Hello everyone!

[sam@social.coop]

@cwebber @blindcoder oh that one's easy! The Information Superhighway is a series of tubes that wants to be free!

[alyx@alyx.social]

@cwebber Actually, it's called the Mastodon Network

The US based company Mastodon Inc. recently bought ActivityPub.

/hj

(Some tone indicators might be helpful here)

[badumtss@framapiaf.org]

@Raccoon hi you might want to check who you just explained ActivityPub to and maybe retract/redact your post, but I guess the bait was too good

[canageek@wandering.shop]

@cwebber oh this again.

I think the Fediverse is Starfleet's social network

[jami@hachyderm.io]

@Raccoon @cwebber awwuh sometimes the mansplains are sweet and welcoming (and, in fairness, "requested" here).

[joel@piou.foolbazar.eu]

@cwebber let’s try this way:
ActivityPub is the name of a technical protocol. Like HTTP is for websites.
Fediverse is a short word for Federated Universe. Which means software using ActivityPub can communicate which each other and form a kind of universe. Like Web browsers can all access the same Web contents/sites.
There are several Fediverse compatible software focusing on various subjects (messages, photos, books, etc). You may access their content from any of those.

[orca@nya.one]

@[email protected] fediverse is coined using words "federated"+"universe", it refers to the nature of the network connected using ActivityPub protocol: servers (instances) are interconnected, and one user hosted on one server can reach a user hosted on another server (federated), because the former server will delivers the message to the latter server.

And there's not only Mastodon, too. For example, I'm on a Misskey instance, which is a suite of microblogging software developed independently from Mastodon. You can also subscribe to blogs (writefreely and wordpress with ActivityPub plugin installed), videos (peertube), photo-sharing accounts (pixelfed, which is similar to instagram) or even reddit-like forums (lemmy) as long as it supports ActivityPub.

[cwebber@social.coop]

@joel oh wow sounds pretty cool

it's wild that they could even figure out how to do that with social media

[sam@social.coop]

@cwebber @joel right? Joel forgot to mention this, but you should know that it was invented by Al Gore in the 1990's, isn't that cool?! *pokerface*

[cwebber@social.coop]

@Orca ahh gotcha thanks that makes sense

is misskey a fork of the shark one?

[gorfram@beige.party]

@alyx @cwebber Isn’t that the purchase that made John Mastodon the richest man in the universe?

[mlevison@agilealliance.social]

@Raccoon
and @chawopro You might have missed the joke.

Check @cwebber account bio.

Odds are Christine knows more about it than anyone else on the planet.

[wizard@xyzzy.link]

@cwebber how do you keep getting away with this

[cwebber@social.coop]

thank you @evan do you know anyone who worked on it

[cwebber@social.coop]

@wizard getting away with what I'm new here I just made this account

[sam@social.coop]

@Gorfram @alyx @cwebber only in this universe though; I hear there's a richer version of him with a goatee in the evil mirror universe.

[ramsey@phpc.social]

@mlevison @chawopro @cwebber At least @Raccoon is being super-friendly about it! Great post! A++++ would ask for your help again!!

[raccoon@techhub.social]

@ramsey @mlevison @chawopro @cwebber
Yeah, as I said, I didn't realize anything more than the account age when I copy-pasted that: I send that to every new account I see.

[raccoon@techhub.social]

@cwebber
Yeah, I copy-paste the welcome with hashtag advice to every new account I see. Somehow I saw the account age and something about being a software person when I glanced at the bio, but not the parts about actually knowing the answer to this, lol.

[raccoon@techhub.social]

@badumtss
Yes, I was baited. lol

I'm gonna leave it up because I think it's a good answer.