2024 The year of the social web

About a year ago I joined Mastodon. And although there has been a lot of change in the world of social media, things with Mastodon haven't gone as fast as I expected (or hoped). However there are signs this will change in 2024.

The story of X has become worse in 2023. But the network effect is still there. Much more people (and organisations) are publishing on X than on Mastodon (or Threads or BlueSky) But I noticed activity on X has gone down during 2023, and I have seen many people leave X. I am not active on X anymore. I have tried both Threads and BlueSky, but not convinced on the value for me. So Mastodon will from now on be my network of choice.

My hope is more public figures and organisations like newspapers, governments and public services will realise X is not the right platform to trust the messages they intend to be visible for every one. And publishing in the Fediverse (or social web) makes sure everyone has free access to their information, even without registering for a specific service or paying for it.

As Threads has announced to use ActivityPub (the protocol being used by Mastodon and other social web apps in the Fediverse) this can help strengthen the network effect. A large number of people have joined Threads. And if all goes well, these can be followed by Mastodon users. And even though the goals of Threads parent…