11 ms·

Wordpress.com Now Supports ActivityPub

275 points by zoul 3y ago

zoul 3y ago
Replies appear to work, too: “In addition, replies to your posts from these platforms are automatically turned into comments on your WordPress blog, creating a more interactive and dynamic conversation around your content. Synchronicity for the win!”
- is_true 3y ago
  That would be great for news sites which have the problem that most of the conversation around articles happens on social networks.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    News sites don't want conversation and comments on their articles. They want it to be a one way conversation.
- 1over137 3y ago
  This sounds great! Until spammers and grifters discover it. Is there a plan for them?
  - freeone3000 3y ago
    Don’t follow the spammers and grifters, I guess. Replies that you make are posted to your feed.
  - edent 3y ago
    Replies from the Fediverse are moderated in the same way as normal comments. So if a spammer on Mastodon replies to your post, it will be caught by Akismet (or whatever spam filter you're running).
xnx 3y ago
I'd place more money on Wordpress being the future of Twitter than I would Bluesky, Threads, or Mastodon.
- hannes0 3y ago
  can you elaborate? Wordpress or (personal) blogs in general?
  - teleforce 3y ago
    Not OP but I think this mainly due to the newly supported cross platform fediverse profile capability. From the article: "Your WordPress blog can now become a profile for the fediverse. This means your readers can follow you and receive all the latest posts from your blog directly on their preferred platform. More so, they can engage in enriching conversations by replying to your posts, with their replies reflecting as comments on your blog post, creating a synchronized and interactive experience."
- josefresco 3y ago
  While I wish this were true... considering how long it took to get Gutenberg, I wouldn't hold your breath.
  - chiefalchemist 3y ago
    And GB was rushed out the door, not even half-baked. Too often tt's a beta product pretending to be production worthy.
- lukewrites 3y ago
  I agree. Wordpress powers something like 40% of all websites. 40% of the web having a low friction way of publishing to the fediverse is a big deal. Sure, this doesn't mean that almost half the web is suddenly "on the fediverse"; the more ad-dependent a site is, the less likely it seems that they'll enable this unless they can do so in a way that brings users to them. I want to be able to have a fediverse feed that's as much RSS feed as news feed, but that's my preference. I'm really glad WP is making it easy for folks to use ActivityPub.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
Definitely interesting development. How does it work tho? It's just like the 'old' RSS->tweets kind of thing? or does the whole blog post get sent into the fediverse as a post? Making it kind of unwieldly? Microblogging is dead? Long live microblogging.
- Kye 3y ago
  The blog appears as a profile in whatever way your ActivityPub instance displays profiles. Posts appear however your instance displays posts.
- edent 3y ago
  The full post is sent to the Fediverse. For example, if you follow @blog@shkspr.mobi you'll see my blog's posts in your social feed. They appear just like any other message. I've written a bit about it at https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/09/this-blog-is-now-on-the-fediverse/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/09/this-blog-is-now-on-the-fed...
ruined 3y ago
this post doesn't seem to be published via activitypub, which seems like a missed opportunity
mikece 3y ago
It is more accurate to say that the ActivityPub plugin[1] which was acquired by Automattic has hit 1.0 and is available to be used on WordPress.com. Yes, Mastodon implements (most of) ActivityPub but it's hardly the only platform on the web that does. [1] https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/advanced/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/advanced/
- Kye 3y ago
  >> "It is more accurate to say that the ActivityPub plugin[1] which was acquired by Automattic has hit 1.0 and is available to be used on WordPress.com." Welcome to one of those rare times when you need to read the article. This is announcing built-in support that doesn't need the plugin. You can still optionally install the plugin if you have the more expensive plans. The plugin was already usable on WordPress.com and has been for months: https://wordpress.com/blog/2023/03/17/making-the-social-web-a-better-place-activitypub-for-wordpress-joins-the-automattic-family/ https://wordpress.com/blog/2023/03/17/making-the-social-web-...
abdullahkhalids 3y ago
I have my own statically generated website/blog. I won't switch to Wordpress. How can I integrate ActivityPup into my blog in the same way? Edit: I am fine with adding dynamic features to the site. I see there are implementations [1], which kind of are in the ballpark. [1] https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec https://github.com/davecheney/pub https://github.com/davecheney/pub
- CitrusFruits 3y ago
  You probably can't easily integrate "in the same way"; I suspect this was a large engineering effort. However, you could do a barebones cross-post to Mastadon using something like IFTT: https://ifttt.com/explore/how-to-crosspost-mastodon-twitter https://ifttt.com/explore/how-to-crosspost-mastodon-twitter.
- AndrewStephens 3y ago
  When I looked into do exactly this a while ago I quickly realized that it would be a lot of work to do properly. There is no such thing as a static ActivityPub service by design. However, there are premade services that will take an RSS feed and do all the work to allow subscriptions, etc.
- xd1936 3y ago
  Here's a novel solution to use Mastodon/Fediverse replies as a comment section on a statically-generated blog. https://cassidyjames.com/blog/fediverse-blog-comments-mastodon/ https://cassidyjames.com/blog/fediverse-blog-comments-mastod...
- tuukkah 3y ago
  There is a bridge from any blog to Fediverse called Bridgy Fed that you can use: https://fed.brid.gy/web-site https://fed.brid.gy/web-site
- grishka 3y ago
  You would need a server application of some kind for two things: sending your new posts out as activities to your followers, and accepting activities (at least Follow) from the outside world. That application would also need somewhere to store the list of followers and their inboxes (endpoints where you send activities). That's basically it. The actor object itself can be a static file, just don't change its URL. I encourage you to try building your own minimal ActivityPub server — here's a tutorial to get you started: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/06/how-to-implement-a-basic-activitypub-server/ https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/06/how-to-implement-a-bas... The sending and receiving parts aren't required to run on the same machine. You can send activities from your laptop, but the receiving side needs to be on a server with a public IP, a domain, HTTPS and all that.
nologic01 3y ago
This might become bigger than mastodon itself. Wordpress is much easier / cheaper to self-host. Along the same lines there is talk about discourse and nextcloud extensions which also have large installed bases and amenable to single-click type installs. In a sense any self-hosted server that publishes stuff is a candidate to get integrated into the fediborg. What would be really sweet is to pre-emptively embed activitypub federation into generic platforms like django, phoenix, laravel etc. Right now various teams work in uncoordinated projects all implementing similar functionality.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  WordPress is much easier to self host but much worse if you try to use it as social media. Most people who use Mastodon will want some Twitter-like experience. I don't think WordPress articles are going to replace toots any time soon. On the other hand, Tumblr is supposedly working on ActivityPub integration, and that could become a major Fediverse player with the ability to replace Mastodon.
  - nologic01 3y ago
    What complicates matters (in a nice way as it opens up more possibilities) is the increasing role of client apps. You maybe are thinking of the current Wordpress and Mastodon web UI's but a dedicated client (as those that already exist for mobile) can create any timeline illusion. But it is true that all these different type of servers have different specializations as to what type of content is easy to produce and distribute on them. A further intriguing aspect is to federate with video, image or audio sharing servers (peertube, pixelfed, funkwhale).
    - jeroenhd 3y ago
      I mostly use Mastodon through an app, same with Lemmy and a bunch of other apps that have perfectly fine web UIs. On phones, apps just work better in most cases (though that strongly depends on what kind of company is behind those apps). From what I can tell by the comments on this article, WordPress has implemented ActivityPub for publishing posts, but you can't actually follow other people. Maybe the next update will fix all that, but no client app will ever be able to compensate for unimplemented APIs like that. Comments do federate, but it's not as "social" as most of the Fediverse.
danijelb 3y ago
It's great they are adopting the standard but those aliases are ugly. Instead of openprotocolfanblog.wordpress.com@openprotocolfanblog.wordpress.com it should be openprotocolfanblog@wordpress.com
- BHSPitMonkey 3y ago
  I assume that would create confusing overlaps with @wordpress.com email addresses which may or may not exist? Maybe just "blog@NAME.wordpress.com" would suffice.
  - pfefferle 3y ago
    we also thought about using something generic like `blog@NAME.wordpress.com` or `feed@NAME.wordpress.com` but this would have made autocomplete useless. Mastodon users would see a list of thousands of `blog` or `feed` users when searching for a WordPress.com user.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- pfefferle 3y ago
  We have decided to do it like that, because it is an easy and nice way to have a unique ID that works with or without a custom domain. For example: `openprotocolfanblog@wordpress.com` makes only sense if you use the wordpress.com subdomain. If you have your own domain, you want to have something like `username@domain` not `username@wordpress.com`. Besides of that, you will be able to activate user-accounts (next to the blog-account) on higher plans. That means we had to choose something that is consistent but causes no collisions with usernames. And finally Mastodon and others only show the part before the @, that makes the ID very similar to what Bluesky is doing. https://mastodon.social/@pfefferle/111220452911718192 https://mastodon.social/@pfefferle/111220452911718192
  - lucasgonze 3y ago
    I respect you and Automattic being transparent about your thinking here on HN.
alberth 3y ago
Just remember … WordPress.com != open source WordPress
- danyork 3y ago
  Correct, but the ActivityPub plugin has been available for a long time for open source WordPress. This news today now makes it available to the millions of people who host their sites on WordPress.com - and without them having to install a plugin or anything else. It's just now part of the WP.com hosted platform. And that's rather awesome!
rsynnott 3y ago
I haven't been keeping up with Wordpress, but do they still support pingbacks as a first-class construct? Those could be interesting in an ActivityPub context; they're arguably the progenitor of things like quote tweets.

275 points by zoul 3y ago

zoul 3y ago

Replies appear to work, too: “In addition, replies to your posts from these platforms are automatically turned into comments on your WordPress blog, creating a more interactive and dynamic conversation around your content. Synchronicity for the win!”

is_true 3y ago
That would be great for news sites which have the problem that most of the conversation around articles happens on social networks.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  News sites don't want conversation and comments on their articles. They want it to be a one way conversation.
1over137 3y ago
This sounds great! Until spammers and grifters discover it. Is there a plan for them?
- freeone3000 3y ago
  Don’t follow the spammers and grifters, I guess. Replies that you make are posted to your feed.
- edent 3y ago
  Replies from the Fediverse are moderated in the same way as normal comments. So if a spammer on Mastodon replies to your post, it will be caught by Akismet (or whatever spam filter you're running).

xnx 3y ago

I'd place more money on Wordpress being the future of Twitter than I would Bluesky, Threads, or Mastodon.

hannes0 3y ago
can you elaborate? Wordpress or (personal) blogs in general?
- teleforce 3y ago
  Not OP but I think this mainly due to the newly supported cross platform fediverse profile capability. From the article: "Your WordPress blog can now become a profile for the fediverse. This means your readers can follow you and receive all the latest posts from your blog directly on their preferred platform. More so, they can engage in enriching conversations by replying to your posts, with their replies reflecting as comments on your blog post, creating a synchronized and interactive experience."
josefresco 3y ago
While I wish this were true... considering how long it took to get Gutenberg, I wouldn't hold your breath.
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  And GB was rushed out the door, not even half-baked. Too often tt's a beta product pretending to be production worthy.
lukewrites 3y ago
I agree. Wordpress powers something like 40% of all websites. 40% of the web having a low friction way of publishing to the fediverse is a big deal. Sure, this doesn't mean that almost half the web is suddenly "on the fediverse"; the more ad-dependent a site is, the less likely it seems that they'll enable this unless they can do so in a way that brings users to them. I want to be able to have a fediverse feed that's as much RSS feed as news feed, but that's my preference. I'm really glad WP is making it easy for folks to use ActivityPub.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

Definitely interesting development. How does it work tho? It's just like the 'old' RSS->tweets kind of thing? or does the whole blog post get sent into the fediverse as a post? Making it kind of unwieldly? Microblogging is dead? Long live microblogging.

Kye 3y ago
The blog appears as a profile in whatever way your ActivityPub instance displays profiles. Posts appear however your instance displays posts.
edent 3y ago
The full post is sent to the Fediverse. For example, if you follow @blog@shkspr.mobi you'll see my blog's posts in your social feed. They appear just like any other message. I've written a bit about it at https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/09/this-blog-is-now-on-the-fediverse/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/09/this-blog-is-now-on-the-fed...

ruined 3y ago

this post doesn't seem to be published via activitypub, which seems like a missed opportunity

mikece 3y ago

It is more accurate to say that the ActivityPub plugin[1] which was acquired by Automattic has hit 1.0 and is available to be used on WordPress.com. Yes, Mastodon implements (most of) ActivityPub but it's hardly the only platform on the web that does. [1] https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/advanced/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/advanced/

Kye 3y ago
>> "It is more accurate to say that the ActivityPub plugin[1] which was acquired by Automattic has hit 1.0 and is available to be used on WordPress.com." Welcome to one of those rare times when you need to read the article. This is announcing built-in support that doesn't need the plugin. You can still optionally install the plugin if you have the more expensive plans. The plugin was already usable on WordPress.com and has been for months: https://wordpress.com/blog/2023/03/17/making-the-social-web-a-better-place-activitypub-for-wordpress-joins-the-automattic-family/ https://wordpress.com/blog/2023/03/17/making-the-social-web-...

abdullahkhalids 3y ago

I have my own statically generated website/blog. I won't switch to Wordpress. How can I integrate ActivityPup into my blog in the same way? Edit: I am fine with adding dynamic features to the site. I see there are implementations [1], which kind of are in the ballpark. [1] https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec https://github.com/davecheney/pub https://github.com/davecheney/pub

CitrusFruits 3y ago
You probably can't easily integrate "in the same way"; I suspect this was a large engineering effort. However, you could do a barebones cross-post to Mastadon using something like IFTT: https://ifttt.com/explore/how-to-crosspost-mastodon-twitter https://ifttt.com/explore/how-to-crosspost-mastodon-twitter.
AndrewStephens 3y ago
When I looked into do exactly this a while ago I quickly realized that it would be a lot of work to do properly. There is no such thing as a static ActivityPub service by design. However, there are premade services that will take an RSS feed and do all the work to allow subscriptions, etc.
xd1936 3y ago
Here's a novel solution to use Mastodon/Fediverse replies as a comment section on a statically-generated blog. https://cassidyjames.com/blog/fediverse-blog-comments-mastodon/ https://cassidyjames.com/blog/fediverse-blog-comments-mastod...
tuukkah 3y ago
There is a bridge from any blog to Fediverse called Bridgy Fed that you can use: https://fed.brid.gy/web-site https://fed.brid.gy/web-site
grishka 3y ago
You would need a server application of some kind for two things: sending your new posts out as activities to your followers, and accepting activities (at least Follow) from the outside world. That application would also need somewhere to store the list of followers and their inboxes (endpoints where you send activities). That's basically it. The actor object itself can be a static file, just don't change its URL. I encourage you to try building your own minimal ActivityPub server — here's a tutorial to get you started: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/06/how-to-implement-a-basic-activitypub-server/ https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/06/how-to-implement-a-bas... The sending and receiving parts aren't required to run on the same machine. You can send activities from your laptop, but the receiving side needs to be on a server with a public IP, a domain, HTTPS and all that.

nologic01 3y ago

This might become bigger than mastodon itself. Wordpress is much easier / cheaper to self-host. Along the same lines there is talk about discourse and nextcloud extensions which also have large installed bases and amenable to single-click type installs. In a sense any self-hosted server that publishes stuff is a candidate to get integrated into the fediborg. What would be really sweet is to pre-emptively embed activitypub federation into generic platforms like django, phoenix, laravel etc. Right now various teams work in uncoordinated projects all implementing similar functionality.

jeroenhd 3y ago
WordPress is much easier to self host but much worse if you try to use it as social media. Most people who use Mastodon will want some Twitter-like experience. I don't think WordPress articles are going to replace toots any time soon. On the other hand, Tumblr is supposedly working on ActivityPub integration, and that could become a major Fediverse player with the ability to replace Mastodon.
- nologic01 3y ago
  What complicates matters (in a nice way as it opens up more possibilities) is the increasing role of client apps. You maybe are thinking of the current Wordpress and Mastodon web UI's but a dedicated client (as those that already exist for mobile) can create any timeline illusion. But it is true that all these different type of servers have different specializations as to what type of content is easy to produce and distribute on them. A further intriguing aspect is to federate with video, image or audio sharing servers (peertube, pixelfed, funkwhale).
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    I mostly use Mastodon through an app, same with Lemmy and a bunch of other apps that have perfectly fine web UIs. On phones, apps just work better in most cases (though that strongly depends on what kind of company is behind those apps). From what I can tell by the comments on this article, WordPress has implemented ActivityPub for publishing posts, but you can't actually follow other people. Maybe the next update will fix all that, but no client app will ever be able to compensate for unimplemented APIs like that. Comments do federate, but it's not as "social" as most of the Fediverse.

danijelb 3y ago

It's great they are adopting the standard but those aliases are ugly. Instead of openprotocolfanblog.wordpress.com@openprotocolfanblog.wordpress.com it should be openprotocolfanblog@wordpress.com

BHSPitMonkey 3y ago
I assume that would create confusing overlaps with @wordpress.com email addresses which may or may not exist? Maybe just "blog@NAME.wordpress.com" would suffice.
- pfefferle 3y ago
  we also thought about using something generic like `blog@NAME.wordpress.com` or `feed@NAME.wordpress.com` but this would have made autocomplete useless. Mastodon users would see a list of thousands of `blog` or `feed` users when searching for a WordPress.com user.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
pfefferle 3y ago
We have decided to do it like that, because it is an easy and nice way to have a unique ID that works with or without a custom domain. For example: `openprotocolfanblog@wordpress.com` makes only sense if you use the wordpress.com subdomain. If you have your own domain, you want to have something like `username@domain` not `username@wordpress.com`. Besides of that, you will be able to activate user-accounts (next to the blog-account) on higher plans. That means we had to choose something that is consistent but causes no collisions with usernames. And finally Mastodon and others only show the part before the @, that makes the ID very similar to what Bluesky is doing. https://mastodon.social/@pfefferle/111220452911718192 https://mastodon.social/@pfefferle/111220452911718192
- lucasgonze 3y ago
  I respect you and Automattic being transparent about your thinking here on HN.

alberth 3y ago

Just remember … WordPress.com != open source WordPress

danyork 3y ago
Correct, but the ActivityPub plugin has been available for a long time for open source WordPress. This news today now makes it available to the millions of people who host their sites on WordPress.com - and without them having to install a plugin or anything else. It's just now part of the WP.com hosted platform. And that's rather awesome!

rsynnott 3y ago

I haven't been keeping up with Wordpress, but do they still support pingbacks as a first-class construct? Those could be interesting in an ActivityPub context; they're arguably the progenitor of things like quote tweets.