5 ms·

You want the right people such as experts and industry leaders. Those are on Twitter. If you want to hang with average Joes then you have a random Discord servi

You want the right people such as experts and industry leaders. Those are on Twitter. If you want to hang with average Joes then you have a random Discord service, forums or anonymous people on Reddit. It's not the features that makes microblogs great.

rapnie 4y ago
> It's not the features that makes microblogs great. Agreed. It is organic interaction, which you get at the Fediverse. Much more so than on Twitter is my anecdotal observation. On Twitter you have to hone your messages in hope the algorithms make you 'go viral'. There are quite a few experts, academics, scientists and journalists migrating to the Fediverse. Increasingly some of the industry leaders too. I do not know if that is good for the dynamics. It is quite refreshing to have a social network where people don't try to become influencers.
- illiarian 4y ago
  > It is organic interaction, which you get at the Fediverse. Much more so than on Twitter Do you though? If you're unlucky with your instance of choice, there will be as much "organic interaction" as in an abandoned mining town. Coupled with aversion to search this makes Mastodon "organic" only on large instances and/or only if you specifically know which people on which instances to follow.
  - rapnie 4y ago
    No, you have to build your own network first. That's the main difference to Twitter, where the algorithm throws people at you (including the toxic ones to maximize engagement). It is more representative to real life that way. If you move to a new city you will have to give some effort to build a relationship network. By doing so it is likely also to be a more intimate and qualitative one, providing more value from the time you spend there.
    - illiarian 4y ago
      You need to build your network on Twitter, too. And it's much easier because you can more easily search for topics and people. I have no idea what algorithm throws at me because I only use "for you"
  - gcthomas 4y ago
    It's trivially easy to move your profile and followers list to another instance, if you want to. But you aren't restricted to following users from your instance anyway. Follow one person you see boosted into your feed, look at who they follow and follow them. Rince and repeat.
- suddenclarity 4y ago
  > On Twitter you have to hone your messages in hope the algorithms make you 'go viral'. On the contrary, algorithms are to a large extent irrelevant. You see what the people you follow tweet and retweet. No algorithms involved. What made Twitter special is rather that you can interact with anyone. You can live in the middle of nowhere and still share knowledge and network with the best in your field. Making a copy of the platform but removing the people, also removes the whole point of Twitter.
eqvinox 4y ago
> You want the right people such as experts and industry leaders. Those are on Twitter. Really depends on the industry you're talking about. Some have never been on Twitter to begin with. (e.g. the network engineers bubble: the gray beards are on IRC and the youngsters are on TikTok.)
viraptor 4y ago
It depends on the industry. The ones I'm following mainly are: infosec - almost every single follow I had is on mastodon, and gamedev - different people but there's still a big crowd. Then there's "weird tech", which was already on mastodon. (Tube time, foone, etc.)
dasil003 4y ago
I disagree that "the right people" are on Twitter. I will grant that Twitter has historically been the high water mark for having the largest number of those people in one place, and also that a disproportionate number of people who need broad public reach as an intrinsic part of their career will also be their (eg. celebrities and journalists). But at the same time, being an expert, leader and overall interesting person is not synonymous with public reach, and there is a huge subset of interesting people that have never touched Twitter. There's also been a slow and steady descent in the level of discourse on Twitter to the point that it's widely regarded as a cesspool now, with many formerly active interesting people having abandoned it, and many others holding their nose to drop their broadcasts but not engaging in any discourse due to the amount of polarization and armies of angry partisan nobodies ready to dogpile on the slightest misplaced word. Ultimately, the most interesting parts of Twitter as being a marketplace for ideas, public square, and open platform with diverse use cases that everyone was so excited about in 2008-2012 was eventually subverted by the financial incentives that VC investment demands. The result is a significant divergence between what constitutes an interesting idea and what will make you successful on Twitter. Therefore I thoroughly reject the idea of treating Twitter as any kind of baseline bar for contemporary human notability. I'd rank a large scale following there somewhere above reality TV star, and somewhere below traditionally published author.
- rektide 4y ago
  You can either go hunt down very specific narrow spaces where perhaps some special people have gathered. Or you can go to the site where everyone who wants to be in public having interesting engaging discussions with smart people already are. There's no comparison. This isn't about audiences nor number of users. It's about the ability for people to form connections. Twitter has been way better of a place to do that, to find & discover new connections to make, in a place everyone sharp already was at.
  - dasil003 4y ago
    Everyone sharp was not on Twitter, there was always a majority that were not. Like I said, in terms of a single platform it was a high water mark, but it is incredible confirmation bias to claim that everyone sharp went to Twitter.
throwaway290 4y ago
You don't have good conversations with those people on Twitter though. 99% tweets directed by unpopular account to popular are going into a black hole. It's not a "good conversation" where you write something with 1% chance of getting something back. If I am interested to know what experts and industry leaders think, I can monitor their media (where by the way HN is wayyy better than Twitter, and I'm sure there is a better community for every industry), but for good conversations I'd probably head to a smaller group which can exist anywhere, Matrix, Discord, FB group, Whatsapp communities, Discourse, etc. If I have an industry leader who is also a friend, those places is probably where they are having the good conversations.

rapnie 4y ago

> It's not the features that makes microblogs great. Agreed. It is organic interaction, which you get at the Fediverse. Much more so than on Twitter is my anecdotal observation. On Twitter you have to hone your messages in hope the algorithms make you 'go viral'. There are quite a few experts, academics, scientists and journalists migrating to the Fediverse. Increasingly some of the industry leaders too. I do not know if that is good for the dynamics. It is quite refreshing to have a social network where people don't try to become influencers.

illiarian 4y ago
> It is organic interaction, which you get at the Fediverse. Much more so than on Twitter Do you though? If you're unlucky with your instance of choice, there will be as much "organic interaction" as in an abandoned mining town. Coupled with aversion to search this makes Mastodon "organic" only on large instances and/or only if you specifically know which people on which instances to follow.
- rapnie 4y ago
  No, you have to build your own network first. That's the main difference to Twitter, where the algorithm throws people at you (including the toxic ones to maximize engagement). It is more representative to real life that way. If you move to a new city you will have to give some effort to build a relationship network. By doing so it is likely also to be a more intimate and qualitative one, providing more value from the time you spend there.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    You need to build your network on Twitter, too. And it's much easier because you can more easily search for topics and people. I have no idea what algorithm throws at me because I only use "for you"
- gcthomas 4y ago
  It's trivially easy to move your profile and followers list to another instance, if you want to. But you aren't restricted to following users from your instance anyway. Follow one person you see boosted into your feed, look at who they follow and follow them. Rince and repeat.
suddenclarity 4y ago
> On Twitter you have to hone your messages in hope the algorithms make you 'go viral'. On the contrary, algorithms are to a large extent irrelevant. You see what the people you follow tweet and retweet. No algorithms involved. What made Twitter special is rather that you can interact with anyone. You can live in the middle of nowhere and still share knowledge and network with the best in your field. Making a copy of the platform but removing the people, also removes the whole point of Twitter.

eqvinox 4y ago

> You want the right people such as experts and industry leaders. Those are on Twitter. Really depends on the industry you're talking about. Some have never been on Twitter to begin with. (e.g. the network engineers bubble: the gray beards are on IRC and the youngsters are on TikTok.)

viraptor 4y ago

It depends on the industry. The ones I'm following mainly are: infosec - almost every single follow I had is on mastodon, and gamedev - different people but there's still a big crowd. Then there's "weird tech", which was already on mastodon. (Tube time, foone, etc.)

dasil003 4y ago

I disagree that "the right people" are on Twitter. I will grant that Twitter has historically been the high water mark for having the largest number of those people in one place, and also that a disproportionate number of people who need broad public reach as an intrinsic part of their career will also be their (eg. celebrities and journalists). But at the same time, being an expert, leader and overall interesting person is not synonymous with public reach, and there is a huge subset of interesting people that have never touched Twitter. There's also been a slow and steady descent in the level of discourse on Twitter to the point that it's widely regarded as a cesspool now, with many formerly active interesting people having abandoned it, and many others holding their nose to drop their broadcasts but not engaging in any discourse due to the amount of polarization and armies of angry partisan nobodies ready to dogpile on the slightest misplaced word. Ultimately, the most interesting parts of Twitter as being a marketplace for ideas, public square, and open platform with diverse use cases that everyone was so excited about in 2008-2012 was eventually subverted by the financial incentives that VC investment demands. The result is a significant divergence between what constitutes an interesting idea and what will make you successful on Twitter. Therefore I thoroughly reject the idea of treating Twitter as any kind of baseline bar for contemporary human notability. I'd rank a large scale following there somewhere above reality TV star, and somewhere below traditionally published author.

rektide 4y ago
You can either go hunt down very specific narrow spaces where perhaps some special people have gathered. Or you can go to the site where everyone who wants to be in public having interesting engaging discussions with smart people already are. There's no comparison. This isn't about audiences nor number of users. It's about the ability for people to form connections. Twitter has been way better of a place to do that, to find & discover new connections to make, in a place everyone sharp already was at.
- dasil003 4y ago
  Everyone sharp was not on Twitter, there was always a majority that were not. Like I said, in terms of a single platform it was a high water mark, but it is incredible confirmation bias to claim that everyone sharp went to Twitter.

throwaway290 4y ago

You don't have good conversations with those people on Twitter though. 99% tweets directed by unpopular account to popular are going into a black hole. It's not a "good conversation" where you write something with 1% chance of getting something back. If I am interested to know what experts and industry leaders think, I can monitor their media (where by the way HN is wayyy better than Twitter, and I'm sure there is a better community for every industry), but for good conversations I'd probably head to a smaller group which can exist anywhere, Matrix, Discord, FB group, Whatsapp communities, Discourse, etc. If I have an industry leader who is also a friend, those places is probably where they are having the good conversations.