Lessons on the Road to Reviving Journalism via the Fediverse
Learn from two publishers experimenting with decentralized social media.
As the fediverse continues to grow and evolve, publishers are setting up shop in this new ecosystem. Some outlets have a fediverse strategy that complements their continued activity on traditional social media channels. Others have chosen to abandon traditional channels entirely in order to build a presence that’s more aligned with their values on the open social web.
Another route is through Flipboard: by federating publishers’ Flipboard profiles and Magazines, we’re allowing organizations to distribute their stories to the fediverse with no extra effort.
As the quip goes, there are many ways to skin a cat. (Is that even OK to say anymore?!)
Net-net, there’s a new playbook being written right now when it comes to the future of social media. The early-mover advantage is still in effect, and there’s a lot to figure out. Gone are opaque algorithms and the whims of any single company. The fediverse represents a chance for quality journalism to shine again.
We talked to two people at fedi-forward publications, Joel Abrams at The Conversation U.S. and Jason Koebler at 404 Media, to learn why they’re here, what they’ve learned so far, and their advice for other publishers just getting started. Here’s what they said.
Why it’s worth their time
❤️ Audience loyalty
“Our followers in the fediverse seem a lot more loyal than they do on other platforms. Part of that is because the people who have actively chosen to go on to the fediverse and participate in it feel very strongly. They’re hungry for news. They’re hungry for reported pieces and things like that. They’re hungry to have thriving alternatives to social media.” — JK
⏰ Early-mover advantage
“We’re a nonprofit organization without the money to boost posts on social platforms. So we’re trying to be creative in finding new opportunities to reach people.” — JA
🔓 Open culture
“The open culture of the fediverse meshes well with the open culture of The Conversation — for instance, we give away all of our articles under Creative Commons to anyone who wants to use them [Globally, The Conversation is the largest publisher of Creative Commons-licensed journalism].” — JA
⚡️ Cultural alignment
“Mastodon is a more technical audience that cares a lot about open source, is pretty skeptical of AI, of Big Tech, and is really looking for alternatives. And so when we write about those themes, we get the sense that probably those will do better in the fediverse … I get feedback from people and make sure I’m answering their questions or amplifying their points.” — JK
☀️ Algorithm-free zone
“Mastodon feels like a more classic social media experience that I’ve used, where it’s a reverse chronological feed. It’s like we share something, other people see it and share it.” — JK
👩💻 Better engagement
“We generally receive far more engagement (and probably reach) on Mastodon than we receive these days on Facebook or X/Twitter. Trending on Mastodon is by local server, but on our server newsie.social (which admittedly) has a community that is interested in journalism, we’ve had a couple of posts that were trending above George Takei. That would never happen on X.” — JA
🗣 Quality conversation
“The quality of replies is higher — there’s more of an emphasis on thoughtful replies (and more space for it than on X) and less on snarky cleverness. I can count on one hand the number of times replies were uncivil. And I reported those people. When we make a mistake or violate a norm, people are polite about pointing it out. And I love that I can correct the post in that case!” — JA
🚗 Audience portability
“I spent 15 years building a following on Twitter. I guess I knew this, but I don’t own those followers. When X is destroyed by Elon Musk, all of that time has more or less been wasted. A really compelling aspect of the fediverse is the portability of it. If something weird goes down somewhere in the fediverse, we can move those followers to another [open] platform.” — JK
✍️ Publish once, distribute everywhere
“We want people to read what we’re publishing to our website, but there’s only so many different ways of sharing the idea and tailoring that post to 10 different platforms … It’s exhausting. It would be very nice to be able to post once in the fediverse and have that go out to all the different [ActivityPub-powered] places that people are. We’re seeing that working [with Mastodon as our client].” — JK
Advice for newbies
#️⃣ Importance of hashtags and groups
“One of the things that was not immediately evident to me was the importance of hashtags and groups. In the absence of algorithms, they are a key way for people to discover content of interest.” — JA
📚 Use your Flipboard Magazines as an organizing tool
“I love that Flipboard parses out our sections to create separate accounts; years ago, we experimented with topical social media accounts but had to abandon them, as we just didn’t have the bandwidth to keep them up. But I believe that there are a substantial number of people who are interested in science but not politics, or politics but not science, and having those separate Flipboard Magazines (and separate federated accounts) gives those people the ability to follow just the content they are interested in.” — JA
🌲 Revive evergreen content
“The other thing I do much more on Flipboard (and the federated account) than on other social platforms is that on weekends I will bring back evergreen content and stories that didn’t find an audience the first time around — as well as stories that people enjoyed the first time around.” — JA
💌 Build an audience for yourself too
“I spent 10 years working for Vice — it was nice, they treated me well and I’m proud of what I did there. At the same time, I didn’t own anything that I did for Vice. They own the copyright to everything that I ever did. We’re seeing a world where journalists are losing their jobs left and right. They don’t own the work that they are creating. Many journalists are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of distribution, and at some point, they can get fired. I wish I had owned my stuff for all of these years that I worked on it…I would recommend that people build audiences that they can take with them, whether that is in the fediverse or using a technology like email.” — JK
You can follow The Conversation US in the fediverse at @TheConversationUS@newsie.social. Their Flipboard federated account is @ConversationUS@flipboard.com < — this is where you can see what The Conversation is curating on Flipboard, in the fediverse.
404 Media is at @404mediaco@mastodon.social and/or @404media@flipboard.com for their Flipboard curation.
Are you working at or for a publisher who’s having fediverse success, or would you call yourself a fedi-skeptic? We’d like to hear your opinion, even if it’s not a positive one.
We’re all still learning here, and only by hearing from you will we understand what’s actually going to be in this “playbook.” Please comment and share if you feel so moved.
To learn more about the fediverse from the leaders shaping its future, check out Mike McCue’s podcast, “Dot Social.”
To learn about what Flipboard’s up to in the fediverse, sign up here.
