Federated Mind

A reef isn't a single organism. Things settle where conditions suit them, and the substrate they share is what makes them a reef and not a scattering of unrelated lifeforms.

ActivityPub is that substrate. The Fediverse Beyond Mastodon series is complete. We published four posts about some of what's growing on it:

1. The microblogging platforms that aren't Mastodon: Misskey, Pleroma, Akkoma, Friendica, GoToSocial. Several predate Mastodon, and some were federating before ActivityPub existed.

2. The visual layer: Pixelfed, Loops, PeerTube. Your work sits on infrastructure you or your community control, and no ranking system decides who sees it.

3. The writing platforms: Ghost, WordPress, WriteFreely, Micro.blog, Plume, Flipboard. Each arrived at federation by a different route.

4. Forums, books, and music: Lemmy, PieFed, Mbin, NodeBB, Bookwyrm, Bandwagon.

https://federatedmind.com/fbm-complete-mini-series/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fbm-complete-mini-series

#Fediverse #ActivityPub #OpenWeb #Bandwagon #Pixelfed #PeerTube #Lemmy #Bookwyrm #Misskey #nodebb #ghost #microblog

This week, we map the visual layer of the fediverse with current numbers (June 2026): Pixelfed, Loops, PeerTube, and ... Flickr? Pixelfed: ~100K MAU across 700 servers. @dansup has been building it for eight years, mostly alone, turning down VC offers and funding it through a Kickstarter that raised CA$138K for a nonprofit foundation. Loops: federated short-form video, also by dansup. mid-4,000s MAU, 26 servers. opt-in algorithmic feed (the default is chronological), trust-score moderation, no AI training on user content. PeerTube: 47K MAU across 1,500+ servers. Framasoft (French nonprofit). the most infrastructure-heavy platform on the fediverse. The visual web is the most expensive layer of the internet to decentralize. None of this was built on venture-scale economics. Part 2 of the Fediverse Beyond Mastodon series. More here: https://federatedmind.com/the-visual-fediverse/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=visual-fediverse-2 #Fediverse #Pixelfed #Loops #PeerTube #ActivityPub #OpenWeb #Owncast #FederatedVideo

if you read the piece this week on how to actually read the instance picker — the next question answers itself.

our free fediverse quick-start checklist walks through exactly that: 12 steps to get a fully working federated presence, including mastodon setup, bluesky if you want both, finding your existing contacts, and the non-obvious stuff (following hashtags before you have a follow list; account portability; chronological feeds by default).

written for people who already understand the architecture. share it with people who don't.

→ https://federatedmind.gumroad.com/l/cocjz?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=exploring-mastodon-1&utm_content=checklist

#Mastodon #Fediverse #ActivityPub #OpenWeb #IndieWeb

wrote up the thing that trips up nearly every newcomer to this network:

the server picker page isn't asking you to pick a Mastodon. it's asking you to pick a neighborhood. ActivityPub is the road system — it's open, it's shared, it connects every instance to every other instance that hasn't blocked it. what you're choosing is the community whose timeline, rules, and culture shape your local experience.

some things worth knowing before you choose:

→ most major instances are donation-funded, not ad-supported.

→ AI policy is now a real community differentiator.

→ regional and language instances have a center of gravity that the flagship can't credibly provide.

→ the initial choice is revisable. account portability is built in. your followers move with you.

new piece walking through the full landscape:

→ https://federatedmind.com/mastodon-constellation-of-communities/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=exploring-mastodon-1

#Mastodon #Fediverse #ActivityPub #OpenWeb #IndieWeb