{"id":7039,"date":"2023-02-22T01:58:28","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T01:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/blurts\/?p=7039"},"modified":"2023-02-22T01:58:30","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T01:58:30","slug":"mastodon-slump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/blurts\/2023\/02\/22\/mastodon-slump\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastodon Slump?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The exodus of Twitter users seeking a friendlier and more productive alternative seems to have reversed. While Mastodon has far more active users than it had just a few months ago, it appears many of those who explored Mastodon instances have not stuck around or have become inactive<\/a>. The reasons are many. The most obvious issue, the network effect, sets in when new users begin to miss the familiar group they left and who did not follow. Even though Mastodon is far more active and interactive than it was before the influx of new users, established connections are no longer there and new users have yet to make the type of connections they abandoned.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other significant issue is that Mastodon does not work like Twitter. It is a federated service made up of many instances operated mostly by volunteers who set up a server just because it seemed like a thing to do. Perhaps they had a general focus in mind and perhaps they did not. So, in\u00a0addition to new people, new users encounter a much more fractionated environment when they originally could satisfy a variety of interests using one service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are strategies that users can apply to deal with a federated environment. If you join several different instances which is probably what you will want to do, you can use a client that allows simultaneous access to your different instances. A client called Mastodeck<\/a> displays multiple columns of content. If you used TweetDeck, this client works the same because it was developed by the same folks. A column can display content associated with a given tag or to the purpose I am addressing here with the content from different instances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it is specific people rather than instances want to follow and these individuals are distributed across multiple instances. Any given Mastodon instance should provide options for home<\/strong>, local<\/strong>, and federated<\/strong>. The local option shows posts (toots) from all users on the instance (server) that you are presently using (BTW – it is not that difficult to switch between instances). Home shows you posts from all users you follow (the present instance and others). So if you want, you can follow me at @grabe@twit.social no matter what instance you use. Follow others from other servers and you have pretty much duplicated the chronological version of Twitter (not the \u201cFor you\u201d option which is based on the Twitter algorithm). Federated follows those you follow and their followers which should generate the most content, but not necessarily the content you want to consume.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not necessarily arguing that you abandon Twitter. I do suggest you ignore \u201cFor you\u201d and rely on \u201cFollowing\u201d which gives you a feed in chronological order of those you follow. Whatever you think of what Twitter has become under Musk\u2019s \u201cguidance\u201d and ownership, I believe diversity in social media options is important and I first joined the original Mastodon instance \u201cmastodon.social\u201d in 2016. Social media services are likely to be responsive to users and to improve their services partly in response to competition from other services making the same commitments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The exodus of Twitter users seeking a friendlier and more productive alternative seems to have reversed. While Mastodon has far more active users than it had just a few months ago, it appears many of those who explored Mastodon instances … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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