Wow! It's astonishing to see how little Sprout Social understands about the Fediverse in their recent blog post aimed at helping marketers comprehend decentralized social media.
They claim that the Fediverse is similar to the Metaverse, but in reality, they couldn't be more dissimilar apart from the common "-verse" in their names. The only platform, Immers Space, attempting to bridge the Fediverse and Metaverse is currently very niche. It's disheartening that Sprout Social fails to acknowledge this crucial distinction.
To make matters worse, Sprout Social mistakenly associates the Fediverse with blockchain technology. But let me set the record straight – popular platforms like Mastodon and Firefish don't utilize blockchain in any way. Finding a Fediverse server that actually uses blockchain is like searching for a needle in a haystack, with the largest one having a meager 79 active users. It's clear that Sprout Social needs to do their homework on this front.
Furthermore, Sprout Social claims that many Fediverse networks are guided by DAOs, but where is the evidence? The platforms people actually use are not governed by any DAO. As someone who is familiar with the server firefish.social, I can confirm that it certainly doesn't rely on a DAO for its operations.
It's incredibly misleading for Sprout Social to include Steemit, Lens Protocol, and Hive Social in their list of Fediverse platforms. These platforms may dabble in cryptocurrency nonsense, but they do not employ ActivityPub or any decentralized protocols like Diaspora, OStatus, DRFN, or anything else that truly enables genuine federation within those social networks.
Perhaps Sprout Social could gain valuable insights into the true nature of the Fediverse if they paid attention to the "Fedi" in "Fediverse" – federation. Only platforms that facilitate real federation among multiple servers can be considered part of the Fediverse. Any platform that lacks this fundamental aspect, despite their claims, simply does not belong.
If Sprout Social plans on capitalizing on Fediverse-related features for their software, they should seriously reconsider their approach – and they should do it quickly!
@atomicpoet@fediversenews the language and structure used in the post is almost identical to most bland LLM generated nonsense. If I were to guess, someone used such a system to write a blog post about mastodon and web3 and then amended it with some screenshots.
It's just so incredibly generic and exactly like most SEO spam that I refuse to believe that it was written by someone who actually wanted to convey a message.
@atomicpoet@fediversenews it would be an interesting concept if VR platforms were interoperable but there are so many challenges there include content portability (moving 3D objects and spaces from one “world” to another) as well as event portability (I take some action and the action makes it across); blockchain is mainly a distraction that takes something scalable and makes it slow and expensive, yet SSO is missing from the fedi and Web3 does put it first
@atomicpoet@fediversenews In all seriousness though, that article gets so many things wrong that I wouldn't be surprised if it was written by GPT-4 or some other LLM.
Well, it seems that Sprout Social's confusing blog post demonstrates that the Fediverse has reached a point where some individuals who may not truly have expertise on the subject are now proclaiming themselves as experts.
In simpler terms, "Fediverse" has now become a buzzword like "Web 2.0," "the cloud," and "A.I."
It won't be long before everyone and their dog will claim to be developing a Fediverse "app" or "site" – but it's important to note that not everything that is created will necessarily be a genuine part of the Fediverse. If there's no federation, it's not part of the Fediverse.
If I were in a position of authority at Buffer, and happened to stumble upon Sprout Social's problematic blog post on the Fediverse, I couldn't help but feel a smidgen of excitement.
It is quite clear that Buffer comprehends the essence of the Fediverse, as evidenced by their seamless integration with Mastodon. Regrettably, this doesn't seem to be the case for Sprout Social.
After digesting the aforementioned blog post, I must admit that I personally wouldn't feel entirely confident entrusting Sprout Social with any matters related to the Fediverse. Consequently, I find myself leaning towards wholeheartedly recommending Buffer to all those dedicated social media managers who are actively participating in the Fediverse.
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