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Very cool but too nerdy. Visiting that site requires clicking "Get Started" which then directs you to a list of instances, from which you choose a server and s

Very cool but too nerdy. Visiting that site requires clicking "Get Started" which then directs you to a list of instances, from which you choose a server and sign up (not sure because in the age of 140 chars don't have the attention span to follow through). Without doing that there's no content short of a bunch of reasons why Mastodon is open and free, but the average user doesn't care about that. It's kind of preaching to the choir which means that the choir is gonna dominate it. Maybe the goal isn't mass adoption, or maybe adoption would be a long term result of smaller communities getting popular, but wish it'd just get to the product a lot quicker than it does.

mintplant 9y ago
You could point people to https://mastodon.social https://mastodon.social, the "flagship" instance, or directly to any other instance's homepage. There's something of a word-of-mouth aspect here, in that instances targeted toward particular communities can be more attractive to people within those communities than general-purpose social networks. There's an instance chooser wizard at https://instances.social/ https://instances.social/, but I can see someone looking at that and calling it too complicated as well.
- madeofpalk 9y ago
  > Mastodon > Mastodon hosted on mastodon.social Umm what? > What is mastodon.social? > mastodon.social is the "flagship" instance, belonging to the Mastodon project. ...sure.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    > Twitter > Twitter is hosted on twitter.com Seems to make sense. > What is twitter.com > twitter.com is the "public" instance of the Twitter service. You were one layer away from the answer. What is the Mastodon Project? > The world’s largest free, open-source, decentralized microblogging network.
  - UberActivist 9y ago
    I poked the owner and he updated mastodon.social to say this and be more clear... > What is mastodon.social? > This page describes the mastodon.social instance - wondering what Mastodon is? Check out joinmastodon.org instead! In essence, Mastodon is a decentralized, open source social network. This is just one part of the network, run by the main developers of the project It is not focused on any particular niche interest - everyone is welcome as long as you follow our code of conduct!

mintplant 9y ago

You could point people to https://mastodon.social https://mastodon.social, the "flagship" instance, or directly to any other instance's homepage. There's something of a word-of-mouth aspect here, in that instances targeted toward particular communities can be more attractive to people within those communities than general-purpose social networks. There's an instance chooser wizard at https://instances.social/ https://instances.social/, but I can see someone looking at that and calling it too complicated as well.

madeofpalk 9y ago
> Mastodon > Mastodon hosted on mastodon.social Umm what? > What is mastodon.social? > mastodon.social is the "flagship" instance, belonging to the Mastodon project. ...sure.
- Spivak 9y ago
  > Twitter > Twitter is hosted on twitter.com Seems to make sense. > What is twitter.com > twitter.com is the "public" instance of the Twitter service. You were one layer away from the answer. What is the Mastodon Project? > The world’s largest free, open-source, decentralized microblogging network.
- UberActivist 9y ago
  I poked the owner and he updated mastodon.social to say this and be more clear... > What is mastodon.social? > This page describes the mastodon.social instance - wondering what Mastodon is? Check out joinmastodon.org instead! In essence, Mastodon is a decentralized, open source social network. This is just one part of the network, run by the main developers of the project It is not focused on any particular niche interest - everyone is welcome as long as you follow our code of conduct!