http://simonwillison.net/2025-04-21T18:48:18+00:00Simon Willison2025-04-21T18:48:18+00:002025-04-21T18:48:18+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/21/decentralizing-schemes/#atom-tag

<p><strong><a href="https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2025/04/16/Decentralized-Schemes">Decentralizing Schemes</a></strong></p> Tim Bray discusses the challenges faced by decentralized Mastodon in that shared URLs to posts don't take into account people accessing Mastodon via their own instances, which breaks replies/likes/shares etc unless you further copy and paste URLs around yourself.</p> <p>Tim proposes that the answer is URIs: a registered <code>fedi://mastodon.cloud/@timbray/109508984818551909</code> scheme could allow Fediverse-aware software to step in and handle those URIs, similar to how <code>mailto:</code> works.</p> <p>Bluesky have <a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes/uri-schemes.xhtml">registered</a> <code>at:</code> already, and there's also a <code>web+ap:</code> prefix registered with the intent of covering ActivityPub, the protocol used by Mastodon. <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/decentralisation">decentralisation</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/social-media">social-media</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/tim-bray">tim-bray</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/urls">urls</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/mastodon">mastodon</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/bluesky">bluesky</a></p>

2023-05-01T17:44:48+00:002023-05-01T17:44:48+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2023/May/1/a-new-onboarding-experience-on-mastodon/#atom-tag

<p><strong><a href="https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/05/a-new-onboarding-experience-on-mastodon/">A new onboarding experience on Mastodon</a></strong></p> Reassuring to see this commitment to resolving some of the biggest pain points preventing people from adopting Mastodon, especially given it has meaningful competition as a federated social network in the form of Bluesky now. <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/decentralisation">decentralisation</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/mastodon">mastodon</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/bluesky">bluesky</a></p>

2019-01-18T06:55:58+00:002019-01-18T06:55:58+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2019/Jan/18/ben-evans/#atom-tag

<blockquote cite="https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2019/1/16/5g-if-you-build-it-we-will-fill-it"><p>[On 5G] This is the great thing about the decentralized, permissionless innovation of the internet - telcos don’t need to decide in advance what the use cases are, any more than Intel had to decide what the use cases for faster CPUs would be.</p></blockquote> <p class="cite">&mdash; <a href="https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2019/1/16/5g-if-you-build-it-we-will-fill-it">Benedict Evans</a></p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/decentralisation">decentralisation</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/internet">internet</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/benedict-evans">benedict-evans</a></p>

2010-09-16T11:07:00+00:002010-09-16T11:07:00+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2010/Sep/16/alex/#atom-tag

<blockquote cite="http://al3x.net/2010/09/15/last-thing-about-twitter.html"><p>While I don’t expect Twitter to master its own destiny as far as the decentralization of the medium goes, I do support the idea, and I hope that Twitter as a business can coexist with the need for the world to have a free, open, reliable, and verifiable way for humans to instantly communicate in a one-to-many fashion.</p></blockquote> <p class="cite">&mdash; <a href="http://al3x.net/2010/09/15/last-thing-about-twitter.html">Alex Payne</a></p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/alex-payne">alex-payne</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/decentralisation">decentralisation</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/twitter">twitter</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/recovered">recovered</a></p>

2008-07-20T09:00:03+00:002008-07-20T09:00:03+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2008/Jul/20/danny/#atom-tag

<blockquote cite="http://www.oblomovka.com/entries/2008/07/16#1216246380"><p>If we want people to have the same degree of user autonomy as we've come to expect from the world, we may have to sit down and code alternatives to Google Docs, Twitter, and EC2 that can live with us on the edge, not be run by third parties.</p></blockquote> <p class="cite">&mdash; <a href="http://www.oblomovka.com/entries/2008/07/16#1216246380">Danny O&#x27;Brien</a></p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/danny-obrien">danny-obrien</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/decentralisation">decentralisation</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/ec2">ec2</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/google-docs">google-docs</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/twitter">twitter</a></p>