How Mastodon is a game changer for social media

Imagine a place where you don't "tweet", you "toot". A place where your voice is heard or can be heard in the most organic way - by a large friendly audience in a room called an "Instance".

That's the gist of the community experience over on Mastodon, where the community is skyrocketing in popularity due to some recent mainstream media attention.

This is not a threat to existing networks, this is an entire alternative to how we view the future of social.

The Friendlier Utopian Euro-Twitter

While a lot of new members coming from chatter from the "birdsite" (Twitter), the demographics are an eclectic mix of people who work in tech, social media, gamers and artists. These are sophisticated digital natives, whose origins range from Europe to the West coast of the U.S, and beyond.

They come with a fundamentally different philosophy of what the user experience should be like, and feel like. If you like conversation games, Mastodon is your utopia. If you like to chat, Mastodon might even be your salvation for trusting the internet again.

If algorithms have led us to a dystopia of control where our data (privacy) and attention is monetized, what's on the other side of the spectrum? Mastodon appears to be a possible solution from the 'other side'.

The 'Social' in Social Media is Not Extinct

• Timelines are chronological (no algorithms allowed)
• Public timelines
• 500 characters per post
• GIFV sets and short videos
• Granular, per-post privacy settings
• Rich block and muting tools
• Ethical design: no ads, no tracking
• Open API for apps and services

If Twitter and Tumblr had Babies

Mastodon is a place the organic feeds have an almost "quasi-techno-hippie quality", in the stark absence of deathly impersonal algorithms (machine learning that thinks it can predict what you want to see).

The echo bubble is dead, long live the feeling of real human beings again.

The ambience on Mastodon is entirely unique, with conversations that surround you in a spirit of fresh witty content (distinctly human and fertile with free-association) with the looks of Tweetdeck, the kind of interface and banter you might expect if Twitter and Tumblr had babies.

The citizens there in both local home and a meta-universe that are channels not unlike group chat and overland chat in video game MORPG culture.

The result is a surprisingly spontaneous and immersive social feed that's decentralized, multi-lingual and oddly entertaining and comforting.

The Failure of Collective Belonging in Digital

With the failure of LinkedIn Groups and Facebook groups to really deliver a satisfactory user experience and with the inconvenience of politics and news dominating Twitter, it's safe to say world wide web citizens are hungry for a more authentic sense of social belonging.

Mastodon is not a Twitter-killer, it's something more and different altogether.

Thus far in its very early phase, it's attracting digital natives, developers, writers, social media and journalists, LGTBQ folk and a lot of young Millennial artists at the intersection of digital.

As with how snapchat started, or how Twitter must have felt when it first came out, new networks are based on a kind of connection that "feels" authentic, since it hasn't been monetized yet by outside forces; a stage of network evolution that's natal and facilitates the development of digital kinship.

How to Get Started

1. Choose an instance off of a growing master-list of home channels.
2. There's no ID confirmation and tweets there are called "toots".
3. You can reply to anyone and have a social feed as varied as your interests and dialogues take you.
4. On Mastodon, community intersects with inspiration, in a collaboration of culture, ideas and digital socializing.

How can I Learn More

The micro-blogging network has been alive since October, but is seeing a lot of growth.

• Flow of "Federated Timeline" (global chat) and new and customer instances is very dynamic and immersive.
• 500 character limit is provoking for more rewarding and rich interactive snippets.
• Bots on Mastodon are benign, and for the most part, informative.
• There hasn't been dialogue this warm, since the old days of chat forums.
• The mastermind behind Mastodon is a 24-year-old Eugene Rochko of Germany.
• The open API and modded features that will be created here will evolve more dynamically than any commercial undertaking. (nobody innovates like people who actually care).

What Can you Show me about the Mastodon Experience?

That's the easy part. I can curate what I've seen users say about it.

So why do people like Mastodon?

Many people I met felt "comfortable" yet stimulated by the open-ended nature of the feeds.

That Place Where Everyone Knows your Name?

Decentralized networks make its members want to opt-in with tinkering and improving the tool for the benefit of everyone.

Last Words

Being a community forum for young Millennials also means inclusion for minority community runs rampant on Mastodon, heavily skewed towards dev and social media folk. Mastodon, has a lot of heart and expertise curated for the post-centralized monetized network. As you might expect, it feels a lot more authentic.

Come and talk to me on Mastodon. https://mastodon.network/@Michael_Spencer

I'm the 2nd ranked LinkedIn Top Voice in Marketing and Social, and cover how social media and digital scales and evolves according to Millennials and GenZ preferences. I live at the intersection of technology and the future. Follow me to stay in touch.

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Will free open-source social (FOSS) eventually challenge mainstream monetized networks that are orchestrated for profit instead of community? Would you try Mastodon? What did you think of the experience?