The Poster’s Guide to the New Internet

The Vergecast - The Poster’s Guide to the New Internet

In episode three of our connectivity mini series, The Verge's David Pierce explores the idea of POSSE and PESOS, two syndication models for posting on the internet that don't rely on a single platform. Buckle in, it gets nerdy. Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Metadata

• Author: The Vergecast
• Full Title: The Poster’s Guide to the New Internet
• Category: #media/podcasts
• Source: snipd
• URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/1515317a-ce4d-41e9-8228-d89e1ddd80c1
• Read: 2023-11-03 13:08:04.578875+00:00
• Note: Posting is a significant way to communicate and advance one's career on the internet. The dominance of major platforms like Facebook and Twitter is coming to an end, leading to more open and interconnected systems like Mastodon and Blue Sky. New approaches to content publishing, such as Posse and PASOS, aim to challenge platform specificity and make social networks content destinations. The emergence of new platforms and apps is revolutionizing the internet experience, and a more streamlined posting process and a more concise and integrated posting experience are desired. It's essential to purchase a domain name to establish an internet presence and own your online identity.

Notes

• ActivityPub ist die Basis für viele aktuelle Veränderungen bei sozialen Medien
• Cory Doctorow hat einen sehr komplizierten Prozess, um seine Inhalte auf allen sozialen Medien zu verteilen
• POSSE sollte immer auch noch einen redaktionellen Aspekt beinhalten, da die einzelnen sozialen Medien unterschiedliche Anforderungen haben
• POSSE ist aktuell noch zu kompliziert und funktioniert nicht out-of-the-box. Tools wie Micro.blog können hier helfen.

Key Facts

1. Posting is a crucial means of communication and career-building on the Internet.

2. The great platform age dominated by companies like Facebook and Twitter is ending, giving rise to more open and interconnected systems like Mastodon and Blue Sky.

3. Posse and PASOS offer new approaches to content publishing, challenging platform specificity and aiming to make social networks destinations for content.

4. Posting on multiple networks is difficult, but new platforms and apps are emerging to revolutionize the internet experience.

5. User interface and user flow are important considerations in social media publishing, and a more streamlined posting process is desired.

6. Bundling different types of content and interaction into an app is desired for a more concise and integrated posting experience.

7. A posse-style system could lead to a democratized internet, but breaking free from big businesses will require reinventing the internet.

8. Buying a domain name is essential for establishing an internet presence and owning your online identity. (View Highlight)

Highlights

• The Evolution of Posting on Social Networks
  Key takeaways:
  • Posting is how we talk to the Internet, an audience, the whole world.
  • Posting is how a lot of creators have made careers.## New highlights added November 5, 2023 at 4:37 PM
• Episode AI notes
  -1. Posting networks, these social networks are changing.
  • The great platform age is ending.
  • A handful of big companies and products own all of the posting systems.
    Transcript:
    Speaker 1
    Welcome to the VergeCast, the flagship podcast of really simple syndication. I'm your friend David Pierce, and this is the third episode in our series all about connectivity. If you missed the first two episodes, we talked about tele and how we connect to content and beeper and how we connect to each other. They're both super fun episodes, usually listen to both. Today, I want to talk about something a little different. I want to talk about posting. And when I say posting, I mean it in the broadest possible way. Like, if messaging is how we talk directly to each other, posting is how we talk to the Internet, an audience, the whole world, whatever you want to think about. Posting the threads or X or Instagram, that's posting. Uploading to YouTube or TikTok. Also posting. Posting is how a lot of creators have made careers. It's how a lot of people and companies and even governments share and consume information. A huge portion of the Internet is just places for posting and for reading other people's posts. One thing we've been talking a lot about on this show over the last year is the way that these posting networks, these social networks are changing. I really think we're at the end of what you might call the great platform age, where a handful of big companies and products like Facebook and Twitter and Reddit and really not that many Others own all of the posting systems. (Time 0:00:44)
• The End of the Great Platform Age and the Rise of Activity Pub
  Key takeaways:
  • We are at the end of the great platform age, dominated by a few big companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit.
  • New ideas like Mastodon and Blue Sky aim to create more open and interconnected systems.
  • Activity Pub is a protocol driving significant changes in the posting systems.
  • Activity Pub creates an open social graph and enables interoperability between services.
  • Social media platforms have become increasingly similar, copying each other's features.
    Transcript:
    Speaker 1
    I really think we're at the end of what you might call the great platform age, where a handful of big companies and products like Facebook and Twitter and Reddit and really not that many Others own all of the posting systems. Recently, we have things like Mastodon and Blue Sky, which are big new ideas about how this all works. They're more open, more interconnected, more like the web itself than just a specific platform. We've talked a lot about Activity Pub on this show in the last nine months or so. We're not going to do too much of that today. Activity Pub is the protocol that underlies a lot of the change that's going on. But again, we're not going to do too much of it. Just a tiny bit of it. Let me just play you this clip from Flipboard CEO Mike McHugh from when he was on the VergeCast back in April.
    Speaker 4
    Activity Pub, you know, when I think about it, I think there are two things that it does. And one of them is to create an open social graph that becomes a part of the web, which in and of itself is a very big deal. The other thing it does is it creates a common two-way streaming platform or architecture that allows services to be interoperable. So what this means is that as we've seen all these social media platforms basically just become other versions of themselves. They all have vertical video now. They're all copying each other. (Time 0:01:49)
• Posse and PASOS: Rethinking Content Ownership and Social Networks
  Key takeaways:
  • Posse and PASOS are two different approaches to publishing content
  • Posse focuses on publishing the best version of your posts on your own website
  • PASOS allows publishing from anywhere and pulls the content back to your site
  • Both Posse and PASOS challenge platform specificity as a bad idea
  • Posse and PASOS aim to upend the way we think about content and social networks
  • Posse makes social networks destinations for content, not creation
  • Posse provides a potentially powerful new way to think about posting and building content
    Transcript:
    Speaker 1
    Posse would give those tools to everybody. PASOS, by the way, is kind of the exact inverse. In a PASOS world, you can publish from anywhere, using any tools on any platform, and everything you publish gets sent back to your site. So you post on Instagram with Instagram's tools, you post on X with X's tools, but all of it gets pulled back to your website, your blog, whatever it is. In that world, your website becomes more like an archive of your stuff, published elsewhere, whereas Posse sees it as the place for the best version of your posts. That's where people should go to interact with you. The difference is subtle but important, but generally, I think both sides really see the world the same way and think that in general, this platform specificity is a bad idea. That's really the bigger picture here. Posse and PASOS both want to totally upend the way we think about our content and social networks. Right now, these social platforms say that you own your content, but you don't, really. If a social platform goes away, your stuff is just gone. If a platform decides you violated the rules and deletes your stuff, also gone. In the same way that Activity Pub makes your social graph portable between networks, Posse turns the social networks intois a crucial means of communication and career-building on the Internet.
  2. The great platform age dominated by companies like Facebook and Twitter is ending, giving rise to more open and interconnected systems like Mastodon and Blue Sky.
  3. Posse and PASOS offer new approaches to content publishing, challenging platform specificity and aiming to make social networks destinations for your content, but not the place you create Anything. I think that difference is really important. And the more I've learned about Posse, the more I've come to see it as a potentially powerful new way to think about posting and building content in general. (Time 0:07:16)
• The process of posting on social media platforms is difficult and time-consuming
  Key takeaways:
  • There are separate files for Twitter and Mastodon captures, but the first post is missing.
  • Multiple tabs are open in Firefox for different platforms like Medium, WordPress, Tumblr, Twitter, and Mastodon.
  • Several tabs are open for articles that will be referenced in the blog post.
  • The Python scripts are run on the text editor to compose the blog post.
  • Additional time is spent on getting everything into various feeds.
    -.
  4. Posting long threads on existing platforms like X is difficult.
  • Existing platforms have no incentive to make it easy for users to import or export content.
  • New platforms such as Blue Sky, Mastodon, and Pixel Fed are creating more open tools.
  • New apps are trying to transform the Internet as we currently know it.
    Transcript:
    Speaker 3
    I have a file called Twitter to and a file called Mastodon to, which have captures of that second post that I'm going to publish today, but not the first one. There's an empty file called Twitter and Mastodon that are still on my desk. And then in one Firefox window, I have probably about 10 tabs, three are for medium. One is for WordPress, three are for Tumblr, three are for Twitter and three are for Mastodon that are just kind of the templates for these things. And then in another window, I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten different tabs for articles that I'm going to refer to in today's blog post. And so I will then compose that in the text editor, run the Python scripts on them. That takes as long as it takes to write a blog post. But then I will spend probably another hour getting everything into all of those feeds.
    Speaker 1
    Okay, you get the idea, right? The process is rough. Corey finished his thought here by being very annoyed at how hard it is to post long threads on X these days. And he's right. And here's the problem. The existing platforms, X and all the rest, have no incentive at all to make it easy for you to bring stuff in or get stuff out. They want to keep you using their tools on their platform as much as possible. But not only are platforms like Blue Sky and Mastodon and Pixel Fed inventing new, more open tools for posting and reading, there are new apps out there trying to posseify the Internet As we know it now. (Time 0:11:50)
• AJ will be back later in the show to tell you more about how AWS Serverless Technologies make it easy to scale and manage cloud applications
  Key takeaways:
  • AJ will be back later in the show to talk about AWS Serverless Technologies.
  • Posse is a concept that emphasizes owning your own space and content online.
  • Manton Reese founded Micro.blog as an alternative to Twitter.
  • Micro.blog aims to provide a newsfeed timeline experience by merging posts from various RSS feeds.
    Transcript:
    Speaker 5
    AJ will be back later in the show to tell you more about how AWS Serverless Technologies make it easy to scale and manage cloud applications. Reimagine your applications with AWS.
    Speaker 6
    All right, we're back.
    Speaker 1
    I think posse, as I've been saying, is a really good idea. I really believe in the idea of having your own space and owning your own content online. I'm just not at all sure how it's supposed to work and how it's going to be easier and more doable than just signing up for a Facebook account. So I called up Manton Reese, who's the founder of a service called Micro.blog to see how he thinks about it. Micro.blog has been around since 2017. It didn't necessarily start as a posse tool or a way to do activity pub posting. It just started because Manton thought, well, before Elon Musk showed up, that we needed a Twitter that wasn't owned and operated by one single company.
    Speaker 6
    One of the original premises was just, could we rebuild a Twitter-like user experience, the base on blogs? So the timeline in Micro.blog is just posts from lots of feeds, lots of RSS feeds, whether they're hosted in a Micro.blog or they're hosted somewhere else. So how do we merge those together? So you don't just have a few tabs open with your favorite websites and you're typing in the domain name. It's more of a newsfeed timeline experience, and that's what people want. (Time 0:14:20)
• The necessity of posting to multiple networks and the challenges it presents
  Key takeaways:
  • Thoughts should be posted once to the author's domain and then distributed to various networks through APIs for increased interaction.
  • WordPress plugins can bring in Twitter replies to tweets, enhancing engagement.
  • There should be a way for different sites to communicate in a way that mimics the simplicity of monolithic domain architectures.
  • Posting one thing and syndicating it everywhere may not work as different networks have different preferences and norms.
    Transcript:
    Speaker 2
    As someone publishing, I want as much interaction as possible. So why are you making me choose which network it goes to? I should post it once, ideally, to my domain. And then it goes to X slash Twitter and threads and Tumblr and all the other networks that have the own interfaces and network effects and everything like that. But my thoughts should go to all those places. They should all have APIs where whatever interactions are happening on those platforms, I should be able to bring them in. There's actually some really cool plugins for WordPress that will bring in Twitter replies to tweets, which I think is kind of interesting. And then as well, if I'm interacting with someone else with their own domain, their own open web thing, like, they should be away for our sites to talk to each other in a way that has the Same effect as what's sort of simple to do in these monolithic domain architectures.
    Speaker 1
    This is really curious how you think about it as not somebody who runs one of these companies, but who has been a blogger on the internet for a really long time. Because I think the counter that I've heard to the posse idea is that it's just not true that you can post one thing and syndicate it everywhere and it will work. That fundamentally, even all the networks are just text boxes or vertical video, but they want different things. They have different norms and you actually have to kind of be different things in different places because that's just how these systems work. (Time 0:21:12)
• The Importance of User Interface and User Flow in Social Media Publishing
  Key takeaways:
  • The nuance of using different platforms for posting and managing content.
  • The importance of considering user interface and user flow in the publishing process.
  • The value of a two or three-step publishing process to account for customization and user preferences.
  • The potential benefits of aggregating content from various platforms to simplify user experience.
  • The trade-off between wanting users to visit a specific platform and the desire for an integrated experience.
    Transcript:
    Speaker 2
    Yeah, I mean, there's nuance to each one, of course, and there's like public companies like Sprangler or Sprout that all they do is like allow folks who want to post to all these places Like manage that. We've been thinking in our jetpack plug in as well. I've been thinking a lot about what's the right UI for this. I think there might be something like the first step is posting to my blog and the second step is I kind of get some opportunities to customize it for each network versus I think where we Messed up a little bit is by trying to make this all automated, which by definition, maybe loses some of the nuance of like cropping the image a certain way or maybe even not having a link. Maybe you don't link back to your post, which you just sort of associate the ID of a tweet with a canonical post on your side and then you kind of figure it out on your side versus trying to Have them link back to you. So I think there's this is actually more of a user interface and user flow issue than it is necessarily a technical one. I'm really into this kind of two or three step publishing process as part of this as a way to get around this. The other nice thing is that like you want to aggregate as well. So I don't want to have to go to all these places necessarily to find the people who I really care about following. Maybe I'll open an app to see what their flavor of algorithm is and if it services anything interesting for me. But for people I truly want to follow, I kind of want something that brings that all together in a way that again as someone who runs a network like Tumblr, like I know this is like a trade Off because I want people obviously to come to my thing so I can show them has and support the service and everything. But as a user, I really want everything together and one. (Time 0:22:34)
• Bundling content, interaction, and simplicity in online publishing
  Key takeaways:
  • Papers used to bundle different content categories like classifieds and news
  • There are a few key jobs that people want an app to fulfill
  • One of the things the speaker misses about the reader days is the ease of sharing articles to their blog
  • WordPress made it too heavy to do a post with prominent titles
  • The speaker wants to redesign their blog to have titleless, shorter posts
    Transcript:
    Speaker 2
    There's a few jobs to be done when you think about it. Like an app spundled them into one thing. Because papers used to bundle like classifieds and obituaries and news and journalists and like lifestyle stuff like what they do is they bundle like I'm bored and I want to see something From people I follow. I'm bored and I want to see things that maybe I don't know I want, which is actually where they've scaled a lot. I want to publish something. And then finally, I want to see how people are interacting with the thing I published. I guess maybe if I want to reply to things that people have published or share things that people have published. That's a really lovely loop and actually one of the things I miss most about kind of the reader days is like how much did we get me to blog? Because when I was kind of one click or I used the WordPress bookmarklet, you know, I could be on any site reading any article and it was just one click to kind of share that to my blog. But at some point, I think especially with WordPress making the title so prominent, like we made it a little too heavy to do a post and I want something a little bit more like a Cott key or Daring fireball or like some of these long standing blogs and how I've been trying to redesign the M8ITT is to also have these titleless posts which are a little just lower, you know, The big title and the big image really makes you feel like you got to write like an essay. You got to do something like you post where it's like really thought through and has lots of, but sometimes I just want to shoot something off a little shorter. (Time 0:24:42)
• The Possibility of a Posse-Style System for Taking Control of Social Media
  Key takeaways:
  • The speaker believes it is possible to have engagement and connection on social media platforms without giving away all of their posts and content.
  • The speaker is hopeful that a posse-style system can open up social media to more platforms and systems.
  • The speaker advocates for more of the internet belonging to individuals rather than companies.
  • The use of domain names as usernames and tools like My Cardout Blog are seen as positive signs for pursuing a posse-style system multiple networks is difficult, but new platforms and apps are emerging to revolutionize the internet experience.
  5. User interface and user flow are important considerations in social media publishing, and a more streamlined posting process is desired.
  6. Bundling different types of content and interaction into an app is desired for a more concise and integrated posting experience.
  7. A posse-style system could lead to a democratized internet, but breaking free from big businesses will require reinventing the internet.
  8. Buying a domain name is essential for establishing an internet presence and owning your online identity.
     -9. The growth of new platforms like Blue Sky and Massadon can lead to improvements in how posts are consumed and organized.
     Transcript:
     Speaker 1
     I've been researching this stuff and talking to people about it for months now. And here's what I think. I think this is the way. I think it's a shame that we've all gotten used to giving away all of our posts and all of our content just to get the engagement and connection that we get from these platforms. I think it is possible to have it both ways. And I think a posse-style system is a really cool way to get there. Just as I'm hopeful that Activity Pub is going to win and open up social to many more platforms and systems and ways of thinking about the world, I'm hopeful that posse can win too. Because I think we shouldn't be stuck on platforms and more of the internet should belong to us and not companies. And there are some really exciting signs here. I think the thing Blue Sky is doing where you can use your domain name as your username is awesome. A bunch of people I talk to mention that to me as one sign of doing this exactly the right way. I also think tools like My Cardout Blog are a big deal. And I think the growth of these new platforms like Blue Sky and Massadon can also bring new growth not just in how we post, but in how we consume posts and how we sort them and how we organize Them. (Time 0:26:10)
• The Potential of a Posse-Style System for Social Media
  Transcript:
  Speaker 1
  I've been researching this stuff and talking to people about it for months now. And here's what I think. I think this is the way. I think it's a shame that we've all gotten used to giving away all of our posts and all of our content just to get the engagement and connection that we get from these platforms. I think it is possible to have it both ways. And I think a posse-style system is a really cool way to get there. Just as I'm hopeful that Activity Pub is going to win and open up social to many more platforms and systems and ways of thinking about the world, I'm hopeful that posse can win too. Because I think we shouldn't be stuck on platforms and more of the internet should belong to us and not companies. And there are some really exciting signs here. I think the thing Blue Sky is doing where you can use your domain name as your username is awesome. A bunch of people I talk to mention that to me as one sign of doing this exactly the right way. I also think tools like My Cardout Blog are a big deal. And I think the growth of these new platforms like Blue Sky and Massadon can also bring new growth not just in how we post, but in how we consume posts and how we sort them and how we organize Them. All of this is being broken into pieces in really interesting ways. I also think it might just be impossible to pull all of this off. The truth is we do live in an era of walled gardens where the biggest businesses in the world have figured out how to keep us and our posts glued to their feed and addicted to their public Health. And addicted to their publish buttons. For Posse to Work will basically take a complete reinvention of the internetpodcast ends with a preview of upcoming episodes and news.
  10. The VergeCast is produced by Andrew Marino and Liam James, and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. (Time 0:26:100:00)
• "Posse and pesos": The Challenges of Rebuilding the Internet
  Transcript:
  Speaker 1
  A bunch of people I talk to mention that to me as one sign of doing this exactly the right way. I also think tools like My Cardout Blog are a big deal. And I think the growth of these new platforms like Blue Sky and Massadon can also bring new growth not just in how we post, but in how we consume posts and how we sort them and how we organize Them. All of this is being broken into pieces in really interesting ways. I also think it might just be impossible to pull all of this off. The truth is we do live in an era of walled gardens where the biggest businesses in the world have figured out how to keep us and our posts glued to their feed and addicted to their public Health. And addicted to their publish buttons. For Posse to Work will basically take a complete reinvention of the internet. From the blogging software to the social networks to like literally the GoDaddy interface, all of it is going to have to change in order for this to work in big, meaningful internet shaping Ways. If all of that does happen, and again I'm hopeful but skeptical that it will happen, it won't happen fast or soon. Even in 2012 when the indie web community was first talking about Posse, the web was a more open and less commercialized place than it is now. Now I mean you know what it's like to be online, it's just commerce everywhere. So stay tuned on Posse and pesos. But here is my one piece of very specific advice for right now. Buy a domain name. If you don't already have one, buy one that feels like it could be your internet home. (Time 0:26:55)
• The Importance of Buying a Domain Name for Your Internet Presence
  Key takeaways:
  • Even in 2012, the web was a more open and less commercialized place than it is now.
  • Buy a domain name to establish your internet presence.
  • A domain will become a signal of ownership on the internet.
  • The podcast is produced by Andrew Marino and Liam James.
  • The podcast is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
    Transcript:
    Speaker 1
    Even in 2012 when the indie web community was first talking about Posse, the web was a more open and less commercialized place than it is now. Now I mean you know what it's like to be online, it's just commerce everywhere. So stay tuned on Posse and pesos. But here is my one piece of very specific advice for right now. Buy a domain name. If you don't already have one, buy one that feels like it could be your internet home. Your username, your blog, your archive, your publish button, your everything. Personally I bought DavidPierce.xyz a while ago for this exact purpose. But I'm looking at it now and I could be DavidPierce.social, DavidPierce.guitars, DavidPierce.bingo, which actually rules DavidPierce.golf, DavidPierce.apartments and so Many other things. Get a domain and get ready for the future when that domain is like your phone number or your email address or your username that it is the signal of the part of the internet that actually Belongs to you. I don't know how long it's going to take for it to be like that, but I think it's going to be great. Alright, that's it for the VergeCast today. Thank you so much to everyone who is on the show and thank you as always for listening. This show is produced by Andrew Marino and Liam James. The VergeCast is Verge Production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. We'll be back with episodes on Wednesday and Friday. There's still tons of news to cover this week from yet another Netflix price hike to Cybertruck ship dates to Mario games and lots more. (Time 0:27:53)