Something happened when the internet turned into an ad-driven business. The name of the game was to get as many eyeballs as possible, to scale and grow quickly. Incentives became oriented around grabbing attention over valuing substance and connection.
What’s happening now in the Fediverse gives us a chance to reverse that; to pivot out of the attention economy into something more meaningful.
Tony Stubblebine has already emphasized a focus on quality at Medium. As the publisher of Better Humans and its sister publications, Tony was one of Medium’s most successful community members. He knew the platform better than almost anyone and so when it came time to look for a CEO, he got the job in July 2022.
In January 2023, Medium set up a Mastodon instance at me.dm. Tony’s said that he believes Mastodon is “an emerging force for good in social media,” and he’s still exploring what that means for his company.
In today’s episode, Mike and Tony discuss their reasons for wanting to participate in the Fediverse, going so far as standing up instances for their communities. They also discuss what’s wrong with the attention economy, a framework for high-quality recommendations, and why it’s an exciting time for entrepreneurs, builders, writers and readers.
Highlights of this conversation include:
• under the hood on Medium’s algorithm
• why human curation is (still) a true service
• optimizing for substance
• entering the third business model era of the internet
• how to get started in the Fediverse
You can find Dot Social on Flipboard, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, YouTube, anywhere else you might listen to podcasts.
We’re also uploading episodes now to PeerTube in the Fediverse on Flipboard’s new instance at flipboard.video. Please follow us there if you aren’t already. We drop episodes here first.
This is the last weekly episode of Dot Social, but we will continue to bring you new episodes with fascinating Fediverse leaders as we record them. The best way to never miss an episode is to subscribe to the show. Please also rate, review, comment and share, especially if you like what you hear.
See you in the Fediverse!
— Mia Quagliarello, head of creator community, also has a podcast, about the art of curation