Leading Change: The Social Shakeup
It's been interesting watching the social shakeup evolve over the last few weeks as a significant number of users and advertisers have cut back, if not entirely ceased, participating on certain platforms. Finding suitable alternatives has been a bit of trial and error, including for yours truly, but staying flexible and keeping things in perspective may help overcome some of the frustration people are feeling, esp. where they have invested years in building an online presence somewhere they no longer want to be.
Some of us recall the days when your virtual social network was determined by the phone number your modem dialed to reach any of a number of available Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes), where users could chat, play games, and exchange files. The trick back then, just like today, was choosing the right community with enough active members who shared your interests along with the ability to expand to add more members as needed. Sure, technology has changed significantly over the years since I started with a Commodore 64 and 300 baud modem, but human nature has remained remarkably the same.
From that perspective, as someone who has seen recurring migrations of users from one engagement platform to another over the years, the moves have now become a bit of an expected routine, regardless of the underlying reason. Technology evolves, new engagement patterns develop, monetization opportunities are created, and new communities can quickly reach a tipping point when they've recruited just enough new members to be one of the most popular and influential places to be online (for a while, at least).
The first follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader. -- Derek Sivers
So for a lot of people who built up some sizable followings on micro-blogging services, transitioning to newer, as yet unproven platforms, can seem risky. However, a number of influencers feel compelled to explore more alternatives, and this is where Mastodon and Post.news have gained some recent attention.
As a new user on both platforms myself, I haven't been using either of them long enough to do an exhaustive review. However, the bottom line from my perspective comes down to whether decentralized v centralized control is more feasible for you in the current environment. Mastodon is free and open source software (FOSS) that anyone can download and deploy to a server to host as a provider. Because of this, there can be some significant differences in the level of support offered across servers, including the frequency of updates and enforcement of moderation policies within and between servers. In some cases, where a server is identified as a source of problematic behavior, other servers can block or de-federate it so their users are not exposed to it. That can lead to inconsistent experiences across the "Fediverse," which includes even more platforms beyond Mastodon, but also relying on the ActivityPub protocol, some users may not be aware of.
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For those who prefer a more centralized approach, Noam Bardin, Former CEO of Waze, announced the formation of Post.news earlier this year, a site that incorporates OpenWeb Moderation Standards. The team has been growing quickly, but not quick enough to allow everyone who wants to join do so just yet. It is still very much in beta testing with a few thousand early adopters willing to provide the feedback needed for the service to mature and be able to scale without compromising performance. As such, many users openly admit they are posting in multiple sites during this transition period until long-term viability is proven out.
For the users who have been able to join and start engaging on either Mastodon or Post, the feedback has been mostly positive and encouraging. Some users likened it to moving to a new neighborhood and having to make some new friends - but then also discovering who else moved along with you to the same neighborhood. Some features and capabilities, like following lists or hashtags, if available, do not work exactly the same as in other platforms, so there is a bit of discovery and adjustment getting acquainted with the new environment.
Does it take time? Of course. And that's not something everyone has immediately available to invest in for an otherwise unplanned social migration effort. So while some of us have been able to transition quickly to the new services, don't be surprised to see links back to content from other platforms by users who have not been able to make the move just yet. There's a reason my Post profile still links back to my Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Substack, YouTube, and Mastodon profiles, as well. And if I could have thrown in my GitHub and Reddit links that would have made it almost complete.
But just like in those BBS days, you've got different boards with different folks and different engagement styles and resources to work with, so you'll still have to learn a bit about a few of them to figure out how much time you want to spend where that gives you the most value. You're welcome to connect with me on any of the networks I'm active on to see who else I follow and what I've shared, liked, starred, favourited, boosted, etc., to help get familiar with what's out there!
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Lady Learn-it-All
3 个月2024 update: I'm on Bluesky now, too! I hope to find some time to write a longer update on the Mastodon and Post experience (before the latter shut down), but you can find me at https://bsky.app/profile/nivine.zakhari.social in the meantime.