Here's how the rebranding from Twitter to X has affected Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon:
In the first week (July 23-August 5) of the rebrand, Threads downloads dropped 70%, leaving the app ranked 16th Overall. But Bluesky and Mastodon saw downloads increase by 180% and 15%, respectively — an indication that those fleeing the new X largely turned to Bluesky instead.
However, in the weeks that followed (August 8-20), Threads saw an uptick in downloads with growth up by roughly 50% while also moving up one spot to 12th Overall in the category rankings. By this time, Threads had also rolled out a number of new features, including a chronological feed. Bluesky and Mastodon, on the other hand, saw downloads decline after the rebranding of X subdued, with installs dropping 25% and 40%, respectively.
The “X-odus,” in other words, has not settled on a new platform.
In other words, the rebrand to X has been everyone else's gains.
What's more notable to me, though, is that Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon are either federated or are intending federation in the near future.
On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be much of a migration to emerging centralized social media platforms. Nobody's talking about Hive, Tribel, or Post -- all Twitter alternatives that gained notice in November 2022.
The future of social media seems to be decentralization.
@atomicpoet@fediversenews Neither Threads nor Bluesky is a distributed platform despite all of their talk of "federating". We should stop giving them credit for their marketing hype until and unless they actually do something.
'Concerns about the decline of X as a source of reliable information extends beyond the scientific and academic communities. During the apparent coup attempt in Russia in June, journalists noticed its relative uselessness at helping them find real-time, breaking information from the ground and sifting fact from fakery, due in part to Musk’s trashing of its account verification system.'
I'm a bit sad. I've tried to bring people over to #Mastodon with what are good arguments to ME: #NSFW content creators will eventually be shadowbanned or booted off a platform as soon as there is advertisers or payment processors demanding it. For marginalised people, Mastodon has powerful tools to stay safe.
But most people I talk to do acknowledge that and then go on to stay on #Twitter or sign up for #Bluesky.
But I understand the discoverability issues, it's Mastodon's greatest weakness IMO.
@nggalai@AimeeMaroux I don't really agree with either or arguments. I would have stayed on #Twitter if they hadn't kicked me off - for using a VPN too often I can only guess.
And I'd happily try #bluesky - if someone offered me an invite - but i wouldn't leave here, unless I no longer liked it here. I use #Matrix and #telegram too.
Diversity is good. Everyone should be everywhere they have the time to be. After all that's how we use our offline time.
This is a comment I made on a thread on Lemmy. I thought I would share it here because it sums up a lot of the thoughts I have about twitter/x, and some of the leftist and liberal leaning content creators that remain. I am open to feedback and criticism though if you think I am missing something or being unfair.
I'm forgiving of artists because most of their customer base is there, and internationally, alt platforms are even more unknown. I am somewhat forgiving of journalists who want to reach the widest amount of people possible, despite the fact that Musk has been intentionally targeting and censoring journalists he doesn't like.
I really don't get a lot of leftist or liberal content creators though. Many constantly push the message that you vote with your wallet, and discourage patronizing businesses, services, or franchises that actively hate or harm marginalized people. Yet at the same time, they are using a platform owned by some who is literally trying to make the platform as hostile to marginalized people as possible. A lot of users have left twitter because they no longer feel safe using the platform. In fact, the reason you see a lot of queer people here on fediverse is because many of them are twitter refugees.
And yet many leftist and liberal creators remain on twitter, exclusively in fact. I could understand it if they pushed some content to alts to keep within reach of users that left while still maintaining their fanbase on twitter, but many of them won't even touch any of the alternatives, much less make themselves more reachable on youtube or other social platforms. By remaining on twitter, they are encouraging their userbase to remain as well, which creates engagement, which benefits ad companies who pay Musk, who funnels that into groups and causes that undermine their audience.
At this point, It is an integrity test for me. How large is this creator's following on twitter? How often does this person post and interact on twitter? and what have they said in the past about interacting with harmful brands? What's their excuse for remaining if any, and would they had accepted that excuse if the shoe was on the other foot?
I accept some people have an addiction, and as someone who tried to leave reddit many times, I know it can be a hard one to kick. But if your brand is built on integrity, standing up for the marginalized, and being ethical with your consumption habbits, remaining active on twitter is not a good look to me.
@jerry With the death of #infosec#Twitter, the #fediverse is truly where you need to be for infosec content which is amazing! (Especially here on infosec.exchange & infosec.town 🙂!)
The scene over at #Bluesky can't compete when it comes to infosec...
#Misskey has recently crossed the milestone of 600,000 accounts and, if things keep going as they are, we're expecting it to reach a whopping 1 million by the end of the year. Quite impressive, right?
Now, there's been some talk about #Lemmy already hitting the 1 million mark, according to certain stats trackers. However, personally, I think that count might not be entirely accurate. But hey, who knows?
Either way, it's looking more and more likely that Misskey or Lemmy will become the second Fediverse software to have a million accounts. That is, of course, unless neither #Bluesky nor #Threads decide to federate this year. So let's stay tuned and see what happens, shall we?
In the typical web marketing infrastructure, a company signs up for an email account for private messages, Twitter/X account for microblogging, YouTube account for video sharing, and Reddit for forum discussion....
Excuse my ignorance here. To what extent can this problem be simplified with DIDs or Decentralized IDs, rather than "federated accounts".
Take the example of Filpboard. I signed up to integrate #mastodon with #bluesky. Supposedly, they have AI to process two disparate systems. The result: Nada. Why? Because I have to put some verification HTML in a website.
I have a "domain name handle" that should allow two independent information sources to communicate. The same account, or DID, needs to work on both systems. I don't see that.
A little reminder to all: This is the #fediverse. Not the "Look, I'm on #BlueSky" or "I got a #threads account and this is how it all works in 30 toots" network. #SarcasmButOnlyHalf
To iterate on various images being shared showing the Threads versus Mastodon nutrition cards on the #Apple App Store.
This is the biggest selling point for why people should use Mastodon instead of the commercial social media networks - one of these things is not like the other.
That's not to say that I don't welcome all the Americans that are here, or will join, but it just feels that Europeans tend to have a higher retention here, and seem to be less interested in things like #BlueSky.
The sandbox environment has now been launched, which means you can set up your own AT protocol-enabled server.
It's possible that Bluesky will finally start federating by the end of summer. However, knowing how most dev teams work, this launch is not a certainty. It always takes time to iron out bugs.
How successful do you think Bluesky's federation will be? And how will it impact the current userbase using Bluesky?
Vor zwei Jahren wollte Twitter in das „Dezentrale Netzwerke“-Business einsteigen und gründete eigens dafür das Projekt Bluesky. In den folgenden zwei Jahren wurde viel evaluiert und diskutiert, was wohl die beste Lösung für Twitter sei und wir alle fieberten mit ob es nun ActivityPub oder doch Matrix werden würde…
Das AT Protocol, kurz für Authenticated Transfer Protocol!
Ich hab mir die FAQ mal angeschaut und dort steht warum Bluesky sich gegen ActivityPub entschieden hat:
Account portability is the major reason why we chose to build a separate protocol. We consider portability to be crucial because it protects users from sudden bans, server shutdowns, and policy disagreements. Our solution for portability requires both signed data repositories and DIDs, neither of which are easy to retrofit into ActivityPub. The migration tools for ActivityPub are comparatively limited; they require the original server to provide a redirect and cannot migrate the user’s previous data.
Das erinnert mich ein bisschen an die Subline von meinem OpenWeb-Icons Font:
Why OpenWeb Icons? Because Font Awesome had no RSS-icon […]
Weil ActivityPub keine perfekte Lösung für „Account portability“ hat, bauen sie ein komplett neues Protokoll?
ActivityPub ist sicherlich nicht „feature complete“, aber ein guter erster Wurf, was das Fediverse erfolgreich bewiesen hat! Warum arbeitet Twitter also lieber an einem eigen Format anstatt mit dem W3C zusammen an ActivityPub v2?
Warum macht sich das W3C überhaupt noch die Mühe „Standards“ zu definieren?
Wegen der Interoperabilität!
Würde Twitter mit HTTP(S), HTML oder CSS ähnlich umgehen, würde der Browser einfach leer bleiben, weil das &$%§& Internet nur mit einheitlichen Standards funktioniert!
Und das gleiche gilt auch für dezentralte Netze, zumindest wenn sie erfolgreich sein wollen! Darüber hab ich tragischerweise schon vor 10 Jahren geschrieben!
Diaspora* wurde kaum für „tot“ erklärt und schon steht das nächste Projekt in den Startlöchern! Tent.io soll ein protocol for distributed social networking and personal data storage werden. Alles neu, alles anders, alles besser als OStatus, DiSo oder Diaspora*. Aber mal ganz ehrlich… was haben die Diasporas & Co. bisher geschaffen? Ziel war es Facebooks „Walled Gardens“ aufzubrechen und was kam wirklich dabei rum? Eine ganze Reihe an dezentralen „Walled Gardens“. Na danke!
Das fediverse hat (wie schon erwähnt) bisher einen großartigen Job gemacht und verschiedenste Netzwerke mit den verschiedensten Ausprägungen vernetzt! Ich glaube bin der festen Überzeugung, dass sich diesmal wirklich das offene Format (ActivityPub) durchsetzen wird und Blueskys Authenticated Transfer Protocol auch in ein paar Monaten oder Jahren keine Rolle spielen wird!
Ben Werdmuller hat eine gesunde Einstellung zu dem Thema:
I’m so burned out by open source social, but I’m glad to see people throw energy at the problem, even if it’s not how I would have gone about it.
Mehr hab ich dazu eigentlich nicht zu sagen, außer dass wir in der aktuellen Folge des neunetzcasts sehr ausgiebig über genau dieses Problem gesprochen haben!
Like I get there are several reasons people remain. It just feels kinda weird to listen to a podcaster or youtuber go off on twittter, yet they still use twitter exclusively.
Is an "everything" app the likely end state within the Fediverse?
In the typical web marketing infrastructure, a company signs up for an email account for private messages, Twitter/X account for microblogging, YouTube account for video sharing, and Reddit for forum discussion....