to engage around those dimensions.
The network effect for #ActivityPub is gaining some serious momentum right now. As more services adopt the protocol, more people, more communities and more content are added to the network making it increasingly more valuable for everyone. This will only accelerate in the coming months as Threads, Wordpress, Tumblr, Flipboard and others federate.
We're still in early innings but there's no way to put this genie back in the bottle. The open social Web / the #Fediverse is going to be huge.
@mike Question: If corporations implement Activity Pub, does that mean they are providing “Algorithms" to filter the home feed according to user signals (and their advertisers “legitimate" interests)?
Sounds good, but what's the plan for handling the fallout of Meta slurping in the whole social graph of Mastodon and using it for their own nefarious purposes?
@mike Maybe you'd be inclined to discuss this type of thing (see link) on the next podcast episode - loads of similar reports here over the last day or so if you search around ...
Sure looks to me like the battlefield tactics of a ruthless monopolistic megacorporation, but who knows, maybe they're nice and cuddly and good people actually?
Every now and then, technologists are able to translate their strongly held beliefs into action for the benefit of society. Sometimes these actions result in new features, apps or platforms but it's especially powerful when this happens at the protocol level.
In the latest episode of Dot Social I talk with @evan about how he helped get #ActivityPub started, how it's going, and what he hopes for next. Check it out here.
While I personally stopped tweeting in May, it was clear that now was the time for Flipboard to stop tweeting as well.
This is a sad outcome given that Twitter was the platform we got started on in 2010 and I was a board member there with Jack, Ev and Dick. But that Twitter is gone now. And the future is the open social web.
The centralized, walled garden model naturally leads to building everything into one product, vertically integrating all features in the name of user and partner lock in. Elon's everything app is a predictable progression of this thinking.
Meanwhile the decentralized model naturally leads to many specialized products connected together to satisfy far more use cases than any one product could ever do.
It's like the web vs. AOL all over again and my money is on the web.
@mike This logic holds until you remember that Elon had been wanting to do this garbage since he was still in Paypal. It's a toddler's tantrum that he refuses to give up.
@mike The web could become for 'the masses', and X for a select few who want access to select service and quality, and the ones aspiring to have those.
I'm so excited about federating #Flipboard to the #Fediverse! We are getting closer every day.
I just recently saw a demo from our engineering team of a Flipboard account being fully federated and followable from #Mastodon. Now we need to interpret all the engagement signals (commenting, favoriting, etc) properly. This includes designing what Flipboard users should see when they click on Mastodon users who reply to them and vice versa. A bunch more to do but we are making serious progress.
@mike this sounds great - thanks for a proper preview of what you're trying to achieve.
Should serve as a template for other companies to both run their own service and interoperate with the #Fediverse, hopefully in a mutually beneficial way. Many exciting opportunities ahead... 👏
Today we’re announcing the addition of PixelFed and Bluesky to our social web integrations on Flipboard.
Now you can see posts from Mastodon, PixelFed, Bluesky and, of course, Flipboard all in the same user experience. You can favorite, reply to, and boost any post. You can follow any user. You can explore any hashtag. And you can post text, photos and links to any timeline. Bluesky is available today for Flipboard on iOS and Android. PixelFed will be live in a few days.
@mike do you need to connect a personal mastodon/Bluesky/pixelfed account to your Flipboard account or will Flipboard automatically create profiles for these platforms or did I completely misunderstand this feature, because to me interacting means fully being able to interact with people on the fediverse
The only feature that matters for any social media experience is the people who are on it. I'm amazed at how many technology leaders forget this and get distracted by the underlying tech, protocols, features, etc.
Elon is a great example. He thinks he bought a platform. But what he really bought was a community. And of the two, the community has degraded far more than the platform.
@mike Agreed, although the tech has degraded a fair bit as well. Just look at what he did to the API, not to mention laying off the accessibility team.
@mike@flipboard.social That's why I've thrown most of my effort into community building as opposed to pouring over performance metrics, etc. We suffer from being a regional instance so we don't get huge user inflows but our interactions are steadily and consistently rising which is my key metric.
It's a beautiful, highly curated walled garden filled with content from the worlds best publishers and creators curated by Flipboard's editorial team as well as our community of magazine makers.
But it's still a walled garden. Today that begins to change.
We've moved four of our most popular #curation desks into the Fediverse for you to enjoy.
It's a beautiful, highly curated walled garden filled with content from the worlds best publishers and creators curated by Flipboard's editorial team as well as our community of magazine makers.
But it's still a walled garden. Today that begins to change.
@mike Haven't heard of Flipboard since ...2015?, when it came pre-installed on Samsung devices and first thing user asked is to how to remove it.
Now RSS is dead, Twitter is filled with hatred, and Flipboard app itself didn't work (at least in Russia). But Fediverse is able to bring content creators to more people, with more privacy and less restrictions
In addition to turning off their API, #Twitter has also inexplicably turned off access for users to sign in to Flipboard and other platforms with Twitter SSO.
This is an unacceptable breach of trust between Twitter and their developers and users. Twitter must be held to account here.
@mike I'm just in shock over how he's ruining any sort of trust in the system. On top of all the other insanity, choosing to break the oauth logins is just something you can't come back from. It's meant to tie people to your platform. A useful benefit.
It's basically as dumb as his plan a while back to block all outgoing URLs.
After 13 years, #Twitter has made certain you won't be able to see a tweet on #Flipboard ever again.
Today Twitter turned off their API integration without regard for Twitter users who enjoyed seeing tweets on their Flipboard.
While Twitter is enabling payment for some API access, the approach they've taken is prohibitively expensive, unreliable and frankly untrustworthy. I can't imagine us or anyone else ever relying on Twitter again for anything.
@kidehen@mike This should be a warning for all walled-garden platforms. Despite their features, people should avoid walled-garden competitors to #twitter like #T2, #Spoutible ETC. The same thing will happen to those users eventually.
Gregory's Server
@mike Before too many in the Fediverse jump onto the #Flipboard bandwagon you might want to take a look at the summary of their terms of service: https://tosdr.org/en/service/3534
Chief problems for me are the fact they gather and store data of non-users, they gather location data, they sell that to third-parties for reasons not related to their service, they buy data about you from third-parties, they force binding arbitration, they limit liability to ludicrous levels.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
@mike Before too many in the Fediverse jump onto the #Flipboard bandwagon you might want to take a look at the summary of their terms of service: https://tosdr.org/en/service/3534
Chief problems for me are the fact they gather and store data of non-users, they gather location data, they sell that to third-parties for reasons not related to their service, they buy data about you from third-parties, they force binding arbitration, they limit liability to ludicrous levels.
@mike Well done!
@mike Congrats!! 🥳