As the fediverse continues to expand and evolve, Flipboard CEO Mike McCue satisfies our curiosity about its impact on the future of social media through interviews with fediverse builders, designers and thinkers on his podcast, Dot Social. The recent episode with Johannes Ernst, co-founder of FediForum, dove into the power of decentralized innovation and efforts underway to solve growing needs, like moderation, in the fediverse. Now Mike is kicking-off a new set of conversations taking us on a journey to understand why Meta joined the fediverse, can we expand the fediverse by bridging protocols, and what is POSSE. 

The new Dot Social episode releasing this Monday, April 22, gets right into one of the hottest topics: why Threads is federating and what the road ahead looks like for Threads users in the fediverse. This episode features two people passionate about open source and the power of protocols, Meta’s Rachel Lambert, Director of Product Management, and Peter Cottle, Software Engineer. Together they share about the realities of federating a large social network and the learnings they’ve had so far. Even with the controversies around Meta and fediverse communities, these two are optimistic about the future.

After that, Mike has an under-the-hood discussion with Ryan Barrett, a software engineer who became a main character in the fediverse when he built a bridge between ActivityPub and the AT Protocol, connecting people in the fediverse with people on Bluesky. Ryan wanted to advance the fediverse’s promise of interoperability, but his work ignited a firestorm, revealing lessons and insights that he and Mike dive into.

There’ll also be a conversation with the thoughtful and “keep-’em-honest” Molly White, a researcher, writer and software engineer who cares deeply about free and open access to high-quality information. Molly is known for being a leading crypto critic, but get to know her and you’ll see she’s actually an optimist when it comes to the future of the web. She explains how POSSE (Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere) can transform our identities online and is fascinated by the idea of digital ownership.

Dot Social is the only podcast dedicated to discussing, and even brainstorming, how open standards will forever change social media by weaving social connections into the fabric of the internet. Subscribe to the Dot Social podcast in the fediverse at flipboard.video, on YouTube, and/or via your favorite podcast service.

In the meantime, if you’re still trying to understand how and why to join the fediverse, check out Flipboard’s newsletter, Fedi Curious?, a series aimed at helping everyday people and publishers get started in the fediverse. You can get it on LinkedIn, Medium, Flipboard, and of course in the fediverse too. 

Enjoy these next episodes and DM me with your suggestions for topics and guests.

Dot. Dot. Dot. 😉

— Mia Quagliariello, Producer, Dot Social and Writer, Fedi Curious?