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Wherein I share my thoughts having tried out Bluesky, the performative nature of (some) social media, the trail of questionable decision-making regarding this platform, good art isn’t always popular, cheerleader buses, and why when it comes to the Fediverse, I’m not going anywhere.

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Is the end game of the internet really that a bunch of algorithms slurped up a subset of popular human-created & curated content and then can regurgitate it out as if the AI is clever enough to think for itself? Meanwhile, folks in the fediverse are up in arms over the “rise” of Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky (even though Bluesky’s been around for years) as well as Mastodon’s mobile apps nudging people to onboard via the Mastodon.social instance. Should we be concerned about imminent centralization of decentralized social networking? Is Jack Dorsey a mastermind who simultaneously helped out his buddy Elon Musk while competing directly with Twitter? LOL nope. All this and more in today’s thrilling installment of Fresh Fusion.

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In this episode, I comment on recent links—articles, news, toots—I’ve posed on my blog and on Mastodon. From the iPad celebrating its 13th birthday to dreaming of a better metaverse, from ethnic stereotyping to A.I. B.S., there’s never a dull moment here on Fresh Fusion.

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Everything Everywhere All at Once won big at the Oscars, but it’s not the only ’verse-spanning creation making it big this year. ActivityPub is having a moment, and we’re here to chronicle the rise of numerous new instances, applications, and networks—including the very WEIRD and wacky news that Meta (of all companies!) is exploring an ActivityPub-powered decentralized social networking platform of its own!

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As Arnold would say, I’m back, baby! Yes, I am rebooting my first blog ever, and this new daily weblog all about tech and nerd culture news with a dash of fun 90s nostalgia on the side will feature archives reaching all the way back to 1996. Are you excited yet? You should be! This site best viewed with Netscape Navigator! (Just kidding.) …But that would be hilarious!

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How can one feel like an intellectually fulfilled citizen of the open web & fediverse and still consume regular YouTube content? Here’s what I have done to corral this monster into a cage…and in the process unlocked a whole new environment for computing & entertainment. Life after Big Social can be so much better.

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Blog comments are BACK, and this time it’s not about software people have to use on your blog or on their blog or even over on corporate social media…it’s all about the fediverse. Using Mastodon’s API, it’s possible to find the right “toot” (that is, published status) and display all replies—from Mastodon as well as the wider range of fediverse software—as blog comments. Woo hoo! Let’s dive in.

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Or in French, une réflexion intéressante sur la nature du podcast. Yes, a très intéressante discussion ensued on Mastodon over the past few days: what is a podcast? What is the medium of podcasting? What is the format of podcasting? What is the history of podcasting? Why is a podcast called a podcast? Oddly enough, responses are all over the map, and my attempt on Mastodon to pin down a definitive definition of podcast proved rather controversial! Why?! Let’s break it all down—and ask my 2005-self from the dawn of the podcast age to weigh in on the controversy! (For the impatient, skip to 16:00.) And of course…since this is the 88th episode of Fresh Fusion, I can’t help but pepper in a few references to Back to the Future along the way…

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Where do you put the stuff that you write? Where do you post your posts? How do you publish things online now that Twitter is imploding and the Fediverse is rising? Has blogging made a comeback? What’s the different between a blog and an email newsletter that’s available via the web? Questions abound, and I’m here to talk about all of it and my thoughts around smart growth of a healthier, more open web.

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In this episode, I recap all my “3 words” in previous years which helped set the tone for what I hoped to accomplish throughout the year and the values to focus on most. And then I share with you my yearly theme and “3 words” for 2023, why I chose those words, and what my overarching goals are for the new year. I hope this episode inspires you to join me in choosing your own words for 2023!