The roundup - episode 10

Compared to the last few weeks, it has been a relatively quiet week in fediverse news. This has allowed me to zoom in on potential longterm impacts of the recent developments, such as taking a look at how WordPress can impact how search is currently used on the fediverse. Luckily, there is still lots of other news.

The news

• Mastodon: Research Symposium and Tool Exploration Workshop in June 2023 in the UK.
• Already 25 organisations signed up for the project that allows Dutch universities and research institutes to join a Mastodon server, including some of the Netherland's biggest universities. You can find my interview with the Program Manager for this project here.
• Microsoft keeps slowly dabbling in the fediverse. This time it is a way to set up a Mastodon node on Azure.
• Pixelfed launches a portfolio feature.
• Mastodon.social suffers a data breach.
• A new fediverse enhancement proposal to help clarify some of the ways that ActivityPub can be used.
• Linus Torvalds, founder of Linux, joins the fediverse, via an Akkoma (not Mastodon!) server for people who have contributed to the Linux kernel. It is interesting to see a high profile account not use Mastodon, but instead use Akkoma.
• Moderating the Fediverse, an online event/conversation on April 13th.
• Flipboard allows you to follow Mastodon accounts directly from their app. The CEO promises full fediverse integration beyond Mastodon in the near future.
• The new website of W3C now shows their Mastodon account.
• Mozilla will host a session on the fediverse during their MozFest on March 22nd. It is likely that their Mastodon server mozilla.social will be announced there.

Interviews

• An interview with Adam Davidson, admin of the journa.host server.
• A podcast with the creator of Owncast (a federated streaming platform).
• A big interview with Tim Chambers and Evan Prodromou (both excellent follows) in the big tech magazine IEEE, about the rise of the fediverse.

To keep your eyes on

Not everything is news directly, but an early indication of a trend;

• Mastodon.social seems to be dealing with an influx of porn spam accounts.
• Most confusing and surprising news of the week: A research organisation for investment firms rate Mastodon highly for equity research. Would not have expected that, considering how mainline fediverse culture is not particularly fond of investment firms, to put it mildly.
• An interesting discussion on engagement number comparisons between Twitter and the fediverse.
• Flipboard CEO observes that SXSW is highly focused on generative AI, and barely talks about the fediverse.