The "Social Web" vs the "Fediverse"

1. We know how the Fediverse looks like:

 You want to socially interact with your friends without a central server in the middle? Set up a Fediverse instance, or find an account on somebody else’s, follow your friends on other instances and microblog (and more) away.

 So if the BBC wanted to do that, for example, they would (and have) set up bbc.social <http://bbc.social/>, in addition to their primary website at bbc.com <http://bbc.com/>.

2. In contrast, the vision of the “Social Web” is broader and less “separate” from the rest of the web.

 E.g. Wikipedia says "The social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction.” [1]

 So if the BBC wanted to be part of the “Social Web”, for example, they would augment/change bbc.com <http://bbc.com/> to be a first-class social web participant rather than setting up a separate fediverse site.

3. Roughly agree so far?

But what does that mean exactly? How would bbc.com <http://bbc.com/> look exactly if it were a first-class participant of the “social web” that “supports and fosters social interaction”?

I know what I would want to do … but there are a bunch of conventions/protocols/standards missing to do that. On the other hand, nobody is really working on those, at least not here, so perhaps my vision is different from other’s vision.

I’d appreciate pointers or explanations that outline various points of view on how the “social web” would ideally look like, and also how the fediverse could morph into it over time. Assuming people think that is still a worthwhile goal.

(With apologies to the BBC for using them as my example vehicle here … obviously it has nothing to do with the BBC per se)

Cheers,



Johannes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_web


Johannes Ernst

Fediforum <https://fediforum.org/>
Dazzle Labs <https://dazzlelabs.net/>