We're following you

Welcome back to the pugiverse. It's been another busy week, and we're here to bring you some pug-based updates about ActivityPub!

Last week, we got Ghost settings and posts delivered to the Fediverse for the first time. Well, we thought we did. Then we were quickly alerted by your comments that there were more issues than the plot of a Fast&Furious movie, so we got to work addressing them.

The fun thing about alpha/beta software is that you get to fight the fires but you're also the one who's lighting them.

Imagine if other shit in the world was built the way software is. It would be chaos.

What's new with ActivityPub?

While last week was about making it so you can follow us, this week has been all about making it so we can follow you. We've been squirreling away (pugging away?) on making it so that Ghost publications can follow Mastodon users, and see new posts from Mastodon users show up inside Ghost Admin.

And lo, for we have succeeded. Behold, a demo more glorious than Vin Diesel's left tricep:

Our hard work over the past couple of months is paying off, and the foundations we laid are being put to good use. Ghost now ingests, stores, and displays new posts from people you're following — and we're doing so for the first time with real, production data!

Ok, so Mastodon accounts can follow Ghost sites, and Ghost sites can follow Mastodon accounts. That's two-way reading!

Next week: We tackle our first interaction.

Answering your questions:

Things you want to know, as determined by the comments.

What happened to the leaderboard?

The community leaderboard is alive and well and is being diligently maintained over on the GitHub readme. If you'd like to take part in lord of the flies see your name in lights, from today onwards we will officially be awarding points for any new bugs reported (in the comments here).

I struggle with explaining to friends why they should join the Fediverse. These aren't techie types, so I need to break it down. I always send them your piece at activitypub.ghost.org. But maybe they don't read it. ... How do I explain to folks that they can take their content with them?

We're very early in the life of ActivityPub, so in some ways it's pretty natural that it's a bit tricky to explain. It was difficult to get people to understand what the point of the web was, early on ("what's surfing?"). It was even more difficult to get anyone to understand why they should be interested in Twitter ("why would I care what someone had for breakfast?").

People often struggle to grasp the big picture of a technological movement because it's simply too abstract unless you happen to work in technology. What often unites people, though, is seeing what the technology is being used for.

Even people who didn't really get the point of YouTube were enamored by Chocolate Rain and Charlie bit me — and people started to understand Twitter as soon as influencers they were interested in started posting on it.

So, perhaps the best way to advocate for the Fediverse to your friends is not to talk about the technology at all — but rather to show them your favorite content that exists within it which you think they might enjoy, too.

At the end of the day, technology is only truly valuable if it's being used for something you're actively interested in.

I need an ActivityPug t-shirt!

🤔🤔