Breaking Down Decentralized Social Media — Outline

Do not be ideological and pick sides with my writing. Just present the landscape. Readers should be smart enough to decide for themselves.

Be friendly and welcoming to people of all crypto knowledge levels.

There’s a ton of software that runs on ActivityPub, wow! Wikipedia:

Social media is a vastly complex landscape that extends beyond the commonly known legacy platforms of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

There are new players in the space too, like Farcaster and Blue Sky. And there are old players like Mastodon, based on the ActivityPub protocol which goes back many many years, even before Facebook and ActivityPump (circa 2014) predated ActivityPub

• ==What one provocative point that I want to make?
  • We’re at the tipping point of the social media age. We’re at the stage when the incumbents know it and start to innovate. Just like when FB created the Libra coin, Cash app is accepting cryptocurrencies, and now FB is getting into Threads / Activity Pub because they know this is how they stay relevant.
  • If engagement drives legacy social media, what drives ownership social media?
    • Ownership social media? No, need a better term. Legacy social media vs. crypto social media? no yucky. decentralized? no b/c activitypub is decentralized but its not on the blockchain.
    • (sufficiently) decentralized social media. come build with us, farcaster says to devs.
    • why does activitypub ecosystem not have the same explosion of apps that farcaster has?
      • why are more devs building on farcaster protocol on ethereum blockchain than on activitypub on pub (?) protocol?
• I’m addressing my reader as a provider of information
• Pronoun is first person, participant (i’m using protocols like farcaster)
• Tense is present
• ==Style is casual, informative, inspirational, and forward-thinking. It is not ideological or persuasive. I am providing perspective of someone who works in the industry and who sees the crypto movement taking place in front of my eyes.
• Attitude is informative
• How much do I want to cover?
  • ActivityPub ⇒ Fediverse ecosystem ⇒ Mastodon (1 app)
  • Ethereum blo
  • Focus on Farcaster ecosystem of apps vs. Fediverse ecosystem of apps
  • ActivityPub is to Ethereum blockchain as Fediverse is to Farcaster ecosystem Threads is to Mastodon

I. Template

Useful Definitions

Social Network

A social network is a series of messages passed between users through a centralized server Decentralized social media is a series of messages passed between users through servers that are spread out / self-hosted.

Social Media

A broader term that includes media like Hollywood and is more about creating a brand and entertainment.

Public Messaging

Also known as forums, public messaging predated social networks and enabled people to communicate with one another by posting messages to a public bulletin board, replying to threads, receiving notifications, and sending private messages. Public message boards were the first example of online public messaging

Decentralized social network

Decentralized social networks are blockchain-based platforms that allow users to exchange information as well as publish and distribute content to audiences

Server

A server is a computer that provides information to other computers called “clients” on computer network.

• Bulletin Board System

II. Resources

Breaking Down Decentralized Social Media— Master

Social Media Fun Inspiration

Introduction

…we’ve reached what feels like a saturation point as we are now squarely at the end of the social media age before we embark on whatever this new internet is going to be

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/future-creation-curation-gavin-guidry-jatte/

Option 2

People can mint a NFT on paragraph with this article. I capture 100% of that value as a creator. If people know my work, they follow me, they like the ideas that I have then they pay for it as a NFT. I am creating quality stuff. Key here is probably distribution. How do you get seen? Does the platform help you to get visibility? - *Could be a good segway into “fame” *fame platforms help you with visibility. Twitter with a premium account boosts you up. Paragraph will automatically RT you on Farcaster.

Option 3

Why decentralized social media on crypto?

• Could be killer use case. Good UI, good content, people go to it because they enjoy spending time on there. Warpcast could be the rising tide that lifts all boats. maybe?
• Good for creators. Good for brand recognition. Able to put out content and quickly get rewarded with more quality followers.
• You’re part of the Fediverse. With Yup for example, you can see all of the platforms aggregated into one.

Body

Body 1

A. What are social networks? a. centralized vs. decentralized social networks

• Decentralized social networks are blockchain-based platforms that allow users to exchange information as well as publish and distribute content to audiences
• Decentralized social networks are censorship-resistant and open to everyone.This means users cannot be banned, deplatformed, or restricted arbitrarily
• Decentralized social networks are built on open-source ideals and make source code for applications available for public inspection
• Decentralized social networks eliminate the “middle-man”
• Decentralized social platforms offer an improved monetization framework for content creators via non-fungible tokens (NFTs), in-app crypto payments, and more
• Decentralized social networks afford users a high level of privacy and anonymity
• Decentralized social networks rely on decentralized storage, not centralized databases, which are considerably better for safeguarding user data. c. Why decentralized social networks now? i. Trend with Twitter exodus B. ==What is social media?== a. centralized vs. decentralized social media C. What do users want? a. Love vs. Fame b. Status as a Service B. A history of decentralized social networks a. What is Fediverse?
• Fediverse platforms are developed by a community of people from all over the world, independent from any company or official institution.
• Fediverse platforms unlike mainstream platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, Pinterest, Goodreads) DO NOT control all of the decision-making, enforce censorship, or hoard users data for profit or surveillance
• Fediverse is a new word made of two words “federation” + “universe”
• Fediverse is a federated social network running on free open software on a myriad of computers across the globe
• With Fediverse, you choose a server to register. This ensures some decentralization and sovereignty of data. b. What is ActivityPub?
• ActivityPub is a protocol that produces a client to server API for creating, updating, and deleting content, as well as a federated server to server API for delivering notifications and subscribing to content.
• ActivityPub doesn’t provide a way to use a managed host without compromising decentralization
• Threads integrated ActivityPub so you can post from Threads to Mastodon, but not from Mastodon to Threads
• activity ii. Can ActivityPub save the internet?

C. Distributed Social Networks and Public History i. A history of online public messaging ii. Can Mastodon seize the moment from Twitter?
ii. Threads is officially starting to test ActivityPub integration

A. What crypto social media networks can do really well. - Sufficient Decentsralization for Social Networks - users own a direct relationship with their audience - developers can always build apps (API will not be cut off, revenue terms will not be changed up on them, etc.) - This thing about decentralized protocols is a common, very common thing in crypto that I’ve read about. - Decentralized protocols use two mechanisms to prevent bait & switch of their centralized counterparts (1) open source code and (2) checks and balances with voice and exit

B. Decentralized Social Media Business Models not ads, but what? Unlock says “evolves the web from a business model built on attention toward one based on membership.”