Connected Places is about understanding the vague group of social networks. The protocols are open and they interact with each other, and are not centralize owned and governed.
I care so much about social networks is because I view social networks as collective sense-making tools. And different social networks have different views
Welcome to Connected Places, a place for news and analysis about the new generation of social networks, build on open protocols, such as Bluesky and the fediverse. The site is named Connected Places, because that is what the technology that powers these networks does: it builds digital places that connect people. The internet as used by the majority of people consists of some dozen places, big platforms with millions or billions or so users. TikTok, Instagram and Facebook have become household names. These platforms are siloed places, with little to no connectivity between, often described as walled gardens. Within the […]
In decentralised social networks, many terms can be confusing for people. Some words are technical and difficult to understand. People new to this technology often get lost in the special vocabulary. This glossary provides simple explanations to help you understand these concepts better ActivityPub – the open internet protocol that powers most of the fediverse. Fediverse – name given to the network that is mostly powered by ActivityPub. Mainly used to describe the network that consists of servers running software like Mastodon, PeerTube, Lemmy and much more. AT Protocol – The open internet protocol that powers Bluesky and other applications […]
Fediverse Report is a blog about federation, it is right there in the name. I say that I write about decentralized social networks. But why do I care about the concepts of decentralization and federation? What do they even mean? There are two different approaches to looking at the value of this new generation of social network: the individual perspective and the governance perspective: Individual The individual perspective on social networks is about user agency. Gordon Brander wrote a blog about ‘a minimal definition of user agency’. Brander says that for a person to have agency in a network, they […]