Below are posts associated with the āMastodonā tag.
brief, first thoughts on Flipboard's Surf app
I donāt remember exactly when I signed up for the beta of Flipboardās Surf āsocial web browserāāprobably shortly after blogging about it hereābut my invite came in, and I finally installed the beta yesterday to give it a look. This isnāt a proper review so much as a few off-the-cuff thoughts based on a few minutes of fiddling around but those thoughts are mixed.
When I first linkblogged about Surf, I said that I wanted to see more apps like this, and trying out the app only reinforces that impression.
going semi-viral on Bluesky just made me miss blogging
Since early 2019(!), Iāve been slowly but surely orienting my online presence around my Hugo blog. This doesnāt mean that Iāve given up on social media platforms, but that those are merely appendages to a website that I have more control over. In fact, Iām really pleased with the POSSEāPost to Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhereāsetup that Iāve developed over the past couple of years. It currently works like this: All of my posts start on this website, and then I use the EchoFeed service to send posts to my Mastodon accounts and a Bluesky account (Micro.
š linkblog: The Technological Poison Pill: How ATProtocol Encourages Competition, Resists Evil Billionaires, Lock-In & Enshittification'
Saw someone link to this and remembered I should probably read the whole thing instead of just the first few paragraphs. I fall somewhere between Doctorow and Masnick on Bluesky optimism, but I really appreciate their dialogue on it.
š linkblog: Flipboardās Surf app is a big new idea about the future of social'
I donāt see myself pivoting away from Reeder, but this looks interesting, and I want to see more of this kind of app out there.
š linkblog: Pluralistic: Social media needs (dumpster) fire exits (14 Dec 2024) ā Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow'
Some more reflection by Doctorow on Bluesky and Mastodon.
setting up an iOS image posting POSSE workflow for Hugo
Several days ago, I posted that:
One of the biggest gaps in my current website-first approach to social media is an inability to snap a picture and quickly post it. Iāve wanted to tackle this for a while, but an upcoming cool vacation has me thinking I should really go for it.
A couple of days later, I realized I wasnāt alone in this when Alex Sirac picked up the post on their website, and it got another sympathetic comment there, too.
some thoughts on joining Bluesky, maintaining platform independence, and tweaking Mastodon
Itās now been over two years since I ditched Twitter, and I recently made the decision to go ahead and outright delete the account rather than leave it there to ward off imposters. Itās been really interesting to explore the new landscape of social media during this time, and I wanted to put together a post with some of my current thoughts.
Iām on Bluesky now, I guess? First, I set up a Bluesky account a number of weeks ago, and Iāve been following other Bluesky accounts for a while (first via RSS, now via the Reeder app alongside RSS), but Iāve finally started actually using it since the election, which seems to be sparking some new interest in ditching Twitter.
on art and punching Nazis
A brief, entirely-unrelated-to-this-post conversation on Mastodon this afternoon got me thinking about an art exhibit that I saw in college and still think about every once in a while. The exhibit was on something along the lines of pop culture and politics, and one of the only two things that I remember from the exhibit (the other being D&D character sheets for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney) was a statue depicting an action figure-y Captain America brandishing the severed head of Saddam Hussein.
wanting to play Keyforge
Iāve recently followed a couple of bots on Mastodon that promise to show āRandom Magic: The Gathering Cardsā or āEvery PokĆ©mon Card.ā Following both of these reminds me how much I like trying to think through how the unique abilities of different cards (or miniatures, or whatever else) can be combined to win a game. The last time that Iāve really scratched that itch was when I was in grad school and got really into the X-Wing Miniatures Game.
the new Reeder is exactly the app I want right now
introduction and history Iāve experimented for a while with consuming a range of media through an RSS reader. I donāt remember how long I subscribed to Feedbin, but being able to follow both Twitter accounts and email newsletters in the same app as my RSS subscriptions was a real game-changer. Eventually, I jumped ship for NetNewsWireāI donāt remember all the reasons behind the switch, but knowing that I could keep subscribing to Twitter and start following some subreddits was definitely a major factor.
š linkblog: Whatās the Difference Between Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads?'
This is a helpful EFF overview that Iām posting to bookmark for later.
setting up POSSE-style microblogging with a Hugo static site and Micro.blog
I was recently talking to some friends about how Iāve been working to make my Hugo blog the center of my online presence. In particular, even though I didnāt know the term at first, Iāve been trying since 2019 to follow the POSSE strategy of āPublish (to) Own Site, Send Elsewhereā (note that, in the grand tradition of many tech acronyms, everyone agrees what the acronym means, but there are multiple ways of understanding what it stands for exactly).
š linkblog: The āqueer.afā Mastodon instance disappeared because of the Taliban'
Domain name infrastructure plays a bigger role than we might think.
š linkblog: Open Infrastructures and the Future of Knowledge Production, part 2 ā Platypus'
Strong follow up to the last post I just linked to.
š linkblog: Open Infrastructures and the Future of Knowledge Production, part 1 ā Platypus'
Lots of helpful thoughts in this post. Makes me think about the value of Mastodon for the academyāand other spaces that I care about. Also, I love seeing Doctorow and academic thinking come together.
pre-conference updates to my online presence
This week, Iām attending two different research conferences (well, I only barely attended the first one, to be honest). The leadup to these conferences has involved some changes to my web presence, just in case people actually check my website when I put it on my slides. Overall, Iām happy with the changes that Iāve made, so I thought Iād take advantage of my free Delta in-flight wi-fi to blog about some of the changes Iāve made and why.
š linkblog: Lazy Reporters Claiming Fediverse Is āSlumping,ā Despite Massive Increase In Usage | Techdirt'
Iād seen some of the headlines Masnick is critiquing here, but I hadnāt read the articles. I appreciate this critique and overview.
three grumpy observations from a Twitter researcher on requests for 'quote toots'
Over the past several weeks, Iāve noticed a lot of conversations about Mastodonās lack of a feature equivalent to Twitterās āquote tweets.ā To be honest, I donāt really care about the lack of a āquote tootā feature, and Iāve done my best to steer clear of these conversations (though I did note while writing this post that it caught the eye of Mastodonās founder in a big way). I gather that these conversations been around for a while, but I get the sense from my own feeds that thereās been a notable recent uptick.
š linkblog: Twitter rival Mastodon rejects funding to preserve nonprofit status | Ars Technica'
Mastodon isnāt perfect, but this strikes me as a good sign.
quitting scrolling, not just Twitter
Although itās been a real delight to see so many people joining Mastodon over the past few weeks, Iāve found that thereās also a disadvantage that I hadnāt expected: Iām spending a lot more time scrolling through Mastodon these days than I ever have since setting up my Mastodon accounts.
When I began setting up Mastodon accounts and shifting away from Twitter back in April, I felt like I had made a big leap forward in terms of my online consumption.