Tag: mastodon

Mastodon is for the people

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From Hannah Aubury at Mastodon:

For now, we want to run some onboarding experiments to test our ideas and learn what can work for us and for everyone on the network. Our first experiment is Default Server Recommendations. (If you were at FOSDEM or following along at home, you may have seen Andy Piper and I announce this or post about it!). Practically, we will replace the “join mastodon.social” button with a button that recommends a server from an opt-in pool that we will be hand selecting to start.

Good to see.

The email analogy (“choosing a server is like choosing an email provider”) has always been a solid go-to explanation, and it works reasonably well if you already understand why you might want your own email domain. That works great for a certain kind of person and lands with a thud for everyone else. Federation is genuinely a foreign concept for most new users, and no amount of clever copy fixes that. The real question is whether Mastodon can make the choice feel low-stakes enough that people stop worrying about it entirely and just … join somewhere.

This experiment feels like a step in that direction. Hope it fuels additional growth.

2025 Social Media Check In

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Last year, I wrote about where I was spending time online and how I was feeling about it. Most days, I’m just not that interested in what strangers have to say about sports, tech, or whatever else is trending. Still, I haven’t quit completely. Here’s where things stand today:

Bluesky is probably my favorite platform at the moment. The vibes are okay, especially during football and soccer seasons. I find myself checking in a few times a week, more often during Liverpool, Atlanta United or Buccaneers games. That said, my use is artificially limited right now because I’m mostly stuck with the PWA on desktop. I’m really looking forward to Phoenix, a new Bluesky client from the team behind Ivory. Once that drops, I imagine I’ll be on the platform more regularly.

Mastodon is still solid. The community there is thoughtful and kind, but I just don’t think to check it very often. It’s just a bit too homogenous for me. I have, however, continued to subscribe to Ivory even though I barely use it. That’s mostly out of respect for the developers. At some point I’ll probably cancel, but I haven’t quite talked myself into it yet.

Every once in a while, I’ll fire up Threads but it feels less like a social media app and more of an algorithmic firehose of content that Meta thinks I might like.

Instagram is a familiar trap. I go through cycles of installing it, getting sucked in, then deleting it again. It’s too addictive and not particularly rewarding (other than the dog videos).

Facebook continues to be the worst. I deleted my account years ago, but had to create a new one recently because my son’s Boy Scout troop uses it for communication. I’ve done my best to keep the new profile barren — no friends, no interests, no algorithm — and I’d love to delete it again as soon as I can.

In terms of actual usage, I’ve got a 30-minute screen time limit set on my phone and I honestly can’t remember the last time I hit it. Most of my social browsing happens on my computer in between other tasks, which helps keep things in check.

Both Bluesky and Mastodon still feel relatively healthy. The sentiment is mostly positive and the stakes are low, which is nice. But I still catch myself wondering: what’s the actual value here?

2024 Social Media Vibe Check

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About a year ago, I wrote about the state of things at Twitter. It’s gone worse than I could have imagined, although I won’t cover that here. There are a zillion think pieces on that Musk has done to that company and what it means for Twitter, social media, and our overall discourse. I’ll leave that to the experts. Turns out, I deleted my account completely and spent a lot of time on Mastodon and Threads, once it was released. Both have that “old Twitter” vibe, in different ways.

Still, I think I’m going to keep my distance from both as we head into 2024.

As part of my annual review of subscriptions, I came across my upcoming renewal for the excellent Mastodon client, Ivory. It got me thinking about why I even bother with these sorts of public sites to begin with. Reading a bunch of strangers’ thoughts on tech, sports, politics and whatever else is going on really doesn’t make me feel any better or more informed. Mastodon is great because there is no algorithm and the overall vibes are way better, but it’s still a general waste of my time. Same goes for Threads, which so far has been a big improvement over Twitter but that’s not saying much.

Just like I said last year: I don’t really need any of these sites in my life. It’s not worth it.

For 2024, I’m just going to delete Threads and Ivory off of my phone and I won’t be renewing my subscription to Ivory, despite it being a wonderful app by one of the best developers out there. I want to remove temptation to waste time mindlessly scrolling through those sorts of sites with such little payoff. I’ll continue to use the services via the web, but would rather keep things at arm’s length.

I’ll possibly write more often here when I want to ramble about things. But maybe not.

Look! Another Post About Twitter!

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Twitter is a dumpster fire

If you’ve been living under a rock over the past 6 months, you might not be aware of the fact that Twitter is under new ownership. By most measures, it doesn’t seem to be going great. Elon Musk has taken a sledgehammer to the service since he acquired it in October, and my “wait and see” approach has turned to a “can’t look away because the train wreck is so epic” one.  Watching Elon drive Twitter into the ditch with his Free Speech Maximalism™ that’s really just shooting from the hip on every decision about content moderation, product strategy and public relations has gotten really tiresome. In fact, I hate writing about it. As a Tesla owner, I really want him to focus more on that company as shareholders seem to be revolting over his lack of attention to his cash cow. The amount of damage he’s done to his reputation and to that of his companies is pretty historic.

I’ve lurked on Twitter for a while and gotten value out of following journalists and indie developers. I’ve discovered a lot of interesting folks to follow and heard voices I likely wouldn’t have heard otherwise along the way. For me, the biggest value I get from Twitter is following a few topics: Apple/tech news, Liverpool FC, FSU/College football, and Atlanta United. I don’t post a lot, but I have cultivated sets of lists for each of those main topics that I keep up with during sporting events or big Apple news cycles. But when the company is run by a scumbag who emboldens some of the worst folks on the web and he enables policies that encourage disinformation and hate to spread, it’s hard to justify the value I do get out of the site vs supporting the societal ills Twitter magnifies.

A lot of the Apple folks have started to leave or post very infrequently but the rest, not so much. So reducing my use of Twitter does mean that I’ll be missing out on some of that commentary when watching sports or keeping up with the news. However, once you stop counting on it, it’s funny how quickly you realize you’re not getting as much value as you think you are.

What I’m doing now

I’ve deleted all of my tweets, locked my account and logged out everywhere, including deleting apps on my phone, tablet and computer. I have an account on Mastodon and check it every day or so, but I’m not posting a ton over there, either. Using a service that helps you find folks who have linked to their new homes from their Twitter profile, I’ve followed most of the people I did on Twitter but my urges to post a pretty few and far between. When I do post, engagement is higher on Mastodon vs Twitter! It definitely feels like the early days of Twitter in that way.

I’m also doubling down on RSS. I’ve used Reeder for a long time to follow a lot of the sites that I enjoy, but now I’m also following about a half dozen folks from Mastodon on there as well. It’s very easy to simply append .rss to the end of a user’s Mastodon profile and then you have a feed you can follow.

Finally, I’m going to think more about posting here with more frequency. I haven’t really touched the visual layout of the site in a long time and it’s likely I’m missing out on a lot of the visual goodies that WordPress 6.x offers. I might check out some templates and iterate on those. My hunch is that will inspire me to write a little bit more.

What I’m realizing about my professed love for Twitter

Despite the fact that I have fond memories of Early Twitter™ and derive some value out of the lists I mentioned earlier, breaking away from Twitter and spending time on Mastodon has revealed the truth most of us already know….

I don’t really need any of these sites in my life. It’s not worth it.

There are better places to get most of the info I need without wasting as much time (Techmeme, the Athletic, etc). The time I have spent on Mastodon has been fine, and I intend to keep an account over there, but I don’t see myself spending a lot of time or energy on it. Spending more time reading and writing and less time scrolling through pithy comments and performative outrage is a huge win.

Will I delete my account?

About 2 years ago, I deleted my Facebook account and haven’t missed a beat. I also still have a LinkedIn and Instagram account, although I mostly lurk. However, Twitter has always been the social media site that I’ve had the strongest love/hate relationship with. I want it to succeed but I also think most of my positive sentiment is for an era where it felt more like the “early web” and that ain’t coming back no matter who owns the service. I’m not going to delete my account but I also can’t see myself using it again for quite some time.