Fresh Fusion

Folks have been talking about different terminology and ways of describing this brave new world of decentralized social networking. But with Threads’ staggering growth to 150 million MAU (Monthly Active Users), combined with its embrace of the colloquial term “fediverse”, I make the case that fediverse is here to stay. I also touch on the recent news around Google’s flailing leadership causing Googlers to get real grumpy real fast.

And in the Fusion+ segment: after a long period of time where microblogging (aka text-focused social media) and blogging seemed at odds with each other, we finally have an opportunity to go back to what made the web great, where both blogging and microblogging can not only co-exist but thrive together. Yay!

People will remember the “browser wars” of the 1990s, but they may not remember the “webtop wars” — that is, the battle for who will control the Push Technology which transforms your OS desktop into a tuner for live web channels. Learn about this fascinating blip in early internet history which eventually gave rise to a much simpler technology still in use today…one might even call it Really Simple (Syndication). 😁

Also in this episode: celebrating the 6th anniversary of ActivityPub becoming an official W3C recommendation, looking at a breakdown of the 100 most popular fediverse accounts, and some initial thoughts on Apple Vision Pro.

It’s a new year, I’m moving my business away from HEY (to Fastmail) & Basecamp (to GitHub & Email), and I’m listening to a lot of podcasts! I talk about all of that in this episode as well as my latest blogging kick due to a small but mighty design tweak on my website.

And in the Fusion+ segment: Is podcasting still as great as it ever was? For the “big shows” with major sponsorships, probably not. BUT…for the long tail of creators out there, it’s a totally different story!

Accidental Tech Podcast
 

After some follow up around switching from Glass to Pixelfed and importing new photos into my site from there, I dive into the heart of the episode: how do we deal with YouTube? As fediverse-aware content creators, YouTube remains a major hurdle, but there are still ways to route around it—either partially or completely. I walk through some of the possible solutions in this episode, and then wrap up with a challenge to “long tail” content creators: what have you got to lose? The time to experiment in this space is now!

And in the Fusion+ segment: Rumor has it that Apple is working on LLM technology to integrate into Siri. Will it be any good? And will I use it?

Call it a reboot, a resurrection if you will. A new chapter in my history as a blogger. And—literally for the first time ever—a mostly-complete chronicle of all my tech blogging during a span of almost 30 years. Get ready for The Internet Review.

I haven’t been a general “tech blogger” in some time. This year, that all changes. I regret I never had the discipline in the 2000s to become a John Gruber, or in the 2010s to become a Jason Snell. Perhaps I don’t now. But it’s now or never. If I don’t get started on this soon, it ain’t never gonna happen.

Also, get ready for The Internet, Reviewed — an exclusive podcast for Intuitive+ members! Each episode I will be looking back at a fascinating tech story from the past, a moment in the annals of internet history as presented by my past self. This is definitely a show you won’t want to miss!

And on Fresh Fusion+: commentary on Anil Dash’s piece for Rolling Stone about how the internet is about to get weird, and the new relationship we’ll begin to see from “big box” corporate web services and the “indie web”.

Despite ch-ch-ch-changes every minute it seems, Jared attempts to analyze the shocking power struggle going on at OpenAI and what the this all means for Microsoft—because let’s face it, they’re really the ones in charge. In addition, some conversation regarding Apple’s incredible speed gains over the past several iterations of Apple Silicon and the appeal of M3 MacBookPros. And for Fresh Fusion+ members: a look at the transition from producer to educator and how careers may shift over the years.

Jared is feeling a wee bit down in the mouth that his career is nearly over, apparently, due to AI coming for us all. The programmers. The musicians. The designers. The this, and the that. Or…is all of that largely utter nonsense and the artists are fighting back? (Hello WGA & SAG-AFTRA!) Let’s talk about AI and how true AGI is probably centuries away and OpenAI is trying to pull a fast one. And on today’s very exciting new Fresh Fusion+ segment: how to write and publish content on the web that is successful in search engines and social media, without giving too hoots about the snake oil that is SEO!

I’m a die-hard Ivory for Mastodon user and “ambassador” of the Fediverse. So then, why am I on Threads? Well, it’s all about who you follow, and you can follow many interesting sorts of accounts there which aren’t all on Mastodon. Once Threads enables ActivityPub, I intend to follow all these accounts from Mastodon, but in the meantime, I must be on Threads. In this episode, I break down the various categories of accounts I follow, as well as talk about some of the other social media news of the day. There’s also a poetry reading and some soundboard shenanigans. As Eddy Cue might say, I can’t wait to do it!

Some reflections after a year of podcasting since the “reboot” of Fresh Fusion, growing success in blogging and the importance of owning your own domain name and platform, the joys of belonging to a local creative community and feeling inspired by your locale, and more. All the feelz in this episode!

Like ‘em or hate ‘em, the BBC is here and has joined the fediverse. In this episode I talk about what this means and more broadly why it’s a good thing to see another large news organization launch their own Mastodon instance—even while I fully defend other instance admins’ right to defederate due to content moderation policies. And on the Fusion+ segment—available for free today!—I talk all about Elon’s new social network called X. Pour one out for Twitter folks. The bird is gone.