Help fund the Fediverse

Happy Sunday! You've probably been wondering where your 4-pawed friends have gotten to, and what the latest is with ActivityPub. And even if you weren't wondering, we're still going to tell you.

Last week, we touched on some more refinements to the reader client and progress toward our new database architecture. This week, we're pleased to say that we've made really good progress with the database work, and the first pieces of it will be shipping next week(!)

So, while we're in a bit of an in-between phase here, we wanted to direct your attention to a different ActivityPub project this week.

What's new with PixelFed

If you've been a subscriber to this newsletter for a while, you will have heard quite a few mentions of PixelFed — an open source, ActivityPub-based photo sharing platform. What Mastodon is to Twitter, PixelFed is to Instagram. A product where you can find, follow and share photos you love, but without a single corporation controlling everything and deciding what you see.

Like how we all wish photo sharing apps worked!

In the past few months, the popularity of PixelFed and its sister app, Loops (think: Tiktok, but independent), has exploded. Between the launch of official mobile apps, and major regulatory issues for large centralized social networks, demand has reached an all-time high.

Growth is fun, but it also comes with more pressure and expenses. So, this week saw the launch of a crowdfunding campaign from @dansup, the prolific Canadian developer behind Pixelfed, Loops, Sup, Pubkit and FediDB.

Ghost itself started out on Kickstarter some 12 years ago, so we have a soft spot for crowdfunded open source software. Without Kickstarter, Ghost wouldn't exist, so we've joined the project at the Platinum sponsorship level to support Dan's work and pay it forward, if you will.

If you're excited by where ActivityPub and the wider Fediverse are going, please consider backing the Kickstarter to help fund more independent, open source software in the world!

Back to Ghost

So, back in pug-town, this time next week we should have some more significant updates for you about ActivityPub progress in Ghost itself. It's been a lot of behind-the-scenes work for the past few weeks, but the end is in sight now.

Also, John will be speaking at FOSSDEM in Brussels next week on the Social Web track, and talking about everything we've built so far. In case any of you are attending, come say hi!

FOSDEM 2025 - Networked Journalism: Bringing long-form publishing to the Fediverse

fosdem-2025

Until next time. 🐕