Change is hard. So is moving, be it across the hall or to a new social network.
If you follow me, you know I’ve been a big Twitter user since January 2007 and I’ve accumulated over 136,000 “tweets”. This month, I decided a change was needed. Here are my reasons:
The Bad News
- The toxicity levels shot up ever since Donny became President.
- Everyone reposting the toxicity.
- The bots (pretty obvious if you know what to look for) injecting more toxicity.
- The resultant “doom scrolling”, in my case to find the good things hidden among everything else.
- The concurrent rise in what I call Twitter spam.
- “Promoted” spam.
- Ad spam.
- “You should follow” spam
- Injected spam
- spam that occurs at specific spots in your timeline, e.g., the 2nd tweet is always spam.
- Everyone, including individuals to spam their wares, art, music, books, etc.
- Elon, for various reasons, made me hit the button.
This month, I decided I’d had enough. I have more important things to do with my life than be the “eyes to sell to”.
The Good News: Micro.blog
I had an account on Micro.blog (https://micro.blog), but hadn’t used it. I started hanging out on there and discovered a small-ish, friendly environment. Micro.blog is a blogging platform with a social component, and vice versa. It’s very conversation-based. It has a Bird-like timeline, but it has differences which differentiate it.
Micro.blog micro.blog/pricing :
- Allows for longer posts. This is ideal as a secondary blogging platform.
- Their UI is straightforward, although their documentation is lacking in a couple of places.
- They have a simple API for developers (unlike the weirdness of Bird).
- There are no ads, promoted, or other junk.
- There is a reasonable pricing structure.
- Great help and support team.
- Some good apps are available.
- Lots of features I’m sure I don’t know about or discovered.
- It can cross-post, that is when you post to Micro.blog, they can forward the post to Bird, and other places. Be aware, there is a minor, albeit annoying, bug in cross-posting.
The ability to cross-post solved my first problem; how was I to keep in touch with my followers on Bird? I moved to Micro.blog. Everything I post now shows up on Micro.blog as well as Bird.
If you blog, or would just like to post longer than on Bird, consider Micro.blog
The Bad News: Micro.blog
Most of the people I follow on Bird haven’t heard or tried Micro.blog. Most of the people I follow on Bird are iOS devs, authors, and some fun/science streams, and long-time Bird users. I didn’t want to lose touch with them. So, I had to look for a solution. This is where I found Mastodon.
Mastodon
You may have heard of Mastodon (not MastAdon. That second ‘o’ messes people up, I find.) Mastodon is part of something known as the fediverse. I won’t go into what that is, apart from saying, it’s a distributed (lots of servers, mostly all independent) environment. What you post on one server shows up on all the others, and therefore you have a unified stream. The reason I like Mastodon is that it has a ton of users. And since the ongoing, as of 11/2022, implosion of Bird, many people are moving to Mastodon. I’ve found a lot of the people I follow and am interested in keeping in touch, were, or are already there.
Remember Micro.blog and cross-posting? Well, it can cross-post to Mastodon. Problem solved.
The Good News: Mastodon Mastodon: joinmastodon.org/servers
- Lots of users and activity.
- There are servers around given topics or user types.
- I’m on writing.exchange, since I’m focused on writing. I used to be on mastodon.technology, but that’s shutting down. Find one that works for you.
- Various apps.
- Standards-based API
- You can run your own Mastodon server, even on a Raspberry Pi.
- No ads.
- Accepted behavior standards. Everyone agrees to “play nice”.
- They have “verified” accounts. Well, sort of.
- There’s a tool that lets you find your Bird friends on Mastodon: fedifinder.glitch.me
- It’s free.
The Bad News: Mastodon
- The idea of the fediverse may confuse some.
- The UI can be confusing to some.
- You need to use the proper format user name depending on what you are trying to accomplish:
- A user name has the format @name@server.name
- Use the full name to search for users across the fediverse
- Use just @name to search your local server.
- The documentation is, eh?
- Lots more people means you get lots more chance to run into someone that causes problems.
Which One?
- If you want to blog occasionally, want a nice comfortable, friendly place to hang out, go for Micro.blog.
- If you want more activity, to follow people who may be from Bird, go for Mastodon.
Don’t forget cross-posting. I don’t know if Mastodon allows it, I haven’t checked.
What to Watch Out For:
If you expect to move, don’t expect the new place to be like Bird, in UI, content, or acceptable behavior. Play by the rules of the site you are on. Don’t make it another Bird just because you’re comfortable with that.
Expect to spend some time figuring things out. Before you move to a new house, check out the neighborhood, the school, and the people you’ll be living next to.
Don’t confuse the tool (the app you use) with the service. Apps are usually third-party. Choose the paint color for your house appropriately.
Don’t go into Micro.blog or Mastodon hoping to freely promote/spam the stuff you want to sell. These are social networks, not marketing networks, which Bird is.
The bottom line: Don’t be an idiot, unless you want to be treated as such.
What You’ll Find:
- Friendly people (your mileage may vary)
- No doom scrolling, unless you search for things to worry/complain about.
- No spam, ads, blatant marketing.
- Activity
- Your friends
- New friends
Summary:
So, I’ve pulled the plug on Bird. I’ve pruned my Following list down to 120, down from over 300. The ones that are left aren’t on any other site as of now, and I’m trying to push them somewhere else, so I can stay in touch. I have a “skeleton crew” on Bird. That is, I check the site once or twice a day, to check what remains of those I follow and reply as needed. Every other post is coming from Micro.blog.
If you want help moving, or have questions, ask me. I’ll help if I can.
Twitter was great, and I thought breaking away would be more difficult than it was. But, it’s not the site it was meant to be. Also because the people I follow are mostly either are or moving to Micro.blog and Mastodon, made the switch easier.
If you’re on the fence about pulling the plug on Twitter, remember that the people you interact with in a positive way are more important than the platform they are on.
Yes, change is hard. But like going to the dentist, the anxiety is always worse than the actuality.
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