Podcast Summary
New platforms and tools for engaging online: New platforms like Mastodon and Blue Sky use open protocols for interoperability, giving individuals and businesses more choices and flexibility in online engagement. Tools like Canva help simplify presentations, and small businesses can benefit from insurance providers like State Farm that understand their unique needs.
The way we engage with the internet and share information is evolving, moving beyond the dominance of a few large platforms towards more open and interconnected systems. This shift is exemplified by new platforms like Mastodon and Blue Sky, which use the Activity Pub protocol to create an open social graph and enable interoperability between services. For individuals and businesses, this means more choices and flexibility in how they connect and share online. Additionally, tools like Canva can help ease the stress of presenting to colleagues by generating professional presentations quickly and easily. And for small business owners, having an insurance provider like State Farm that understands their unique needs can provide peace of mind. Overall, it's an exciting time for innovation and change in the digital landscape.
Owning and controlling content while reaching a wider audience: The Activity Pub protocol promotes creators, brands, and publishers to post on their own websites, link back to the original content, and reach a wider audience, fostering innovation and control.
The current dominance of vertical video and proprietary social media platforms limits innovation and control for creators, brands, and publishers. This situation recalls the days of AOL before the web's openness, where innovation was controlled by one company. The activity pub breakthrough aims to change this by allowing the web to flourish again. Two important ideas for the future of posting are Posse and pesos. Posse, or Post Own Site Syndicate Everywhere, encourages creators to post on their own websites and link back to the original content, allowing for integration and access to the full story. Pesos, or Post Everywhere Syndicate Own Site, also emphasizes posting on one's own site but focuses on the importance of having content reach various platforms. Both ideas promote the idea of owning and controlling one's content while also ensuring it reaches a wider audience.
Two Approaches to Social Media and Content Creation: Posse and Pesos: Posse and pesos offer contrasting methods for managing content and social media presence. Posse advocates for publishing on one's own site and disseminating to platforms, while pesos involve publishing on multiple platforms and pulling back to one's own site. Both aim to disrupt traditional content ownership and control.
Posse and pesos are two competing approaches to social media and content creation. Posse advocates for publishing content on one's own website and having it disseminated to various social media platforms, while pesos allow for publishing on multiple platforms with the content being pulled back to one's own site. The benefits of Posse include easier posting and a centralized archive of content. However, it raises questions about how engagement like likes, comments, and replies would be handled and if posting the same content on multiple platforms is desirable. Corey Doctorow, a blogger, tried implementing the Posse way of life on his blog, Pluralistic, but it requires significant technical expertise. Both Posse and pesos share the goal of upending the current way we think about content and social networks, but they differ in their solutions. Ultimately, these approaches challenge the notion of who truly owns and controls our online content.
Manually managing content across multiple platforms is time-consuming and error-prone: To build a following across multiple online platforms, manually writing and distributing content is inefficient and error-prone. Instead, consider using tools and strategies to streamline the process and reduce the risk of errors.
Creating and managing content across multiple online platforms can be a labor-intensive and error-prone process. Corey described his early attempts to build an audience by manually writing and distributing content across various siloed platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, Medium, and email newsletters. He used multiple tools and templates, but the process was time-consuming and prone to errors. Corey's workflow involved writing in a text editor, creating social media posts templates, and manually copying and pasting content into each platform. He even had to run Python scripts to automate some parts of the process. Despite the challenges, Corey's goal was to build a following without becoming too reliant on any one platform. However, he expressed frustration with the lack of incentive for these platforms to make it easier for users to bring content in or out, preferring to keep users engaged on their own platforms as much as possible.
New digital platforms prioritize user ownership and control: Services like Blue Sky, Mastodon, PixelFed, and micro.blog offer open alternatives to centralized social media giants, promoting user ownership and control, and fostering innovation and resilience in the digital space.
There's a growing trend towards creating new, more open digital platforms that prioritize user ownership and control of content. Services like Blue Sky, Mastodon, PixelFed, and micro.blog are leading this charge, offering alternatives to centralized social media giants. Micro.blog, founded by Manton Reese in 2017, is an example of this movement. Initially, it wasn't specifically designed as a "posse" tool, but rather an attempt to create a Twitter-like experience based on blogs and RSS feeds. The openness of the protocols underlying these platforms enables the development of various innovative apps and experiences, making the digital space more diverse and resilient. The recent events surrounding Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter have underscored the fragility of popular social media services, making the importance of these open alternatives even more apparent.
Micro.blog: A Centralized Blogging Platform with Cross-Posting Capabilities: Micro.blog lets users maintain a personal blog and share content across multiple social media platforms, but the effectiveness depends on user intentions and the complexity of setup. Viator offers a solution for travelers by providing a platform to book tours, activities, and excursions with ease and convenience.
Micro.blog allows users to maintain a personal blog and automatically post content to multiple social media platforms, including Mastodon, Tumblr, Blue Sky, Medium, LinkedIn, Pixel Fed, Nostra, and Flickr. However, the effectiveness of this approach depends on the user's intentions. For those seeking to target different audiences or maintain a strong social media presence, it can be beneficial. But for those primarily posting for personal reasons, the decision to share content across platforms may be secondary. A criticism of this approach is the complexity and expense involved, particularly during setup, which includes registering a custom domain. Manton Reece, the founder of Micro.blog, acknowledges this challenge and emphasizes the need for a simpler setup process to compete with the ease of creating a social media account. Micro.blog's potential is significant, as it offers a centralized blogging platform with the added convenience of cross-posting to various social media networks. However, the user experience must be improved to attract a wider audience, especially in terms of simplifying the setup process. For travelers seeking to make the most of their vacations, Viator offers a solution by providing a platform to book guided tours, activities, and excursions in one place. With over 300,000 travel experiences available, real traveler reviews, free cancellation, and 24-7 customer support, Viator can help ensure a memorable and stress-free travel experience.
The Posse System: A New Approach to Content Sharing: Matt Mullenweg supports the posse system, emphasizing interoperability and APIs for seamless interaction between platforms, but critics argue that each platform has unique norms and requirements, making it challenging to maintain consistency.
The posse system, which aims to allow individuals to post once and have their content automatically syndicated to multiple platforms, is a complex idea that challenges the norms of current social media and content sharing systems. Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Automatic and a long-time blogger and publishing software developer, expressed support for the theory but acknowledged the challenges. He emphasized the importance of interoperability and APIs that enable seamless interaction between different platforms, allowing users to maintain a consistent presence and engage with others on their own domains. However, critics argue that each platform has unique norms and requirements, making it difficult to post the same content everywhere and maintain consistency. Mullenweg acknowledged this challenge but expressed optimism that the posse system could be a viable solution if companies and platforms embrace interoperability and openness. Ultimately, the success of the posse system will depend on the willingness of key players in the tech industry to collaborate and adapt to this new approach to content sharing.
User-centric publishing and new social media products: The future of social media involves allowing users to customize content for each network, a unified platform for creation and consumption, and the emergence of new products catering to specific jobs in social media, such as reading or content creation.
The future of social media and content creation lies in a more user-centric, multi-step publishing process. The speaker highlights the importance of allowing users to customize their content for each network, as opposed to trying to automate the process. He also emphasizes the desire for a unified platform that aggregates consumption and creation in one place. The speaker believes that this approach will lead to a more engaging user experience and the emergence of new, innovative products focused on content consumption. The speaker also touches upon the idea that social media platforms have historically bundled various jobs to be done, such as reading, publishing, and interacting, into one app. However, with the increasing fragmentation of social media, there is an opportunity for apps to focus on specific jobs, such as reading or content creation, and excel at them. Additionally, the speaker expresses excitement about the potential for new products that cater to the different aspects of social media, such as consumption and creation, separately. He cites Flipboard as an example of a company exploring this concept for the Fediverse. Overall, the speaker sees the future of social media as one where creation and consumption can be separate but equally important experiences.
Decentralizing social media and blogging with Posse: Posse aims to let users post content on their own sites while syndicating it to social media, giving users more control over their content and a more open internet, but implementing it requires changes to blogging software, social networks, and domain registration services.
There's a growing movement towards decentralizing social media and blogging through a system called Posse. This system aims to allow users to post content on their own websites while still syndicating it to social media platforms. The speaker believes that this could lead to more control for users over their content and a more open internet. However, implementing this system would require significant changes to blogging software, social networks, and domain registration services. Despite the challenges, the speaker remains hopeful that Posse can succeed and could lead to new ways of posting, consuming, and organizing content on the web. Additionally, the use of domain names as usernames and the growth of new platforms like Blue Sky and Mastodon are seen as positive signs for this movement.
