People are concerned that Bluesky is so small. I'm not, I like that it's small, and I also like that there are no peers yet. #
Some part of me thinks the future of social networks is small, that we've seen how unwieldy they can be when they grow too huge. #
I also think we have to work on a cross-platform API like the one we had with blogging. It didn't take long to create, and it was supported everywhere. WordPress still supports the API. #
The idea of every social network having their own API is workable if and only if we can put a layer on top of them that makes it possible to communicate with all. It'd be analogous to TCP/IP and the start of the internet. Peering is everything and then data formats. We have good prior art for that too. #
All we're waiting for is people to work together. It doesn't have to be everyone, just people who want to build something bigger than one particular brand of social network.#
Last update: Wednesday June 28, 2023; 10:10 AM EDT.
You know those obnoxious sites that pop up dialogs when they think you're about to leave, asking you to subscribe to their email newsletter? Well that won't do for Scripting News readers who are a discerning lot, very loyal, but that wouldn't last long if I did rude stuff like that. So here I am at the bottom of the page quietly encouraging you to sign up for the nightly email. It's got everything from the previous day on Scripting, plus the contents of the linkblog and who knows what else we'll get in there. People really love it. I wish I had done it sooner. And every email has an unsub link so if you want to get out, you can, easily -- no questions asked, and no follow-ups. Go ahead and do it, you won't be sorry! :-)