We just created our Mastodon account for Heavy Element. Check it out:

Heavy Element (@heavyelementinc@mastodon.social)

4 Posts, 15 Following, 1 Follower · We are Maine's premier new media production company. You might know some of our work: @gardiner_bryant@mastodon.online

mastodon.social

This is a big deal for us since we believe in Free and Open Source technology, the virtues of a collaborative, enthusiastic community, and the future of the World Wide Web.

That's why we've built Fediverse support into our open source web stack Cobalt Engine. We'll share more details on that soon.

What is a Fediverse?

If you're not familiar, the Fediverse (a portmanteau of "federated" and "universe") is a decentralized network of interconnected services. There are lots of options out there included Lemmy, Pixelfed, and Peertube among others.

But what are these services? Well, Lemmy is similar in concept to reddit. Pixelfed is kinda like Instagram. And Peertube is a video sharing service like YouTube.

However, we’ve joined Mastodon, which is similar to Twitter. (Note, we’re never calling it 𝕏.)

Interoperability

One of the most important things about the Fediverse is that these various services are interoperable with each other. So a video on Peertube will show up as a “tweet” on Mastodon (which they playfully call a “toot”) and so on.

But what’s really cool is that if I log in to our new Mastodon account, I can see follow our Peertube account. Then, I can see videos we post there, and they'll appear as “toots”.

I can even leave a comment on Mastodon and it will appear as a comment on my video! No need to make multiple accounts.

What’s even more impressive is that these services have many instances available. To join Mastodon, you can head over to mastodon.social, hackyderm.io, or any number of other servers. Joining one gives you access to not only all of Mastodon, but other Fediverse services as well! It’s a pretty great.

But Why?

I've been asked "but isn't this just Twitter with more steps?" And the answer to that is an emphatic "no."

The way we see it, Mastodon is everything that's good about the web. The Fediverse represents a future for the Internet. The spirit of the World Wide Web we almost lost when Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and the other big monies consolidated their control.

The Internet was founded on the principals of decentralization and interoperability through a common standard (HTTP and HTML). And the Fediverse reflects those values. These Federated services are based on an open standard (called ActivityPub). And not only are the services decentralized from each other, but they're also federated amongst themselves.

Look, I joined Twitter back when it first started. It was an entirely different beast. It was fun to use Twitter. It was a level playing field where anyone could have a voice, share their thoughts, and meet like-minded folks.

But then the algorithms began weighting posts to drive engagement. That's when Twitter (and other social media) became decidedly less fun. It became more about keeping your attention and stoking outrage rather than being a part of a community. That's where Mastodon and other Fediverse services are different.

These services are exclusively about community. There's no algorithm to get/keep you hooked. Your timeline is solely comprised of the accounts you follow and it's 100% chronological in nature. So if you saw a post in your feed, you can just scroll back through the timeline and you will eventually find it.

This also naturally means that if you have a following on Mastodon and you post something, your followers will actually see what you posted. Imagine that.

And did I mention that Mastodon is just fun? It's fun to have a community. It's fun to talk with like-minded folks. It's fun to share and collaborate and learn.

Ready to Join the Fediverse?

Go ahead and use this list to find a server to join. What's the difference? Well, each server is moderated by its own team, some have a special interests or focus. For example, there's tech.lgbt which focuses on marginalized identities, musicworld.social welcoming anyone interested in music, and epicure.social which is all about food and wine.

Once you’ve created an account, you can follow us at @heavyelementinc@mastodon.social.