Notices by Richard MacManus (ricmac@mastodon.social)

At what point will the big Mastodon instances withdraw federation from Threads if Meta fails to implement two-way federation? I would support that move if my instance did it. It’s beyond a joke that Meta continues to boast of being part of the fediverse, but has not yet let Threads users follow Mastodon users.

We’re now in the “Guy on Substack saying Bluesky is a rejection of Big Tech” phase of the hype.

This should be Mastodon's next catchphrase: "Not a Trump-inspired billboard".

This definition of the fediverse as including Bluesky is, I think, a good one. But as with Threads, the true test will be whether Bluesky users can follow someone from Mastodon. Frankly that looks more likely to happen soon with Bluesky than Threads, via bridging tech. Perhaps Mastodon and Bluesky will continue to diverge though in use case — personally I love the usenet / discussion board vibe of Mastodon, but I might use Bluesky to consume memes, etc. https://www.threads.net/@mmccue/post/DBSmyQqp9y-

@Gargron @ThePlant @shadowwwind @gisiger One thing that is obvious once I thought about it and looked at the July post, but perhaps could be clarified in the instructions: you need to add a meta tag to your site, like <meta name="fediverse:creator" content="@Gargron" />

@shadowwwind @gisiger @Gargron one question: if I add thenewstack.io (my employer) will that add my name to just posts I have authored? There are a bunch of writers on the site.

Bloggers / newsletter writers take note: in the new Mastodon 4.3 release, if you go to settings > verification, you can now turn on "Author attribution". So when someone posts a link to Cybercultural, I think they now see my Mastodon profile alongside the link. Very cool. https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/10/mastodon-4.3/

Mark Zuckerberg basically just confirmed that your feeds will soon be full of AI-generated content. Another reason the fediverse needs to exist: so that you can follow humans. https://www.theverge.com/24253481/meta-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-ar-glasses-orion-ray-bans-ai-decoder-interview

@ben It's remarkable what a force Google Discover has become, while Google search slowly shrinks for many publishers. One theory I like is that Google is throwing publishers a bone with Discover traffic, while they take away search traffic via AI Overviews. But as the Niemen article notes, Discover is much more of a black box algorithm — there are few ways to optimize for it. And yes, social drives no traffic these days; all the main centralized platforms de-emphasize links now.

In-depth story about my favourite dystopian app, Sam Altman's Worldcoin and its iris-scanning Orb. The company is desperately trying to spin it as an open source benefit to humanity, but oh boy... you just can't trust ANY company, let alone a crypto one. The last line is a doozy, a quote from one of the Worldcoin execs: "It’s about execution now and explaining to people that, actually, we’re not going to steal your soul."

Indeed.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-08-12/how-worldcoin-is-building-digital-ids-to-combat-the-ai-apocalypse (search for it on archive.fo)

@brianstorms @Gargron Mastodon does have search (including non-hashtag), but users have to opt into it. And yes that is by design. There are pros and cons to that, and relatively few people have opted in so far. But there is a valid reason why that decision was made.

@Researchbuzz @Gargron Either way, search is still opt-in on Mastodon, and relatively few have opted in. But yes, it might pay to add a note that it’s not limited to hashtag search anymore. I love the point that social media should be at least partly ephemeral, for the reasons you laid out.

Must-read post about #search on Mastodon. Has made me adjust my own take on this issue. -> "Mastodon is not Google or any other full-text engine, nor should it be. It is a platform for community and conversation. Just as conversations do not echo in an enclosed space forever, conversation search should be somewhat ephemeral."
https://researchbuzz.masto.host/@researchbuzz/112649725372562847

Jason Fried from 37Signals announces a “web-based books” product, which I must admit does sound intriguing, even though I already made my own custom book serialization site with Eleventy + Buttondown. Sounds like business books is their main use case, but still, good idea. -> “Workbook […] They have covers, they can have title pages, they can have picture pages, and they can have text pages. Each book gets its own URL, and navigating and keeping track of your progress is all built right in.”

Fascinating look at how #ActivityPub is being used by the SFO art museum to help encourage revisiting its cultural objects. Still early days, but you can see the potential here -> “The reason I am telling you all of this is that SFO Museum has written it's own limited ActivityPub server implementation and we have, in fact, created an ActivityPub account – a social media, account – for every object in our collection.” https://orthis.social/@thisisaaronland/112339899293624779

Post from @rabble on why he's chosen to use #Nostr and not #ActivityPub and the #Fediverse. He makes some compelling points. Personally I am not too worried about the server admin parts of his argument (I have enough control, even if I don't control the server), but I agree that this isn't ideal:

"You can’t use a single fediverse identity with your profile and followers in Peertube, Mobilizon, WriteFreely, and Pixelfed. You need a totally separate account in each one."
https://njump.me/nevent1qqsfqlx6wpl5267tmnmmjk7v9tzunjvhzav9unc2tjn6k0w82vghprsppamhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt0d5qjxamnwvaz7tmswfhhs7fdv4u8qetjd9kk2mn59ehkuun9dejx2u3wvdhk6qg5waehxw309aex2mrp0yhxgctdw4eju6t0qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqgkwaehxw309aex2mrp0yhxummnw3ezucnpdejqzxrhwden5te0wfjkccte9ehx7umhdpjhyefwvdhk6q3qwmr34t36fy03m8hvgl96zl3znndyzyaqhwmwdtshwmtkg03fetaqxczx4f

@Gargron I thought I had set up brid.gy to be the go-between, but I must've done something wrong somewhere... thanks for your reply.

Webmentions.io isn't recognizing my link from Mastodon -- anyone know why?

https://webmention.io/cybercultural.com/webmention/Lca1cUHelb7YZ9g5bw8U

testing webmentions (pls ignore) https://cybercultural.com/p/021-iphone-debut-2007-rww-network/

It's time to take back the internet from those corporate data sharecroppers! For more info, please check out my full-page New York Times advert and ignore the fact I'm a partner at a powerful VC firm in Silicon Valley that funded many of said sharecroppers. *

* Also, that "readwrite" brand name looks familiar...can't quite place it...