Mastodon: A new Love
I became part of the Fediverse over four years ago, but it’s only been in the last year or so that I’ve really grown to love it and use it almost daily.
In 2009, I became part of Twitter. Sometime in June, I finally managed to click my way into an account. I have to admit, I didn't really understood this new medium at the time. And it took a few weeks until it worked for me. And from that moment on it turned into an addiction. Without any idea from where this special feeling came from, I suffered from FOMO after several days of abstinence. But it was great. Everything was still fresh and the stories were pouring in. I was one of the first to notice "Collateral Murder". Simply because it made the rounds there first. In general, I remember that year (2010) as a "Wikileaks year".
Twitter has been the source of almost every project I've been involved with in my 8 years of freelancing. I basically didn't have to do anything more than to broadcast that I was looking. The projects came to me. I made a lot of contacts, mainly in the professional environment.
But over the years, the mood there has gradually changed. More and more "neckties" as well as marketing and advertising buzzards pitched up here, spread their legs and "claimed turf". The tone became rougher and... well, you know that.
Then, four years ago, Mastodon came to my attention. My first reaction:
What a stupid name is that?
Well-functioning mobile and desktop clients were still very thin on the ground, and frankly, non-existent. The interface felt a bit weird to me as a die-hard Twitter junkie initially. But I liked it here. So I stayed.
And today I read a toot from @DerWagrier where he wrote something about groups on Mastodon (German) that you can follow. What a great thing! I had never heard of it before.
I like the idea so much (many greetings to the unknown developer), so I also created a new group myself with the name @Swift. As it should be, this is all about Swift/SwiftUI development. At the time of writing this article, I seem to be the only follower. But it's not like I'm inexperienced when it comes to talking to myself.... 😂
Mastodon is something of a feel-good place for me at the moment. I really hope it will stay that way for a very long time. But the fact that it's not a profit-oriented company, but a federated network driven by private individuals, seems to strongly support all of that. 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼