Music: Calvin Harris - Sweet Nothing ft. Florence Welch (2012)

Happy New Year! I am not one for resolutions, but I’m inspired ¹ to keep Fudge Sunday issues to just under 500 words this year.

Getting Informed

This week we take a look at IndieWeb origins and ActivityPub within the fediverse, and other options outside of the Tweet place. As the fediverse will turn fifteen (15!) years old soon, it is a good time to look back and look ahead.

Emptied out by a single word 🎶

Back in 2009, I considered ² the implications of how companies like Facebook were handling use generated content as a social media company. Meanwhile, others were seeing destructive patterns in social media companies.

Arguably, it was a series of site-deaths that raised concerns that led to action and organization. Nearly a decade ago, talks were given around the time of inception of IndieWeb concepts being put forward.

Later this month, ActivityPub will turn five (5!) years old.³

Today, if you visit IndieWeb.org – it still very much exists. Indeed, there is every indication in the past few years that site-deaths will change the perceptions of growing numbers of the online community that seek decentralized alternatives.

It isn’t easy for me to let it go 🎶

Recently, you’re probably hearing more about online services that are embracing ActivityPub. But there is more than only Mastodon.

For example last year, Akkoma came to represent an interesting fork in prior fediverse projects.

As another example of what’s old becoming what’s new, I liked Google+ and the notion of their circles until Google shut it down a few years later. Luckily, the folks behind Bonfire are, perhaps, getting the band back together.

Also, the long lived diaspora recently celebrated just over ten (10!) years of community contributions and has reached v0.7.18.1. Perhaps it too will embrace ActivityPub one day within the larger Fediverse Party.

If you have been online for longer than a few years you are more likely to have seen consolidations, mergers, acquisitions, bankruptcies, etc. for a particular online service you might have used or even enjoyed using — and now you miss it to some degree. Indeed, the longer the participate in any endeavor, market, or game the higher the probability for different outcomes you might witness.

So, what will be the next major social media company or beloved online service to append to the growing list of site-deaths?

Until then… Place your bets!

Work Plug

As a reminder, I work at Taos, an IBM Company. If you’d like to learn more about Taos and how we help companies optimize their cloud investments, check out this educational video.

Disclosure

I am linking to my disclosure.