It is Thursday. I have had to remind myself of that multiple times already this morning. Work/Holiday/Work/PTO has scrambled my internal calendar, to be sure.

Speaking of PTO, I got through yesterday without telling anyone off and getting fired! Go me!

And my god, the social media wars… I don’t know about y’all, but I am getting overwhelmed with all this – and yet, in the past week, I’ve signed up for BlueSky and Threads, if for no other reason than to see what’s what and preserve my username. (Gotta protect my brand, LMAO.) I cannot even imagine the current hell for social media managers.

So, by my count, we’ve got 3 pseudo-Twitters out there in the running now. (I know there are more, but these are the big three that seem to have real traction.)

Mastodon – Love the decentralization, moderation has been good at least in my experience and I’m on one of the larger servers (I know that seems to vary wildly,) familiar mechanics once you’re signed up. Downside – folks have a hard time finding a server and finding their people.

BlueSky – Got an invite last week and went ahead with signing up, though I’m not thrilled about ownership by any stretch. Pros are familiar mechanics, found Twitter folks real quick, easy to sign up – IF you can get an invite code. Can’t speak to moderation.

Threads – This could be the Twitter killer, but they need to do a few more things. This definitely feels like “Twitter is on the ground and bleeding out, what can we get out the door this sprint that actually functions?” Again, the mechanics are very familiar, and signup is super easy – BBC was just saying they had 11 million signups in the first 7 hours. If you have signed up, you’ve seen it’s pure chaos right now and folks definitely want a viable Twitter alternative. Big downside is it’s fucking Meta, but at least you know they have enough engineers actually working on it. If they can do the following in short order, this could end Twitter:

• Boot the Nazis. They’re already there, get rid of them immediately.
• A chronological/following tab. They’ve said this is on the way. Folks don’t like the home feed with a bunch folks they don’t follow in it. I get why the home tab is the way it is, it theoretically helps you find new folks to follow, but it’s just too fucking chaotic for me.
• Federation. They’ve also said this is on the way, and from what I understand, they’re going to use the ActivityPub protocol, which means theoretically, I could find all my Twitter folks on Threads and then follow them from my Mastodon account. That would fucking rock. (BlueSky is supposedly going to federate as well, but they’re going to use Authentication Transport, and I suspect Twitter will use AT as well if they ever federate.)
• Open up to the EU – fix whatever GDPR issues you’ve got straightaway (which I’m betting has something to do with the fact that they track WAY too much) – it’s better for all your users in general.
• DM’s. I don’t really need them, but folks are absolutely clamoring for them, and I’m surprised they’re not there yet.

If they can do this – and we know they have the engineering staff, if not the will – it could be the final death blow to Twitter. And put a hurt on BlueSky as well – why wait for an invite code when Threads is right there and open to all?

I don’t think this hurts all the various and sundry Mastodon instances at all – they’re over there happily doing their thing and doing a pretty good job of scaling up every time Twitter has a crash, and if Threads federates, great, if not, who cares?

And I’m enjoying the fact that this has GOT to have Musk freaking the fuck out. Nothing like basically setting $44 billion on fire and having everyone laugh at you while it happens.

And on that note, I have to remove myself from social media and go do a metric fuckton of laundry.

You have a fantastic Thursday!