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solarbirdActivityPub is going to take over the world.
The world of social media, I mean.
To be clear, I don't mean Mastodon in particular. I mean, sure, it's almost ten times the size it was a month ago, and that's pretty spectacular, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the interchange protocol underneath it.
Because there's nothing unique about Mastodon as far as ActivityPub is concerned. There're a whole fleet of distributed socials that use it, none of which you've ever heard of.
Like, there's a Flickr-like called PixelFed. It's a terrible name, but that's not important right now. What's important is that it's a Flickr-like. Not a Twitter-like, not a Facebook-like: a Flickr-like.
And I just followed someone's PixelFed feed.
From Mastodon.
I don't have a PixelFed account. Just a Mastodon account on my own local Mastodon server. But that's fine. I don't need one.
This is like following someone's Flickr - or someone's TikTok - from Twitter, without anyone having to set up a relay or a bot or a gateway or second account any other such nonsense.
Click. Followed.
If you've been in networked applications for a while, this might remind you of something. Go ahead, give it a minute.
For those who haven't been - once upon a time, there were a zillion different email systems, all unique, most very proprietary. Microsoft Mail for Macintosh. Courier Network for PC. DaVinci. Usenet mail. SNADS. cc:Mail. BITNET. BBSes, even. Every mainframe had _something_ - a lot of MUSIC/SP installations were running IS/TU, _my_ software.
There were many, many others, and _none_ one of them could talk to each other.
Until SMTP happened.
I was there. I was using the experimental gateway at PSUVM to route my BITNET mail manually to a receiver on EduNet, one of the TCP/IP networks that shortly thereafter (along with BITNET and some others) merged to form this new thing, this Internet. It was a pain in the ass and barely worked - but sometimes, it _did_. And it was kind of amazing.
And then it took over the world.
I just followed someone's PixelFed on Mastodon. Their pictures will show up in my feed now.
I've just followed someone's Tiktok on Facebook. Only, of course, I didn't, because you can't do that here. I need an account on Tiktok and I need a separate window and/or app and to log in and check it separately. And if I want to share something on Facebook I'll have to copy the link and paste it over and if I want to see any replies I'll have to go back to Tiktok and that's all fine it works well enough. Or I could write some sort of gateway bot to copy things over for me, that's a lot of work but not too terrible as long as I have the hardware.
Or I could, you know...
...just check my Mastodon feed and see what's up with my friend on on PixelFed.
Oh that's a neat photo. I think I'll share it.
Click.
ActivityPub is going to take over the goddamn world.
The world of social media, I mean.
To be clear, I don't mean Mastodon in particular. I mean, sure, it's almost ten times the size it was a month ago, and that's pretty spectacular, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the interchange protocol underneath it.
Because there's nothing unique about Mastodon as far as ActivityPub is concerned. There're a whole fleet of distributed socials that use it, none of which you've ever heard of.
Like, there's a Flickr-like called PixelFed. It's a terrible name, but that's not important right now. What's important is that it's a Flickr-like. Not a Twitter-like, not a Facebook-like: a Flickr-like.
And I just followed someone's PixelFed feed.
From Mastodon.
I don't have a PixelFed account. Just a Mastodon account on my own local Mastodon server. But that's fine. I don't need one.
This is like following someone's Flickr - or someone's TikTok - from Twitter, without anyone having to set up a relay or a bot or a gateway or second account any other such nonsense.
Click. Followed.
If you've been in networked applications for a while, this might remind you of something. Go ahead, give it a minute.
For those who haven't been - once upon a time, there were a zillion different email systems, all unique, most very proprietary. Microsoft Mail for Macintosh. Courier Network for PC. DaVinci. Usenet mail. SNADS. cc:Mail. BITNET. BBSes, even. Every mainframe had _something_ - a lot of MUSIC/SP installations were running IS/TU, _my_ software.
There were many, many others, and _none_ one of them could talk to each other.
Until SMTP happened.
I was there. I was using the experimental gateway at PSUVM to route my BITNET mail manually to a receiver on EduNet, one of the TCP/IP networks that shortly thereafter (along with BITNET and some others) merged to form this new thing, this Internet. It was a pain in the ass and barely worked - but sometimes, it _did_. And it was kind of amazing.
And then it took over the world.
I just followed someone's PixelFed on Mastodon. Their pictures will show up in my feed now.
I've just followed someone's Tiktok on Facebook. Only, of course, I didn't, because you can't do that here. I need an account on Tiktok and I need a separate window and/or app and to log in and check it separately. And if I want to share something on Facebook I'll have to copy the link and paste it over and if I want to see any replies I'll have to go back to Tiktok and that's all fine it works well enough. Or I could write some sort of gateway bot to copy things over for me, that's a lot of work but not too terrible as long as I have the hardware.
Or I could, you know...
...just check my Mastodon feed and see what's up with my friend on on PixelFed.
Oh that's a neat photo. I think I'll share it.
Click.
ActivityPub is going to take over the goddamn world.
