First post: A history of online public messaging

Shifts in U.S. Social Media Use, 2020–2024: Decline, Fragmentation, and Enduring Polarization

The social media ecosystem appears to be in flux. Twitter’s rebranding to X has come to symbolize a broader reorganization of online publics – political reshuffling, user attrition, and uncertainty over the role of legacy platforms. Simultaneously, the shift from text-based, networked feeds toward algorithmically curated, short-form video has accelerated, with TikTok setting the pace for the wider ecosystem [18, 14, 16]. At the same time, everyday communication increasingly migrates from large, open networks to semi-private spaces such as group chats and messaging apps. Commentators describe a digital public sphere in transition: smaller, more fragmented, less dominated by traditional social networking sites, and rise of more broadcast-oriented forms of media – with some even suggesting that we are seeing the beginning of the end of the social media era.

How It All Started: Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

1971: Ray Tomlinson of BBN creates email program to send messages across a distributed network.

Signal Messenger: Speak Freely

Say "hello" to a different messaging experience. An unexpected focus on privacy, combined with all of the features you expect.

FediForum | Growing the Open Social Web:<br>An Online Un-Workshop

Since the Twitter takeover by Elon Musk over three years ago, the Open Social Web has been adopted by an enthusiastic community. People world-wide are building and using open social platforms and open social protocols to better interact with others online.

Quiet - Private messaging. No servers.

Quiet is available for all major platforms. (And eventually the web, too!)

A New Social

Our mission is to liberate people's networks from their platforms, enabling The Last Network Effect and leveling the playing field across the open social web.

A New Social

Our mission is to liberate people's networks from their platforms, enabling The Last Network Effect and leveling the playing field across the open social web.

Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media

When practitioners used the term “social media” to describe the internet tools that emerged in the mid-aughts, they were giving a name to the kinds of platforms and protocols that allowed people to socialize with friends and communities of interest by using digital technologies. Twenty years later, users of social media are far more likely to scroll than post – and the content that they consume is often strategically produced and algorithmically curated. In this essay, I argue that the very essence of social media has changed. To more effectively interrogate what we are witnessing, we need to stop presuming that these tools are “social media” and begin recognizing that they are now “parasocial media.” Doing so raises new questions about digitally mediated sociality, not to mention the politics and governance of these platforms.

Copycat: How Facebook Tried to Squash Snapchat

In an excerpt from a new book on Snapchat, Billy Gallagher explains how Facebook fought back against a tiny rival's challenge.

The Trump Administration Group Chat, Signal: The Coke of Secure Messaging, Transparency Versus Security

The Trump administration’s Signal gaffe raises fascinating questions about secure messaging and the trade-off inherent in transparency.

The AT Protocol's interesting design - LittleBit

Bluesky's backend was made to be more than a social network