Fediverse

Decentralized social network Mastodon is also seeing some uplift from the X “exodus,” founder Eugen Rochko shared on the platform just ahead of the weekend. While the Twitter-like startup Bluesky has been capturing headlines and attention for its rapid adoption among former X users, a smaller group has apparently turned to the open source networking platform Mastodon, which has seen downloads increase by 47% on iOS and its monthly active users grow to 894,000 across all Mastodon servers, Rochko says.

Loops is a Fediverse TikTok alternative by the creator of Pixelfed. We try the app out for a spin, and give our honest thoughts.

Bluesky has had custom feeds for more than a year.

It's still ad-free, but that was never going to last.

An effort to bring a broader news ecosystem to the open social web, also known as the fediverse, is now in the hands of the social magazine app Flipboard.

If you were to design an open social networking protocol, what would that look like? Which metaphors and comparisons would you use to get a general idea of how the network functions? And what would you answer if people ask if your network is decentralised and federated?

Similar to how Mastodon offers an open source, distributed version of X, the fediverse is getting its own TikTok competitor. This week, an app called Loops began accepting signups on its new platform for sharing short, looping videos. Still in the early stages, Loops is not yet open sourced, nor has it completed its integration with ActivityPub, the protocol that powers Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, and other federated apps.