The beauty of an open system is that anyone can build on top of it and try to make it a better place. In the fediverse, software engineer Ryan Barrett is one such developer.
Ryan’s been building social network bridges and related tools for over 12 years, including Bridgy, which connects personal websites and blogs to centralized social networks, and Bridgy Fed, which connects them to the fediverse. He’s also a co-founder of Google AppEngine, which informed Google Cloud’s infrastructure, and has held engineering leadership roles at Google, Color and NCX.
Most recently, Ryan’s work to connect Bluesky, which uses the AT protocol, to Mastodon and other platforms using the ActivityPub protocol, ignited a firestorm. Ryan wanted to advance the fediverse’s promise of interoperability but inadvertently stirred up culture clashes between platforms, and fervent discussions around consent, maintaining safety, fears of commercialism, and what being an open standard really means.
Highlights of this conversation:
• why Ryan strives to bridge disparate social networks
• the Bridgy Fed rollout — and fallout
• positive reactions and community feedback
• reaction on Bluesky and culture differences between platforms
• what motivates Ryan and keeps him going
We recommend that you watch this video on Flipboard’s PeerTube instance at flipboard.video.
Please follow us on PeerTube if you aren’t already. When you do, the videos become available via any other platform connected by ActivityPub. (It’s basically like having your YouTube, X and Instagram feeds and comments in one central, interoperable home feed. This is the power of decentralized social media!)
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See you in the Fediverse!
— Mia Quagliarello, head of creator community, is federated @mia@flipboard.com