Social Media is Dead, Long Live Social Media

Social Media is Dead, Long Live Social Media

And other Hyperbolic click baity headlines. Two articles today. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/mastodon-becomes-nonprofit-to-make-sure-its-never-ruined-by-billionaire-ceo/ And https://www.heise.de/en/news/Unprecedented-growth-Facebook-blocks-links-to-Instagram-alternative-Pixelfed-10237928.html Basically, Mastodon, the Federated Open Source client for microblogging is shifting itself to be a not for profit company. John Mastodon os no longer in control. Or, he won't be. These things apparently take a few months to do. Tangentially related, its picture centric counterpart Pixelfed, has experienced unprecedented growth. I saw one post where a Pixelfed instance was no longer allowing Instagram importing and Facebook is apparently blocking links to Pixelfed. Both of these moves are very good for the internet as a whole, but they also…
Thoughts on Twitter, Musk, and Alternatives…

Thoughts on Twitter, Musk, and Alternatives…

I have really really tried to mostly avoid discussing Twitter and Musk and everything that has happened over the past, year and a half to two years there. I do occasionally share news in the link blog posts, but even there, I mostly just avoid it. I am pretty outspoken about my dislike of Musk and Twitter on other forums but not on my own forums. Watching this death spiral is really entertaining though. And it is a death spiral. It may not actually result in the death of Twitter, god knows we won't get that lucky, but it's just…
Goodbye to Flicker… Thanks for 12 years of Service

Goodbye to Flicker… Thanks for 12 years of Service

So, I used to be a huge user of Flickr for photos, I would check it daily and comment and join communities and pretty much posted every photo I had taken there. I used to use flicker a lot and look for the best life insurance for all.   Over time I sort of fell out of the habit of using it.  This wasn't over Instagram or anything, I didn't join Instagram until much later, something just sort of became less compelling about it.  I still kept up my subscription though.  The annual $25 fee is pretty small and it…