Federated Mind

An antique quill and inkwell against a vibrant multicolor cosmic backdrop, with constellation lines connecting points of light

The Written Fediverse: Where the Words Live

Ghost, WriteFreely, Micro.blog, Plume, WordPress, and Flipboard didn't all arrive at federation the same way. Some built it in from the first commit. Some bridged it onto a product that already existed. Federation decides how far the writing travels.

A vintage camera and ornate photo frame floating in a dark void, surrounded by dozens of photographs scattering outward in every direction, connected by faint network lines

The Visual Fediverse: Where Photos and Videos Live Outside the Algorithm

Pixelfed, Loops, PeerTube, and a Flickr that never quite federated. The visual fediverse isn't one Instagram clone. It's an ecosystem where your photos and videos live on infrastructure you control, federate by default, and no algorithm decides who sees them.

A bioluminescent deep-sea reef where different glowing organisms represent fediverse platforms all connected by light filaments running through a shared seafloor substrate

The Rest of the Ecosystem: Misskey, Pleroma, Friendica & more

Mastodon is the platform most people land on but it's not the only thing growing on the reef. Misskey built an expression-first culture. Friendica has been bridging networks since 2010. GoToSocial made the personal instance practical. In this post we cover all these and more.

Three glowing network nodes connected by light bridges, symbolizing cross-protocol federation across the open social web.

The Federation Across Networks mini series is complete. Here's everything.

Three posts on how Bluesky, Threads, and Nostr connect to the fediverse, and what each reveals about the limits of cross-protocol federation.

Three protocol logos — ActivityPub, AT Protocol (Bluesky), and Nostr — arranged over a dark network graph visualization.

Nostr and the Protocol Bridges

Part 3 of Federation Across Networks. Part 1 covered Bridgy Fed and AT Protocol. Part 2 covered Threads' entry into the Fediverse. This series sits inside the broader Exploring the Fediverse umbrella.

Feature image: painterly illustration of a glowing gateway between the fediverse and Meta's world, with a Mastodon elephant at the threshold. Generated using Higgsfield AI (Nano Banana).

Threads Entered the Fediverse (With Caveats)

Part 2 of Federation Across Networks. Part 1 covered Bridgy Fed, the bridge connecting ActivityPub and AT Protocol. This series sits inside the broader Exploring the Fediverse umbrella.

Data flowing from the left side depicted in blue with a blue butterfly depicting Bluesky traffic flowing into a glowing orb in the middle. On the right side is data depicted in purple along w

The Bridge to Bluesky: What Happens When Two Protocols Try to Talk

Part 1 of the "Federation Across Networks" mini-series - a continuation of the "Exploring the Fediverse" umbrella series.

The Exploring Mastodon mini series is complete. Here's everything.

Four posts on how the open social web works - from federation basics to server governance. Also out: free ebook + 57-min audiobook.

Governance Is the New Differentiator: AI Policy, Moderation, and the Truth Social Cautionary Tale

Part 3 of Exploring Mastodon - the final post in this mini-series. Part 1 maps the AI policy spectrum. Part 2 covers the communities that give the network its texture. This post is the governance layer underneath both.

World map showing regional and language Mastodon instances — sfba.social, mastodon.scot, mstdn.jp, mastodon.uno, and others — pinned to their geographic locations.

Place, Language, and Craft: The Communities That Give Mastodon Its Texture

Part 2 of Exploring Mastodon, a three-part mini-series inside the broader Exploring the Fediverse series. If you're new here, Part 1 covers the overall shape of the network: how instances work, why donation economics matter, and what AI policy reveals about a community's values.

Mastodon Isn't One Place — It's a Constellation of Communities

Part 1 of Exploring Mastodon, a three-part mini-series inside the broader Exploring the Fediverse series. Mastodon is just a constellation of communities sharing one open protocol - to choose your home, pick a neighborhood.

A glowing serpent curled in an ouroboros — the ancient symbol of a snake consuming its own tail — rendered against a dark navy background with flowing data streams in cyan and green.

The Reason AI Makes the Open Web More Necessary — and Easier to Build On

AI is flooding mainstream platforms with synthetic content while simultaneously making self-hosted, creator-owned infrastructure easier to run than ever. That's not a coincidence. It's an opportunity.

AI tools, open protocols, and creator-owned publishing — practical guides for building on the open web.

Latest