The State of the Federation, with Mastodon's Eugen Rochko

4 snips

Dec 20, 2023

Mastodon's founder and CEO, Eugen Rochko, discusses Mastodon's epic year and the growth of the Fediverse. They explore the arrival of Meta and the benefits of Threads joining the Fediverse. They also discuss the adoption of Blue Sky and the future of open social networks. The chapter covers the rise and fall of XMPP, the importance of innovating user experiences, and funding in the Fediverse. They recognize Mastodon's achievements and express gratitude for a powerful online platform.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

Mastodon's Epic Year

Mastodon grew from 200,000 to 1.6 million active users in one year.
Official apps topped app store lists, and buy-in from companies like Flipboard and Mozilla was significant.

INSIGHT

Unexpected Adoption

Eugen Rochko never expected major players to adopt Mastodon’s protocol.
He envisioned Mastodon as an independent "island of social media."

INSIGHT

Small Team, Big Impact

Mastodon's core product has only 1.5 engineers, with Rochko being the .5.
The entire team, including DevOps, mobile app developers, and an external design agency, comprises about a dozen people.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

It’s been a momentous time for the Fediverse. New versions of Mammoth and Ivory launched. WordPress and Tumblr reaffirmed their commitment to integrating ActivityPub. And then both Threads and Flipboard rolled out their plans to federate.

What does this all mean for the Fediverse? How will moderation work as the Fediverse grows in leaps and bounds? Who will be next to federate?

Mastodon’s founder and CEO Eugen Rochko goes deep with Flipboard CEO Mike McCue for a sprawling conversation that looks back on Mastodon’s epic year, dissects the moment we’re in today, and ponders a future filled with big changes and new ideas.

More urgently, if you’re following what’s happening with Threads, it is essential listening for understanding Meta’s strategy and how the Fediverse is responding.

Highlights from this conversation include:

0:51 Looking back on Mastodon’s epic year
3:22 Small team, big goals
4:55 The arrival of Threads/Meta: pro or con?
9:01 The way Mastodon/Fediverse is architected to provide a better social media experience
11:24 The “big win” of Meta adopting an open standard
12:10 The game-changing paradigm shift in how social media works
17:30 Why Meta is committing to Threads — a significant moment for the social web
18:10 Mastodon community’s reaction to Threads’ entry
19:24 Preemptively building walls to block Threads: self-defeating?
21:10 Tools and advice for instance owners on interoperating with Threads
26:09 Gaining momentum: who will federate next?
28:34 Bluesky
30:00 ActivityPub: the beauty of a generic protocol
38:24 User experiences in the Fediverse
41:06 “Embrace, extend, extinguish” and the XMPP comparison
50:28 Funding Mastodon through Patreon donations
53:10 U.S. nonprofit version of Mastodon and grant applications
54:23 On outside contributions to Mastodon’s code base
57:42 Hopes and dreams for the future

💰Mastodon is a non-profit that runs on donations from the community. You can help Mastodon succeed by supporting the organization via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mastodon

🔎 You can follow Eugen on Mastodon at https://mastodon.social/@Gargron

✚ You can connect with Mike McCue on Mastodon at https://flipboard.social/@mike, or via his Flipboard federated account, where you can see what he’s curating on Flipboard in the Fediverse, at https://flipboard.social/@mike@flipboard.com

💡 To learn more about what Flipboard's doing in the fediverse, sign up here: https://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave/