Techdirt The Rise Of The Open Social Web
May 6, 2025
Mike McCue, founder of Flipboard and a former Twitter board member, discusses the shift towards decentralization in the digital world. He shares insights on his new app, Surf, designed to empower users on the open social web. The conversation dives into the importance of platforms like Blue Sky and Mastodon, the potential of decentralized protocols, and how they can reshape user experiences. McCue also touches on the role of AI in social media, advocating for user control over algorithms to foster authentic interactions.
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Web and Open Social Web Parallel
- The web revolutionized content by standardizing connections, allowing decentralized innovation beyond closed walled gardens like AOL.
- The open social web's protocols ActivityPub and AtProto promise a similar fundamental shift by enabling open, standardized social connections.
Create Unique Open Experiences
- Make the open social web a better, more interesting place than closed platforms to attract mainstream users.
- Innovate with unique models and communities, not just clones of existing apps.
Decentralization Spurs Innovation
- Decentralization unleashed innovation that closed platforms like AOL could never have imagined.
- Diverse, open protocols invite millions to innovate, unlike centralized gatekeepers who limit new ideas.