Summarizing the last 18 years on the web. Between Twitter and Google Reader, the web was cut into two, and they didn't get along. We may now be on the cusp of fixing that. Why? Because WordPress and Mastodon work with each other in unforeseen ways. We got lucky, because I don't think this was done consciously by the developers of either product.#
- I have a morning ritual which begins with breakfast and iced coffee, and my laptop, on the kitchen table, to review the news, sports, whatever. Write a few tweets or share a few links. Usually with WNYC playing in the background until I find something I want to read carefully, then I shout at Alexa to go away. When done, I head upstairs where the work begins, often with a blog post, as I'm writing now, and sometimes with a bit of code, but that usually waits until my brain is warmed up. #
- But today I had a different assignment. Instead of tweeting, I wrote a few wordpress/mastodon posts, a new hybrid, a medium that I may well be the first person to explore, to do actual writing in. #
I have a writing tool I call wordLand, it connects directly to WordPress, and from there, one of my sites is hooked up to Mastodon via ActivityPub. I choose to view it that way, to keep from going crazy. I know that it's hooked up to the "fediverse" -- meaning my writing can be viewed by any other app that supports the protocol Masotodon supports which is kind of ActivityPub+ -- where the + is the Mastodon API. Not sure what the ratios are, and I don't care. In this context I am a user, and happy to be that. The developers at Automattic are taking care of the technical details. #- Here's the conclusion that appeared in one of the posts I wrote in my kitchen this morning -- "I am more excited about the web than I have been in a lonnnnng time." I am. I explained why in one of my posts, but it comes down to this. I have most of the features I asked for in textcasting (!) and I am typing in a respectable editing window, where I retain copies of my writing, and there's no freaking tiny little text box. And because I'm hooking in through a protocol (here's the punchline) this writing can go anywhere. Anywhere. Let me say that again. Any. Where. #
- Like I said the other day, I doubt if Automattic knows what they have. I seriously doubt it. But in a few years, we're going to look back on this as the moment when Twitter stopped controlling our writing, as they have since 2006. #
- No more character limits. Posts can have titles, or not. We can use links, as many as we like. Styling works. We can edit our posts. And the really big payoff, I can use a writing tool I love and you can use a tool you love and they work together perfectly well. And if one day you feel like using mine, and I feel like using yours, it just works. So in one step, we turn the clock back to 1994, when the web had all the features a writer could want.#
- Links to the stories I wrote earlier, on Mastodon:#
- My new writing environment does textcasting.#
- I have bad luck hooking up to platforms.#
- A place for a 90s blogosperic reboot.#
- WordPress versions are linked to from the Mastodon posts. #
- Enter this in the address box: @daveverse.wordpress.com to follow this blog in Mastodon.#