Bye, Twitter. All the cool kids are migrating to Mastodon

Bye, Twitter. All the cool kids are migrating to Mastodon

In the battle between a massive prehistoric beast and a fluttering bird, we all know what's destined to come out on top.

But in the case of Mastodon, a social network with the potential to take on Twitter, the former just so happens to be the underdog. And yet, it's an underdog with serious spunk.

Started by 24-year-old Eugen Rochko, Mastodon allows users to create accounts, follow others, and post status updates called "toots."

In many ways it's like Twitter, but it is also so not like Twitter.

Importantly, Mastodon is not a third-party Twitter client, but its own service entirely.

What makes it stand out?

It has better privacy controls than Twitter.

Also, neo-Nazis are explicitly banned.

So what, exactly, is it?

Mastodon is a type of free and open source software (FOSS) known as "GNU social."

That means Jack Dorsey doesn't own it, and there is no board pressing Rochko to monetise user data or resign.

In fact, money doesn't seem to be the point at all. Rochko, who lives in Germany, has so far managed to fund the project with just a Patreon account. (Patreon is a service that allows people to make recurring micro-payments to creators.)

His target goal, which he has surpassed, was only $800 a month.

"I am not interested in VC funding, monetizing, advertising, or anything of that sort," writes Rochko on the Mastodon Github page.

Once you wrap your head around the complicated backend (see below), the Mastodon interface quickly feels intuitive, and, well, like a better version of Twitter.

Mastodon users can send toots with 500 characters as opposed to Twitter's 140.

But that's not the only difference. Individual toots can be marked as private, meaning you don't have to choose between a public or a private account like on Twitter.

Read the full article here.


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