MacStories Is on Bluesky

By John Voorhees

It’s been another busy year for social networks. It seems more recent, but it was nearly a year ago that Threads became available in the EU and we introduced readers to the MacStories team there.

Now, Bluesky has taken off, with many MacStories readers moving their social media lives there or splitting their time between multiple services. So today, we wanted to let readers know where they can find all of us on Bluesky.

Our [MacStories Starter Pack](https://go.bsky.app/MSyjAAg) includes the accounts for the site, podcasts, writers, and hosts.

Our MacStories Starter Pack includes the accounts for the site, podcasts, writers, and hosts.

MacStories and each of our six podcasts have brand-new official accounts on Bluesky, and you can find each of our writers and podcasters there, too. Best of all, it’s easy to find us using the MacStories Starter Pack, which will take you to a list of every account. From there, you can follow all of the accounts at once or pick and choose among them; you can also browse a timeline of all of our posts.

The MacStories.net Starter Pack: go.bsky.app/MSyjAAg

[image or embed]

— MacStories (@macstories.net) November 16, 2024 at 8:22 PM

Now, I know some of our readers don’t like Bluesky and may be concerned that we’re dumping Mastodon to chase the latest social media trend. We’re not. If anything, in the eleven months since MacStories became active on Threads, we’ve been even more active on Mastodon. So there’s no need for concern.

We’re splitting our attention across three social media platforms, which in some respects isn’t ideal, but that’s simply what social media has become in 2024. And while each of us has our own preferences among the latest crop of social networks, our goal as a team is to reach as much of the MacStories audience – and potential MacStories audience – as possible. So we’re not leaving Mastodon, or anywhere else for that matter.

If you follow MacStories on Mastodon or Threads, you already have a pretty good idea of what to expect on Bluesky. We’ll be posting links to the stories we publish and what’s going on with Club MacStories, as well as highlights of other things the team is doing. The podcast accounts will be posting links to the latest episodes and whatever else the hosts of those shows want to share with their listeners. You’ll also find the entire MacStories team on Bluesky, each doing their own thing.

It’s worth noting that we’re expanding our podcast presence on Threads, too. AppStories is already up and running there, as well as on Instagram, and you can expect to see other shows pop up there in the near future.

Thanks as always for reading MacStories.net, joining the Club, and listening to our podcasts. It means a lot to all of us here, and with the addition of Bluesky, we hope that even more people who enjoy what we do now have a way to keep up with us.

Croissant: A Beautifully-Designed App for Cross-Posting to Multiple Social Media Accounts

By John Voorhees

Social media has splintered across multiple services since the decline of Twitter. I’ve always managed a lot of social media accounts between my own and ones for MacStories, but today the situation is worse than ever. There have always been services like Buffer that make it easier to juggle multiple accounts and services, but they are more expensive than most indie developers, artists, websites, and other creators can afford and offer more features than most need.

That’s where Croissant comes in. It’s a new iPhone app from Ben McCarthy and Aaron Vegh that simplifies cross-posting to Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads at an indie-friendly price. The app doesn’t try to replicate the many features you’ll find in services like Buffer. Instead, it’s focused on making it easier for indie creators or anyone with multiple social accounts to post on multiple platforms at once.

Croissant’s tint color, app icon, and posting button icon are all customizable.

I’ve been testing Croissant over the past week, connecting it to two Bluesky accounts, two Threads accounts, and five Mastodon accounts, and I’ve been loving it. First off, the design is top-tier, as you’d expect from one of Ben’s apps. The UI’s focus is on drafting your posts, and it’s accented with a deep yellow/orange hue that I love. However, the app offers seven other color options to choose from. There are also a total of seven app icon options and three icons to pick from for the button that publishes a post.

Managing accounts in Croissant.

If you have a lot of accounts you want to use with Croissant, you’ll need to start by signing into each, which requires a little patience. However, once you’re set up and ready to go, the rest is smooth sailing. You’ll see icons for each of the accounts you’ve signed into at the top of the app’s compose view. Tap on the row of icons to manage your accounts, removing any you no longer use and adding any new ones. The gear icon in the top-left corner of the view reveals tint, post icon, and app icon settings, and the box icon at the top-right is used to access draft posts that you can save using the app’s Menu button at the bottom of the compose field.

That same Menu button also allows you to delete a post, add to an existing thread, add a content warning, and pick from various audience options. Plus, there are buttons to tag someone, add hashtags, and attach photos or videos to a post. Croissant displays a character counter at the top of each draft post, too.

I appreciate the ‘Do you really want to post this everywhere?’ step.

My favorite part of Croissant is the interaction that takes place when you’re ready to launch your latest hot take into the social media wilderness. Before you post, a list of every account you’ve connected to Croissant slides up from the bottom of the screen. By default, all of your accounts are selected. Tap the big Post button at the bottom of the list, and you’ll launch your words of wisdom into the world across every service you’ve configured. Before you post, you can also de-select any of the accounts listed. That’s great because, although I could fairly be accused of being a chronic cross-poster, even I rarely post everywhere all at once, so I appreciate the chance to fine-tune where my posts will be published.

I like the simplicity of Croissant a lot, but there are a couple of things I’d love to see added in future updates. The first is Shortcuts support. An action that allows me to pick the accounts to send a post from, coupled with Shortcuts’ ability to pull items from RSS feeds, would make publicizing new MacStories articles and podcast episodes a lot easier. Second, a scheduling feature would go a long way toward completely eliminating the need for services like Buffer for a lot of people. Of course, an iPad and Mac version of Croissant would be great too, but I’ve found using the iPhone app on my iPad and on my Mac with iPhone Mirroring to fill that need well so far – except that on the iPad it means logging into all of my accounts a second time, which is a little tedious.

Sometimes the hottest takes cool after a few days in the drafts box.

There’s an added side benefit to using Croissant that I didn’t realize at first but Brendon pointed out to me. Croissant lets you post without the distraction or stress of getting sucked into your timelines. I’ve often had times where I felt like I needed a break from social media but felt compelled to jump back in to make sure we were promoting everything happening at MacStories. With Croissant, you can have it both ways, letting the world know what you’re up to without needing to scroll your timeline.

Croissant, which is available on the App Store for free but requires a subscription for some features, is a clear win for anyone who works online and wants to promote what they make or who maintains active accounts across several services. Neither group is a good fit for expensive social media management services, but for $2.99/month, $19.99/year, or a one-time payment of $59.99, Croissant is a no-brainer.

LGBT and Marginalized Voices Are Not Welcome on Threads

By Niléane

As Twitter was crumbling under Elon Musk’s new leadership in 2023, various online circles found themselves flocking to alternative platforms. While some may have kept using Twitter (now known as… X), a non-negligible number of communities migrated over to Mastodon and other smaller platforms. Meanwhile, Meta shipped its own textual social media platform, Threads. The service initially launched in most parts of the world except for the European Union, but it’s been available in Europe for over six months now and has seen its usage soar.

For many, Threads understandably felt like a breath of fresh air following the chaos that engulfed Twitter. Unlike the latter, Threads is not run by someone that I and many others find to be an exceptionally despicable human. Its algorithmic timeline contrasts with Mastodon’s exclusively chronological feeds, and its integration with Instagram has attracted a number of big names and stars.

I’m an activist. In my daily life, I work and advocate for the advancement of trans people’s rights in France. As a result, my expanded online social circle mostly consists of LGBT people, and most of them are activists, too. However, in the span of a few months, almost everyone in that circle who was excited about Threads launching in Europe has now stopped using it and migrated back to Twitter, Mastodon, or elsewhere. When I ask around about why those people left Threads behind, their responses vary, but a trend persists: most felt like they were being shadow-banned by the platform.

Without hard data, it is difficult to investigate this feeling, to understand if it is truly widespread or specific to some online bubbles. But one thing is certain: Threads hasn’t felt like a breath of fresh air for all who tried to use it. In my experience as a trans woman, at its best, it has felt like Jack Dorsey’s old Twitter: a social platform overrun by an opaque moderation system, free-roaming hate speech, and a frustrating algorithm that too often promotes harmful content.

As months go by, incidents where Threads consistently failed to uphold its understood promise of a better-moderated Twitter-like platform have added up. Today, for many non-white, non-straight, non-male users, it is a repulsive social media experience, where their voices are silenced and where hate speech offenders who target them go unpunished.

Let’s talk about this.

Highlighting Journalism on Mastodon →

Linked By John Voorhees

Eugen Rochko, writing on Mastodon’s blog today:

To reinforce and encourage Mastodon as the go-to place for journalism, we’re launching a new feature today. You will notice that underneath some links shared on Mastodon, the author byline can be clicked to open the author’s associated fediverse account, right in the app. This highlights writers and journalists that are active on the fediverse, and makes it easier than ever to follow them and keep up with their future work—potentially across different publications. Writers often work with different publishers over the span of their careers, but Mastodon is the perfect platform to amass a loyal audience that you, as the author, truly own, and can take with you across the fediverse.

When Eugen approached us about being one of the first publications to implement this new feature, we jumped at the chance. You may have noticed that we believe pretty strongly in writing and writers, so we’re pleased to be joining The Verge and MacRumors in implementing author bylines. Now, when you see a MacStories post on Mastodon, you can click on the author byline at the bottom of the post to jump to the author’s profile.

What’s more, the feature is incredibly easy to set up. It took Robb Knight about 15 minutes to add the creator OpenGraph tag to MacStories, and ever since, our posts have linked to our authors’ fediverse profiles:

Clicking the author link in a post takes you to that person’s Mastodon profile.

Currently, the authorship feature requires you to use the web version of Mastodon or its official app and have a mastodon.social account or be on a server running recent nightly releases. However, the new feature is part of the Mastodon API, so it shouldn’t be long before third-party apps begin supporting it, too.

Like a lot of people, we follow our favorite publications, but also our favorite writers. Mastodon’s author byline is an excellent way to shine a spotlight on both.

Permalink

feeeed: Embracing Feed Diversity and Personal News Curation

By Niléane

With The Iconfactory launching Project Tapestry this week, I was reminded of an indie app that I first started testing a few months ago. feeeed – that’s with four ‘e’s – by Nate Parrott is a feed reader app unlike any other I’ve seen on iOS.

Today, with our favorite content scattered across social media platforms, apps, blogs, and newsletters, it’s honestly really hard to keep up, and there is clearly a demand for an app that could juggle with all of them. feeeed is an attempt at embracing that diversity, and letting you build your own feed, merging all those sources into one continuous and beautifully designed stream.

I was excited about this app when it originally came out, and for the past week, I have once again given it a prime spot on my iPhone Home Screen to properly try it out as my main reading app.

Let’s jump in.

The Iconfactory Launches Project Tapestry, a Kickstarter Campaign to Create a Universal Inbox for RSS, Social Media, and More

By John Voorhees

Source: The Iconfactory.

We’re at an exciting moment in the history of the Internet where the downsides of walled gardens of content have become painfully obvious to more people than ever. Those downsides weren’t so clear when companies like Twitter got their start. As it and other companies grew, the convenience and instant gratification of social media put a dent in things like blogging, RSS, and other ways people shared their thoughts, links, and other media online.

But, if there’s a silver lining to what’s become of Twitter, it’s that it opened the eyes of a lot of people who are now helping revitalize the open web standards that never went away for many of us. The trouble is that the feeds we monitor are spread over more places than ever before. There’s RSS, of course, but there’s also ActivityPub, Bluesky, and more. That makes it the perfect time for a new approach like the one The Iconfactory has announced via a Kickstarter campaign.

The campaign was launched today to fund the creation of Tapestry, an iOS universal inbox for the feeds in your life. The Iconfactory makes it clear that it doesn’t intend for Tapestry to replace your RSS reader or Mastodon client, though. Instead, the company wants Tapestry to be a unified, chronological timeline that will help you keep up with what’s new so you can pick the best that your favorite sources have to offer. The Iconfactory has also said the app will have a simple API for adding your own data sources to your feed.

I love this idea and backed the project immediately. The Iconfactory says that they expect the development to take 9 - 12 months, which comes with the usual caveats about the risks of funding a Kickstarter campaign, which is why I rarely link them except in cases like The Iconfactory’s, which has a proven track record. The initial goal is $100,000, and as of the publication of this story, they’re about 25% of the way there. The first stretch goal is $150,000, which would add features like muting, theming, bookmarking, filtering and searching, local notifications, a share plugin system similar to Shortcuts, a curated library of plugins, and a Mac app.

There are also multiple reward levels with a variety of rewards for anyone who pledges $5 to $1,500. To learn more, check out the campaign on Kickstarter and The Iconfactory’s blog.

Tom Coates on Integrating Threads with the Fediverse →

Linked By John Voorhees

Just before the holidays, Meta held a meeting at its San Francisco offices with members from the fediverse community about its plans to use ActivityPub to integrate Threads with Mastodon. Last week, Tom Coates wrote a detailed post about everything covered during the meeting from Meta’s roadmap for Threads to Meta’s motivations, content moderation, and Threads’ algorithm, which is lengthy but well worth reading in its entirety.

Coates described Threads’ roadmap as follows:

December 2023 – A user will be able to opt in via the Threads app to have their posts visible to Mastodon clients. People would be able to reply and like those posts using their Mastodon clients, but those replies and likes would not be visible within the Threads application. Threads users would not be able to follow or see posts published across Mastodon servers, or reply to them or like then.

Early 2024 (Part One) – the Like counts on the Threads app would combine likes from Mastodon and Threads users

Early 2024 (Part Two) – replies posted on Mastodon servers would be visible in the Threads application

Late 2024 – A “mixed” Fediverse and Threads experience where you will be able to follow Mastodon users within Threads, and reply to them and like them

TBD – Full blended interoperability between Threads and Mastodon

The schedule struck Coates as both optimistic given the complexities involved and likely to be controversial because the early stages are lopsided in favor of integrating Threads into Mastodon and not the other way around. As Coates explains, there are technical, legal, and regulatory reasons for that, but that won’t make it any less contentious.

Scale is quite literally another huge problem for Meta that could easily lead to unintended consequences that cause problems for Mastodon users no matter what Meta’s intentions are. As Coates explains:

The community that Threads is planning to participate in is that of Mastodon servers federating with one another via Activity Pub. The estimates of this community are that there are about 9,500 separate mastodon instances participating in this ecology, with roughly 1.5 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs). This is a fairly substantial number but of course it pales in comparison to Meta more generally, which has closer to three billion active users. Or to put it another way, Mastodon users represent about 1/2000th of the number of people using Facebook/Instagram/Threads/WhatsApp etc. worldwide.

Threads itself has only been around for a few months now and it still towers over the rest of the Mastodon community in terms of users. It’s based on the Instagram user base, and Instagram users can opt in to use Threads with a single tap. Because of that—as of a recent earnings report—Meta can currently claim around 160 million total users and about 100 million MAUs for Threads alone. So, again, maybe we shouldn’t be thinking about Threads ‘integrating’ with the fediverse and instead think about Threads attempting to engage with the Fediverse without entirely crushing it in the process.

The entire post is worth reading because it explores interesting ways to deal with distributed content moderation, identity, public education about federation, and all the other large-scale problems that Threads will bring with it into the fediverse by virtue of its size and commercial goals as an ad-funded company. None of these issues will be easy to solve, and the meeting happened before an upturn in objectionable content served by the Threads algorithm to many users. However, I’m still encouraged by Coates’ overall reaction to the meeting and the teams at Meta who are working on integrating Threads with the Fediverse:

But I can report that in my opinion the teams building it and the integration seem to be decent people, trying to build something they’re excited by, wanting to be part of something new and truly federated, and wanting to be respectful and careful about how they do it. And whether or not you think their arrival in the space is a good thing, that apparent good faith and care has mitigated at least some of my concerns.

Permalink

The MacStories Team Is on Threads (Again)

By John Voorhees

With Threads’ launch in Europe today, we thought it would be a good time to reintroduce readers to the MacStories Threads account as well as those of the MacStories team.

It’s been quite a year for social media. Almost exactly one year ago today, we announced that MacStories had established its own dedicated Mastodon server for MacStories, AppStories, and Club MacStories. That move has been successful beyond our wildest imaginations. MacStories’ core audience is on Mastodon, which has made it the perfect place to interact with readers and listeners.

However, not everyone is on Mastodon. That’s why we created MacStories Instagram and Threads accounts earlier this year. Federico and I have been on Instagram for years and joined Threads immediately, although it wasn’t long before Meta prevented Federico and other users in the EU from accessing Threads.

Today, Meta has reopened Threads to Europe, which means Federico, Silvia, and Niléane are back on the service along with Alex, Jonathan, and me. So, today, we thought we’d reintroduce the MacStories Threads account to everyone and link the team’s Threads accounts below to make it easy to follow whomever you’d like.

You can expect to hear about the latest stories published by the team on MacStories.net, what’s going on with Club MacStories, and updates on AppStories, MacStories Unwind, and upcoming new projects if you follow MacStories. To follow individual team members, you can use the links below:

We know that Threads isn’t for everyone, and the same is true of Mastodon, which is why we’re on both. So, wherever you’re hanging out these days, feel free to say hello. We love hearing from the MacStories community and are excited to have the full team together on Threads again.

Users Join Threads in Droves

By John Voorhees

Last night, by the time I called it quits and went to bed Threads, Meta’s new social network, had hit 2 million users in 2 hours. As I write this, Meta’s Adam Mosseri says the count has now surpassed 10 million in 7 hours, which exceeds Mastodon’s user base.

Currently, Threads is a pretty barebones 1.0 experience that was undoubtedly released this week to capitalize on Twitter’s latest troubles. The app is also buggy. I’ve seen posts fail to load, glitchy interactions, and other bugs, but despite the load, the new service has held up under the influx of users, which is impressive, although not entirely surprising given Meta’s scale.

Posts tagged with "Social Media"