I’ve explored a few platforms within the Fediverse, but most of them seem to be inspired by and mimic existing mainstream social media platforms like Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook. While this familiarity can be comforting, I can’t help but wonder if there are any truly innovative and original platforms out there that offer a unique experience.

What makes them unique? How do they reimagine the social media experience?

  • ElectroVagrant@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    2 months ago

    At a glance, Misskey and associated forks may appear to be Twitter-clones, but dig a little more and you’ll find they’re a lot more, for better and worse.

    The interface is highly customizable, not just with some different colored themes nor a multi-column interface, but that you can stack page elements in columns and set up “antennae” or filters to surface posts including specified keywords and/or hashtags while excluding others via keywords/hashtags as well. There’s also what they call “channels” which I think are sort of like groups or dedicated topics apart from hashtags to post to and discuss whatever the channel topic is.

    Oh, and because it seems *key wants to have a little of everything, there’s Pages, which is basically longform blog posting, and some versions include simple games. There’s also options for some other widgets I’ve not mentioned here. It’s genuinely pretty wild compared to the other federated microblogging services with how much flexibility it has and all that it has packed in.

    I think the only other federated service I’ve found that’s comparable in flexibility may be Hubzilla, albeit I got the impression it’s less user friendly, but still, very customizable and a lot you could do with it.

  • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
    6·
    2 months ago

    i think this misses the point of the fediverse… we need to supplant those giant 3rd parties with something less corporate, more co-op.

    sure, we can extend functionality and do cool new things while thats happening, but that migration is a big part of the fediverse movement. it needs to be somewhat familiar to those users migrating.

    • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      2 months ago

      Indeed, that’s an excellent point. Additionally, the fediverse is already an innovation in and of itself.

      Yeah most fediverse projects mimic Twitter, reddit, etc. But they all add the key innovation of federation. Just by conforming to ActivityPub, each fediverse project features a key innovation in its respective niche.

      I think part of the reason this doesn’t seem as impactful as it could is because federation is still very rudimentary. We are only scratching the surface of the potential that federation theoretically provides. It’s a feature/innovation that becomes more useful the larger the network grows, and the fediverse isn’t large enough yet for that to become apparent.

  • Veloxization@yiffit.netEnglish
    5·
    2 months ago

    Owncast is rather interesting to me. Self-hosted streaming platform that can use the ActivityPub to publish streaming notifications, if desired.

    • ozoned@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      I stream on Owncast and really enjoy it. One of the easiest installations I’ve ever had with software. And despite what lots of folks think you don’t need a million dollars to stream to groups of folks.

      Full disclosure I run the [email protected] community and actively promote it on Matrix if anyone is interested or need help. :-D

  • Asudox@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    I will try and make a federated anime tracking website in summer. Not sure if that is unique though.

      • Asudox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Reviews and the forums is my idea. Basically, every anime, manga, etc. will have its own community and the reviews and forum threads will be a new post. I also want to include VN tracking in it if I can find a source for it, unlike MAL.

    • Fizz@lemmy.nzEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      This looks so interesting but after reading the homepage I still have no idea what it is. Is it like chatrooms?

  • Handles@leminal.spaceEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    I think the open data projects have a fair potential for innovation. They need some kind of backbone for permanence which would need widespread federation, but they’re a conceptually interesting addition to the Fediverse.

    Edit: spelling (“to”, not “YO!”)

  • kernelle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    I think social media is a solved problem at this point, you’ll need something radical or game changing to actually break through in this market. Combined with the fact that the fediverse is inherently much more difficult to monetize I don’t see many companies taking on that challenge.

    FOSS projects might though, but they tend to grow too slow to be disruptive.

    • kbal@fedia.io
      2·
      2 months ago

      If you’re thinking of it in market terms, then it being a “solved problem” should mean that it’s effectively a commodity and nothing radical or game-changing is needed at all to eventually break the monopolies and win all the market share. All that’s needed is to offer the same old thing at a slightly lower price, and wait for people to catch on.

      But I disagree; there are plenty of unsolved problems.

  • maegul@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    If Ghost fulfil their wish to get payments and subscriptions working over the protocol then that would count. They said they think they can in their recent announcement. But then it seems they may have crypto in mind for it.