this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
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I had no idea of the size and variety of the Fediverse! It has me feeling a bit overwhelmed. I'm enjoying BookWyrm very much; it's the GoodReads/LibraryThing replacement I've been looking for for years.

I love the simplicity of Paper.wf for blogging. It's truly elegant; I just click the link and start typing. But as far as I can tell there's no way for others to find my blog or for me to find other blogs on the site. There's no browse or follow feature. Nor can anyone comment on my posts! Those seem to me to be HUGE omissions.

Have you used any Fediverse blogging options? What are they like? And what other Fediverse services would you recommend? Other than Mastodon, I've already tried that (it didn't excite me).

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[–] croobat@lemmy.world 45 points 1 year ago

I never thought about this indirect upside of using fediverse apps. There is absolutely no incentive to publicity, who the heck is gonna pay me for promoting their book over my BookWyrm? They will make two cents from that.

So when someone publishes something over these underdog app it's because they are genuinely interested. It's really refreshing to be able to read sincere opinions from people tbh.

[–] OneRedFox@beehaw.org 24 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Calckey has the superior feature set to Mastodon by far. When the project matures, it'll be a force to reckon with.

[–] jsasf@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How is the first I've heard of Clackey? Their website is the most inviting one I've seen with the Fediverse so far.

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[–] kalanggam@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Calckey certainly looks cool and feature rich, but every Calckey instance's main page alone slows my computer down a lot and overwhelms my eyeballs lol. Don't know what to do to make that better.

[–] OneRedFox@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Well, it is a new project, so it probably needs some optimization. As far as visual clutter goes though, I think Mastodon's quad column layout is much worse about that.

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[–] lackthought@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

so I signed up for a Calckey account (on calckey.world) but content is extremely limited compared to what I see on Mastodon?

for example: if I search for the hashtag #F1 on calckey the most recent post it finds is from a week ago

this whole federation thing is still a bit confusing at times about what gets federated and where, #F1 is pretty popular on Mastodon.social when I search

[–] OneRedFox@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The server list says that instance has 71 users, so that would probably be why. Posts only show up on an instance if something requests them (users following an account, searching a permalink, subscribing to a community, etc). There are solutions to this problem, such as relays in which servers agree to funnel a bunch of posts to each other periodically to share content. You should ask your instance admin if they have one set up, or if they'd be willing to if not. Otherwise, you should make an account on a larger instance, as those tend to be better federated.

[–] lackthought@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

hmm, I guess the responsibility is partially on me to manually find/follow people from other instances to increase the cross-instance federation?

right now I am creating new accounts on all the different fediverse platforms so I can see which UI/UX I prefer, but I would like to eventually use only 1 or 2 accounts if possible

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[–] grant@toast.ooo 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I personally really enjoy Matrix but it’s not really a “fediverse” thing but it is a federated end to end encrypted messaging platform

[–] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I personally set it up to use as a messaging aggregator. The ability to scroll past Whatsapp, Telegram, and Discord chats in the same app is hilariously cursed. There are bridges for basically everything. Though some are more complete than others.

Bridging ha also been very effective for showing people the merits of matrix. Opening schildi and scrolling for a bit has made people go "GIVE ME THAT". Everyone is tired of having half a dozen chat apps just be able to talk to everyone they know.

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[–] Hexorg@beehaw.org 22 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Just a side note, ActivityPub protocol - the core engine that lets all of fediverse to talk to the rest of the fediverse is… 5 years old. Every feature imaginable is still to be implemented.

[–] Faceman2K23@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

its kinda like MQTT for humans rather than machines.

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[–] ozoned@beehaw.org 21 points 1 year ago (12 children)

I use GoToSocial with Sempahore for my microblogging (alternative to Mastodon).

Also Owncast as an alternative to Twitch.

And then I watch tilvids.com and other Peertube instances for videos.

And of course Lemmy. :-D

Oh and then there's Funkwhale for audio.

It's all in different states of usability, depending on the communities involved.

[–] sabret00the@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm still waiting for a really good Peertube instance.

[–] ozoned@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Understandable. But it's the chicken and egg problem. Creators don't want to create content, because there's no consumers. Consumers don't want to sign up, because there's no creators.

So are you the chicken or the egg? :-D

If you're on one you don't like anymore you could always change instances and watch videos there. If you're worried about losing comments, well you can comment from other Fediverse servers such as Mastodon or GoToSocial and they show up on the page for the video. :-)

[–] sabret00the@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You know what, Peertube needs the equivalent of an acquisition and the perfect candidates would be, and I'm on record saying this before, DailyMotion and Vimeo. They've already got content and by implementing activitiypub integration, they can grow their audiences and compete with YouTube for once and for all.

But yeah, for me. I haven't even found a video to watch let alone comment. That said, my YouTube is generally me watching album reactions, music videos, Hot Ones, Adam Something and Beard Meats Food.

[–] ozoned@beehaw.org 14 points 1 year ago

Nothing stopping Vimeo from plumbing in ActivityPun amd joining the Fediverse. It's open and the only reason no one does is because the data is valuable and they don't want to share and play nice.

These walled gardens were not how the internet was imagined.

[–] crisisingot@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago

I've found several good videos/channels on urbanists.video which is kind of specific to urbanism but still there's some good stuff. The videos have a lot lower production quality than most YouTube channels, but I actually kind of like how casual it is.

They're just making videos because they have something interesting/funny/educational to share and they're not out there trying to make money.

[–] Egroeggnik@rammy.site 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I never understood this 'chicken and egg' analogy. Dinosaurs were laying eggs millions of years before they became chickens.

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[–] TooLikeTheNope@beehaw.org 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Fediverse is well differentiated into many sites offering similar capabilities to their more well established commercial counterpart, and as the time passes their quality is nearing practically production level, apart from Mastodon and Lemmy which are the most known by now it is worth mentioning also PeerTube (Youtube), PixelFed (instagram), Misskey, Calckey and Pleroma (a mix between twitter and tumblr), HubZilla (facebook), FunkWhale(Bandcamp) and OwnCast (twitch).

Here some handy links:

https://joinfediverse.wiki/Main_Page

https://www.fediverse.to/

https://fediverse.party/

[–] Uniquitous@lemmy.one 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Interesting to see that tumblr is adding support for ActivityPub. I wonder if any other legacy platforms will undertake to federate.

[–] Cube6392@beehaw.org 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Meta is working on an Instagram side project that will act like twitter and will use activitypub. I highly suspect though tumblr and meta taking an interest in the fediverse might ultimately add more people to interact with at the cost of being lousy neighbors

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[–] cityboundforest@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago

I do hope that Tumblr gets on ActivityPub soon because I do love the idea of interacting with Tumblr posts here on beehaw or on Mastodon, or whatever other thing uses the protocol.

[–] Mustafaalbazy@programming.dev 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just tried Calckey it looks more polished UI-wise than any other Fediverse platform I have seen so far. I think Calckey would make an excellent social platform for the public (non-tech) users.

Pixelfed is also an excellent Instagram alternative, it reminds me of how Instagram used to be before the Facebook acquisition. Their iOS beta app is in good shape as well.

[–] guildz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Pixelfed just implemented an instagram import feature as well!

[–] albert180@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And the word is banned on Instagram lol

[–] BobQuasit@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

Free speech and corporate ownership are completely incompatible.

[–] WisteriaCat@lemmy.fmhy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Another good alternative to GoodReads is StoryGraph. I prefer it over BookWyrm because it has a nicer user interface and it has an app. However, I don't believe it is apart of the Fediverse.

[–] BobQuasit@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

After so many experiences with having online platforms sold out from under me by venture capitalist scum, I'm not inclined to trust anything owned by a corporation or single person. I'm on storygraph, but I'm not going to put effort into it. I think BookWyrm has more of a future. Even if the current owner of StoryGraph has good intentions, you never know what could happen. It seems as if things always go bad.

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[–] shortwavesurfer@monero.town 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Try writefreely. Its a blogging thing that supports markdown and can look super nice

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[–] HalJor@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Is/will there be a movie/TV equivalent of BookWyrm, something to track and discuss what you've been watching? A quick search tells me it's been discussed and seems like something people want but it doesn't look like it's been done yet, at least not as a dedicated service. Is that right?

[–] BobQuasit@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That is absolutely brilliant. I would love something like that. Why doesn't it exist?

[–] Jdreben@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I’ve thought about and talked about this too! We need this!!! Letterboxd equivalent.

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[–] fox@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Never heard of BookWyrm. Excited to check it out! Thanks!

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[–] Elbullazul@lem.elbullazul.com 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm currently using calckey, works similar to mastodon but with a better UI and UX (IMO), although still in development

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[–] petrescatraian@libranet.de 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@BobQuasit I am on Friendica. It is a macroblogging platform, but more akin to Facebook in look and feel (it even somehow resembles the old Facebook, but server admins can add other themes to give it a different look). The feature set is very extensive, and it is way richer than Facebook, tho. You might find it a bit complicated at first. I would recommend anyone to watch this video series to learn more about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvOmvEpmgQI

After you learn all about it, you might find it your Fediverse home.

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