We’re on the precipice of a new wave of innovation in the Fediverse, and it’s important that even established organizations listen up and see what’s unfolding.

One person watching closely is the BBC’s Ian Forrester. As the Senior Firestarter in the broadcaster’s R&D Lab, Ian susses out new technologies and opportunities so that the public service broadcaster can stay current and true to its values. Among those values is trust, so the chance to verify its own journalists and run a social media server according to its own rules is a big reason for the BBC to even swim in these waters.

What has the BBC learned so far from its experiments in the Fediverse? What will decentralized systems unlock for innovation? And how is all this like the early days of the Internet?

Highlights from this conversation include:

• what it means to be a Firestarter at the BBC
• why the BBC is experimenting on the open social web
• what they’re doing there
• owning your sense of identity in the Fediverse
• championing internally and next steps

🔎 You can follow Ian on his Website and Mastodon.  

✚ You can connect with Mike McCue on Mastodon.

💡 To learn more about what Flipboard's doing in the fediverse, sign up here: http://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave

There was a time where people couldn’t email each other unless they were using the same email client. That changed when developers came up with a protocol that made it so it didn’t matter if you were using AOL or CompuServe or Prodigy — it just worked. 

The same analogy explains how things work in the Fediverse, an open-source system of interconnected, interoperable social networks. The Fediverse is powered by a protocol called ActivityPub, which provides an API for creating, updating and deleting content across several platforms.

What does ActivityPub unlock for product builders and tech entrepreneurs? How will social networks without walled gardens change our relationship to content and to each other? Why does any of this matter? 

In this episode, host Mike McCue talks to Evan Prodromou, one of the co-authors of ActivityPub. Evan is an entrepreneur, technologist and advocate of open source software. He’s also the Director of Open Technology at the Open Earth Foundation. 

Highlights from this conversation include:

• the history of the W3C and ActivityPub
• why the protocol is so important to Evan
• what’s surprised Evan most about its adoption
• why this work is so consequential
• what it will unlock for innovation

🔎 You can follow Evan at https://evanp.me/ and on Mastodon.

✚ You can connect with Mike McCue on Mastodon.

💡 To learn more about what Flipboard's doing in the fediverse, sign up here: https://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave/

In the 1990s, we saw an acceleration from walled gardens like America Online to the open web. This marked an era of exciting innovation and meteoric growth. But, over time, we witnessed the rise of a new set of walled gardens: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc.

Is history about to repeat itself? Will the open social web become a mainstream alternative to the walled gardens we live in today? Will people own their online relationships, or will there always be a company that owns these? 

Host Mike McCue and journalist Mike Masnick dig into questions like these. Mike Masnick founded the blog Techdirt in 1998 and wrote a seminal paper called “Protocols Not Platforms,” in which he predicted the scenario unfolding before our eyes today. Mike has long informed an influential audience of lawmakers, CEOs and activists. In fact, the New York Times called him “something of a Silicon Valley oracle.”

In this interview, Mike McCue checks in with Mike Masnick to see how things have gone since he wrote the paper. The two “Mike Ms” also discuss:

• the first product that truly embraced some of these ideas
• where Mike Masnick is spending time in the Fediverse
• reasoning behind adoption: worthy platforms or just fleeing X?
• how open standards lead to innovation
• why feeds are the new Websites

🔎 You can follow Mike Masnick’s work at techdirt.com, and find him at BlueSky and Mastodon. 

✚ You can connect with Mike McCue on Mastodon.

💡 To learn more about what Flipboard's doing in the fediverse, sign up here: https://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave/