I just sent the final proofs of the #ActivityPub book to the editors at O'Reilly.
I'm done; with this part, at least.
I am not sure what I'm going to do with all that surplus time. I should probably start a huge new project!
I turned in my manuscript at the end of May; we've done 5 rounds of edits since then. Making books is hard!
You can still read the pre-release version on O'Reilly Learning Platform for free with a 10-day trial of the service. I don't know how much longer that deal is going to be around.
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/activitypub/9781098162733/
@evan congrats! Just a curiosity, is there a comparison with other protocols trying to create an interoperable web? I'm trying to understand why AT Protocol was created. I still need to read some references some people shared here.
@everton137 it was created because Jack Dorsey thought Twitter could spin out a business with a protocol as a product. They would connect big social networks, using the Twitter user and content base as an enticement. Those networks would pay BS to develop and maintain the pipes connecting servers.
@everton137 using an existing open standard wouldn't work for this business model, because those big social networks could connect without paying anything to BS. They needed to make a new, incompatible protocol that other businesses had to pay for.
@everton137 Twitter gave them $13M, and they raised another $8M. They've spent that money developing their proprietary protocol. I don't think it's a successful strategy. They are shooting the moon; hoping to be successful at all other developers' expense.
@everton137 my knowledge of this is firsthand. I talked with Parag, then CTO of Twitter, about it when BS first started. He laid out the entire business plan for me. I was part of the BS community that discussed different protocols to use.
@everton137 I don't agree that the primary motivations for starting BS were technical, in response to AP's failings. I don't think it's fair for BS people to position it that way.
@evan your points shared here deserve an article.
@everton137 I've already written about BlueSky and what a dangerous distraction it is.
@evan is it somewhere I could read and share?
@everton137 I've got a lot going on over the next few weeks, but I'm going to try to find time to write an explainer about BlueSky. I agree, we probably need some better guidance out there. I don't really want to give them any oxygen or attention, but I'd rather have this stuff clear.
@evan I'm quite disappointed to see so many Brazilians migrating to Bluesky. But I don't blame them. I see the logic to be where the crowd is if you don't know the importance of points you raised.
Unfortunately it appears only a few people, as compared to the big tech social media, are aware of it.
It was more disappointing to see people continuing to use x tho.
@everton137 Absolutely. You saw that we have had 2M new users since August on the Fediverse, right?
We're seeing a lot of growth here.
@evan I've seen some other numbers that indicated more Brazilians coming here. But the bubble I used to interact in Brazil when I lived there, some (data) journalists, access to information and even some open source and data privacy folks, appears to be pretty active on Bluesky. That's the main reason of my disappointment.
I am glad the new director of the organization I founded 11 years ago, @okbr, has decided also to create a profile in the fediverse. I hope they will be active and not only replicate content.
I don't live in Brazil for more than 8 years, so I am afraid to have strong opinions, and I am now just a foreigner (still an immigrant latino) living in the comfort of Europe. @josemurilo might have a better understanding of the reasons behind why most people in Brazil have migrated from x to Bluesky.
@everton137 Did someone in Brazilian media recommend BlueSky as an alternative or simply made an account there and said "Come to bluesky guys!" and that did it?
@starrwulfe yes. I posted your this in Portuguese
https://social.vivaldi.net/@everton137/113083781095859514
Furthermore, the Brazilian president simply created profiles on Bluesky and Threads, the latter still not open to the fediverse.
I made some posts about this recently as well. It appears some Brazilians active here will have a conversation with the communication team of the president. Let's see.
@starrwulfe Jornal Nacional from the previously linked post is just the most watched TV news in the country.
But I think they created the profile on Bluesky because most Brazilians were already there.
@everton137 @evan
From what I see here in Brazil, over the past decade, the web/digital media industry has seen significant growth of #influenceragencies, which are entirely driven by #SEO strategies.
These agencies now wield significant influence over digital media specialists and advisors, and also over the news about the Internet. In my opinion, they are responsible for the active neglect of the Fediverse as a monetizable social media alternative. I see it as a case of #adtech addiction.
@evan @everton137 our active users are going down however.
@jerome @evan @everton137 Yeah, those Fedidb numbers are difficult to reconcile... it shows 1.5MM new users are since July, but only 100K increase in MAU? You'd expect at least the newly joined users to be included in MAU.
@steve@social.technoetic.com not necessarily... setting aside the fact that the numbers themselves might not be right (because numbers are hard, people!!), new user counts without a corresponding MAU increase can be explained by large new instances joining the fediverse.
e.g. when Flipboard opened up their entire network to the fediverse, that would show up as a huge number of newly added users, but a great majority of them wouldn't be active due to churn.
@julian Given the "monthly" granularity, I'd *expect* that a user joining would count as activity in that month period even if there's churn in the next month. The August data is showing about 400K new users and about 40K active users (90% of new users are not considered active in the month they join?). Seems strange to me, but I agree nobody knows if these numbers are accurate or meaningful. I see reason for skepticism.
@steve@social.technoetic.com of course! That's perfectly reasonable.
If FediDB captured my forum's nodeinfo for the first time, they'd see this:
usage:
users:
total: 25698
activeMonth: 197
activeHalfyear: 952
Depending on how you consider the "joined" action to be counted, FediDB could consider this as 25.6k joined users, but only an MAU increase of ~200.
@everton137 I recommend doing your own research. Some of the points being made about BSky don't appear accurate to me. I see a lot of community involvement in developing alternative UIs and other components of the stack (like tagging). There has been talk about having parts of ATProto standardized at the IETF, but they're waiting until the architecture is mature and proven (unlike AP). As a "losing" protocol, they gained 4MM new users just in the last month. 2x the MAU of the Fediverse.
@steve I believe that's what I'm doing. I'm discussing with people with several views on the topic before having my own opinion. Just check my last shared posts.
@evan @everton137 Thanks for this exchange, it was very informative!
@evan @everton137 bummed that you have such a negative public take on atproto and Bluesky and see it as antagonistic and "dangerous".
I have a huge respect for ActivityPub and the folks involved, including you. I think we are all working towards the same goals, there is no final word on protocols/architecture/governance/regulation in this space, and that there is a lot of room for collaboration.
@evan @everton137 even if folks don't trust Jay and the Bluesky board (who are the relevant individuals and stakeholders-holders for the future of the org), we are working in the open and everybody can read and learn from our experiments, successes, and failures. We totally endorse inter-operation efforts like bridgy fed, and collaboration on overlapping needs like identity systems, OAuth, and E2EE.
@bnewbold @evan @everton137 rather than endorse @bsky.brid.gy how about first class support for bi directional bridging?
Edit: I should probably say "in addition to" not "rather than"
Hey, Bryan. I like that BlueSky, the social network, is an active part of the Fediverse through BridgyFed.
@evan @bnewbold @everton137 Btw, remember how you wrote on Threads in mid February that you think there's maybe 30% chance that the Bluesky network won't die before they allow bridges like this to connect to the Fediverse?
@bnewbold @everton137 I moderated some of the language in this thread.
Yeah really. AT's got a different target than ActivityPub, so has made different tradeoffs. As a result, there are lots of potential synergies between AT's "big world" focus and AP's scoped visibility and increasing corporate adoption. It's great for the Fediverse that Bluesky provides a good big-world Twitter alternative. At the same time, though, there's a lot more to social networking than big-world Twitter alternatives, and that's where today's Fediverse really shines.