Rob Fahrni

I was thinking about what the definition of a core Feed Collecting Service Specification would look like and authentication is such a PITA. Of course what I’d specify wouldn’t include auth, but it’s still painful to think about.

What would a minimal feed collecting service need?

Add Feed Remove Feed Get Feeds Get Feed Add Category Remove Category Add Category to Feed

Now, I may be missing something that should be in a core specification but that seems kind of like a minimum to me. Even the Category functions may be too much for the core of it. Of course the service could still have their own proprietary way of managing feeds. They could choose to build that on top of this core set of features or next to it or add this spec on top of their existing API. You know what I’m saying. 😄

Dave Winer’s FeedLand got me thinking about this. There is also this great podcast episode where he explains what he wants to do. His tool could implement this specification if he wanted it to. I don’t think there’s an API to it but a very generic specification, implemented by multiple third parties, would open up feed readers to supporting multiple feed services without having to do special client side work to support each service. Just do it once and connect to any. Specs aren’t ever perfect but they 100% allow for interop between clients and other services.

I’d love to be part of a group working through something like this. Specifically I’d love to get it added to the same collective that includes ActivityPub and ActivityStream, perhaps what I’m after is WebSub? I haven’t read through it yet. I also need to read Social Web Protocols.

I think what I’m looking for is less social protocol and more simiple, agreed upon, API implementation. It is, of course, kind of selfish because I work on a feed reader and would love to be able to connect through a well specified API.

Oh, one more thing! I listened to Dave’s latest podcast episode on the way into the coffee shop this morning and he put the final touches on his vision for a rebooted weblogging system. He’s now covered writing, feed subscription, and finally, discourse. His idea is quite good because it would really make folks who reply to your post think before posting. Listen to the podcast and it will become obvious — I think — why.

Sean Heber via Mastodon

ChatGPT and other AI services are basically killing @Iconfactory and I’m not exaggerating or being hyperbolical.

Reading this sent chills down my spine.

Iconfactory has a very long history of creating beloved applications and designs for Mac and iOS.

Their designers craft beautiful interfaces, icons, and other illustrations.

To think they could go away because people are using AI generated slop designs and icons is gut wrenching.

I’m a huge fan of Iconfactory work. I use their apps everyday. Two in particular; Tot and Tapestry.

I’m writing this blog post using Tot. It’s perfect for it. Simple text editor with Markdown support and automatic save that syncs with iCloud. It’s an example of simplicity that is absolutely useful. I’ve been using Tot for years to write all of my blog posts, including Saturday Morning Coffee. ☕️

Tapestry is a new app. It is a new take on feed readers. Sure, it’s a competitor to Stream but it’s beautifully designed and implemented.

I’m a Wallaroo and xScope user and I’ve heard wonderful things about Linea Sketch.

Their craft is second to none.

Stream had the honor of being featured in the App Store in October of 2023. I worked with Iconfactory to create the banner Apple needed for the feature. It was a completely painless process and the results were beautiful and better than I could’ve imagined.

If you need someone to design your app, icon, or other materials, give Iconfactory a shout you will not regret it. ❤️

Do you think Space Karen knows the name X, for the social media network formerly known as Twitter, is garbage?

I wish he’d sell all the Twitter branding to Sam Altman. Then Altman can create a Mastodon or Bluesky based social network called Twitter and we’d all be happy for it.

A rebirth of an original, but even better because it would be one node in a larger ecosystem.

Matt Birchler

I continue to be flummoxed by the popular take that Bluesky is doing so much better than Mastodon. Mastodon has 2 million active users and is built on ActivityPub, which means it also communicates with other services that use the same protocol. Oh, and Threads will bring its 100+ million users to ActivityPub soon(ish).

No, Mastodon isn’t “dead” or “dying.”

Look, this platform isn’t something corporations control and isn’t something that needs to make money as a centralized service. It’s run by the people. I run my instance — well, masto.host does — and I don’t require my friends to pay me a monthly fee, some have sent me money to keep it going (thanks Steven!) but overall the $20US per month is cheap for me to have my own instance with a few friends on it.

Anywho, it’s all about the people, not about corporate profits so who cares how many users there are on the network? I don’t.

Elon Code Review

“Most code is reviewed in Github, Gitlab or somewhere online, but that is too efficient. Why not print out your code and submit the printout by fax for review by Elon Musk personally!”

Why not get Elon to personally review your code! It’s a great use of his time and terrific way to line his pockets because the man is leveraged up to his eyeballs! 🤣

Be patient as you create your new Mastodon account. There are many different servers to choose from. If you have the means and feel adventurous start an instance all your own with some friends! I have one and I host it for $6US/month at Masto.host. They have amazing service, my site is always up, and upgraded to the latest versions of Mastodon so I don’t have to worry about a thing. They also scale up so you can have a small group, like I do, or you can have thousands of users.

Big or small it all works together to form a single community with different interests and viewpoints. It’s like the internet was intended to work! A bunch of different sites all talking to each other to form a collective. There is no central authority, like you have with Twitter.

echo: ”Uh I just got DMed by the COO of Tumblr asking about hiring contractors to make us fully #indieweb compliant, and possibly even #fediverse integration. Anyone out there looking for work?”

How cool is that?

It would be really wonderful to see more blogging systems embrace Indie Web and Fediverse integration.

In the end it could mean seeing Tumblr, Twitter, Mastodon, and WordPress all rolling up into your favorite social network.

Love the idea of it!

Dave Winer: “A Twitter-like webservice at AWS. With better docs and a JavaScript API that doesn’t require developer to run a server (big deal). Effortless install on Digital Ocean.”

The post goes into more depth than the above blurb. I picked this bit because some of these things already exist.

There is an open source software called Mastodon that federates with other Mastodon server instances and is easy to host without running a server.

It also supports ActivityPub. Which will let you publish via a news feed. Manton Reese, founder of Micro.blog, has written how he made it possible for Micro.blog to appear as a Mastodon server so you could follow a Micro.blog timeline as if it were a native Mastodon timeline. It’s quite nice.

As far as running a Mastodon instance goes, I have one. I run it on a host called Masto.host for €5 — just over $5US — per month. If you’re interested you can visit Curmudgeon Cafe, my instance. I’m @fahrni@curmudgeon.cafe if you’re interested in following.

Mastodon is also an open source project.

Check out fediverse.info to locate an instance that’s right for you, if you don’t want your own. 😃

Back to Dave

I believe Dave could federate Scripting News with Mastodon using Activity Pub. It would, in essence, turn Scripting News into a Twitter-like instance. I’d be able to follow Scripting News from my Mastodon timeline. I’d like that.

I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever the Twitter Bluesky initiative comes up with will be over engineered and favor Twitter above all other considerations. I hope they’re considering open protocols. Mastodon is built on them as are many blogging tools and blogs.

More

In a recent episode of Pivot, Scott Galloway says projects like Mastodon, Truth Social, Parler, Gab, and GETTR have all failed.

I somewhat agree, if your only barometer is shareholder value.

Mastodon has succeeded if only to provide an open alternative to Twitter that allows anyone to join and/or create their own instance that can participate with the larger network.

Another interesting point: Mastodon was used by Gab and Truth Social as the underpinning of their respective networks. The technology works. I’d imagine both networks have made significant changes to their code bases and they’ve failed to execute as a business. That is not the fault of Mastodon.