Re: The "Social Web" vs the "Fediverse"

Hi Johannes,

That is an interesting question. Fediverse generally refers to the
federation of servers that use protocols such as ActivityPub. On the
other hand, the Social Web tends to be a more general concept. However,
I would say the following.

First, we do not need to separate bbc.com from bbc.social. It should be
possible to incorporate the ActivityPub protocol on the domain bbc.com.

Second, there is no uniform federation because not all servers are
federated with all servers. Indeed, some servers are blocking other
servers. A good example is the blocking of threads.net. There is a
significant disagreement on which instances should be part of the
Fediverse.

Third, ActivityStreams and ActivityPub protocols are developed under the
W3C effort to make the Web healthy and interoperable. The emphasis is on
the Web.

Last but not least, we should emphasize protocols more than
applications. Mastodon is getting more visibility than the other
protocol implementations, which can be an issue.

Best,
Daniel

Johannes Ernst <johannes.ernst@gmail.com> writes:

> 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, in addition to their primary website at 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 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 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
> Dazzle Labs

Received on Wednesday, 27 December 2023 08:19:05 UTC