3 ms·

Some Thoughts on Mastodon

9 points by gz5 4y ago

gz5 4y ago
>It’s inconvenient. You can’t get started in ten seconds. This leads to less initial stickiness. It means that the people who get through the learning curve are more likely to be committed and perhaps generous. It is an interesting point. Also ratios of individual Mastodons to federated ones will be instructive. I haven't used it yet - more of a subreddit type experience than a Twitter type experience?
- detaro 4y ago
  > more of a subreddit type experience than a Twitter type experience? IMHO no. Very much like Twitter, only with the discovery features nudged towards the "local community and its reach" (and thus very different between a 20 people instance and a 20k people instance)
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    Very much like Twitter, without the algo - if you dont follow people, you dont really see much. Its a reminder why hashtags were a thing
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  > I haven't used it yet - more of a subreddit type experience than a Twitter type experience? It's kind of a mix, but I'd call it more Twitter. When you're not logged in, and you browse a specific instance, there are two feeds, the "Local" feed which shows just posts to that instance made from any account on that instance (akin to the "subreddit" experience), the "Federated" feed which also shows posts from accounts on other instances that the instance you're browsing on knows about, and an "Explore" feed which shows popular posts from the entire federated network. If you've created an account and followed people from multiple instances, you also get a "Home" feed which just shows accounts that you're following, regardless of what instance they're on. In that way, you can decide if you want to have a more "subreddit" experience by only browsing the Local feed, or the more "Twitter" experience by browsing either the Explore, Federated, or Home feeds. Of course, most people will only have an account on one instance, but people can follow you no matter what instance they use. If you use, for example, "hackernews.social", you can interact with posts from any other instance, but your username will show up as "@username@hackernews.social".

9 points by gz5 4y ago

gz5 4y ago

>It’s inconvenient. You can’t get started in ten seconds. This leads to less initial stickiness. It means that the people who get through the learning curve are more likely to be committed and perhaps generous. It is an interesting point. Also ratios of individual Mastodons to federated ones will be instructive. I haven't used it yet - more of a subreddit type experience than a Twitter type experience?

detaro 4y ago
> more of a subreddit type experience than a Twitter type experience? IMHO no. Very much like Twitter, only with the discovery features nudged towards the "local community and its reach" (and thus very different between a 20 people instance and a 20k people instance)
- shapefrog 4y ago
  Very much like Twitter, without the algo - if you dont follow people, you dont really see much. Its a reminder why hashtags were a thing
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
> I haven't used it yet - more of a subreddit type experience than a Twitter type experience? It's kind of a mix, but I'd call it more Twitter. When you're not logged in, and you browse a specific instance, there are two feeds, the "Local" feed which shows just posts to that instance made from any account on that instance (akin to the "subreddit" experience), the "Federated" feed which also shows posts from accounts on other instances that the instance you're browsing on knows about, and an "Explore" feed which shows popular posts from the entire federated network. If you've created an account and followed people from multiple instances, you also get a "Home" feed which just shows accounts that you're following, regardless of what instance they're on. In that way, you can decide if you want to have a more "subreddit" experience by only browsing the Local feed, or the more "Twitter" experience by browsing either the Explore, Federated, or Home feeds. Of course, most people will only have an account on one instance, but people can follow you no matter what instance they use. If you use, for example, "hackernews.social", you can interact with posts from any other instance, but your username will show up as "@username@hackernews.social".