If I ran Mastodon

Mastodon - Decentralized social media

Learn more about Mastodon, the radically different, free and open-source decentralized social media platform.

The State of the Open Social Web

A comprehensive look at Mastodon, Bluesky, and the growing ecosystem of open, interoperable social networks.

Mastodon Exit Interview

I am currently winding down the Mastodon bots I used to post sunrise and sunset times. The precipitating event is that the admin of the instance hosting the associated accounts demanded they be made nigh-undiscoverable, but the underlying cause is that it’s become increasing clear that Mastodon isn’t, and won’t ever be, a good platform for “asynchronous ephemeral notifications of any kind”. I’d also argue (more controversially) that it’s simply not good infrastructure for social networking of any kind. There are lots of interesting people using Mastodon, and I’m sure it will live on as a good-enough space for certain niche groups. But there is no question that it will never offer the fun of early Twitter, let alone the vibrancy of Twitter during its growth phase. I’ve long since dropped Mastodon from my home screen, and have switched to Bluesky for text-centric social media.

Mastodon is for the people

How we're thinking about supporting the communities that rely on Mastodon every day.

How Does Mastodon Work? - Kev Quirk

I’ve spoken about Mastodon numerous times on this blog. It is the social media platform I use more than any other, but for a new user it can be confusing because it doesn’t work like other social media sites.

ActivityPub

Connect your site to the Open Social Web and let millions of users follow, share, and interact with your content from Mastodon, Pixelfed, and more.

Let's fund the open social web

A pro-social approach to building better platforms

If I started fresh

What would I do if I was building an open social web platform from scratch?

Understanding Decentralized Social Feed Curation on Mastodon

Amid rising concerns over moderation, algorithmic control, and platform governance on centralized social media, people are increasingly turning to decentralized alternatives like Mastodon to regain control over their feeds. This shift offers new opportunities to understand how people perceive and curate their feeds. We conducted a two-part study with 21 Mastodon users: first, interviews exploring how they perceive and manage their feeds; and second, a design probe study using BRAIDS.SOCIAL, a web-based feed curation prototype informed by the first part of our initial findings. We learned how seamful design can increase people's trust in algorithmic curation, and surfaced trade-offs people navigate between machine learning-based and rule-based filtering approaches. We also identify a core design tension in decentralized platforms: whether to support personalization through new applications or extensions layered atop existing ones.

Expectations and preferences around community contributions/interactions · mastodon mastodon · Discussion #36552

There is a long-running pattern of conversations on issues/PRs around some features getting quite heated and sometimes turning into personal insults, venting frustrations, borderline conspiracy acc...

Exit to Community: A Community Primer

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Scaling Mastodon is Impossible

Now that Twitter is dying, what can replace it?

Coho

Discover a simpler way to socialize online with Coho, the Mastodon app that prioritizes ease-of-use and clean design. Experience the open-source, decentralized social network without the clutter. Join communities, share your thoughts, and connect with like-minded individuals all with just a few taps. Say goodbye to overwhelming feeds and complicated features, Coho simplifies the social media experience.

Nicolium

Mastodon-compatible social media front-end

Playing with ActivityPub

Can a website play with a mastodon?