I've been exploring the Fediverse, a collection of socially networked servers sharing content through a protocol called ActivityPub.. There are many applications that comprise the Fediverse. Mastodon is the largest and best known, but it is not the only one. ActivityPub has unleashed a a torrent of creative energy in many different directions. Some fediverse apps like Mastodon focus on micro-blogging. Some are into long form writing and creative writing. Others are focused on podcasting, and still others on video sharing. In theory all of these apps will talk with each other and share content. There is no centralized control or single point of failure or central censor. If one server doesn't like the content coming from another server, they have the option to block or defederate that server.
Because there are so many different apps in the fediverse, I want to understand how a post originating on one social network appears as it reaches other networks. Will the post look the same? Different?
My test is limited, but just thought I'd share the early results anyway. For all of my tests, I used a Windows browser to log into the different social sites.
I began by writing a post on venera.social, a Friendica server. It is one of the applications that allows longer form posts. Friendica allows for titling a post. Here is how it looked on Friendica after I posted it.
I then went to an account I have on a Pleroma server. Pleroma handled the title of the post just fine. Just for full disclosure, this Pleroma server was using Soapbox UI.
Next I went to look at the post on a major Mastodon server. Here's what it looked like. You can see that Mastodon didn't handle the post quite as well as Pleroma. It inserted the title and included a link to the original post.
This seems problematic for Friendica posters seeking exposure to Mastodon. It would seem be better for everyone if Mastodon would include the title and the text of the post. I thought Pleroma handled it better than Mastodon. With Tumblr planning to bring its users to the Fediverse, is this what Tumblr posts will look like on Mastodon, just a short title and a hyperlink.
Friendica is unique in that it supports not only ActivityPub protocol but also the Diaspora protocol. Diaspora and Mastodon can't talk to each other, but Friendica speaks to both. This is what the post looked like when it reached a Disapora pod.
I'll mention that I used the same user image icon on Diaspora and Friendica (I shouldn't have done that for testing), but it seems that Diaspora can't pull the post author's image from Friendica, instead inserting a kitten icon.
That is all I had time for today. If I do any more (and there are many more), I'll update this post. Let me know what you think
