For many years the social media market felt settled. Innovations were being absorbed, and everything was going towards algorithmic entertainment anyway.
Then Musk bought Twitter. “I want to save it”, he said, but then literally destroyed everything people loved about the platform. So basically Musk revived the idea of a free, safe social media platform, but not in the one he bought.
The Twitter crisis sparked a long-missed wave of innovation in social media, focused on decentralized social networking.
Competitors are many and they all want to be the new Twitter.
Who are they? How did we get here
2016 Mastodon, the first decentralized social network
Eugen Rochko founds Mastodon, introducing a decentralized approach based on the ActivityPub protocol by Pump.io. It allows users to join communities hosted on independent servers.
2018 Foreshadowing?
Elon Musk takes a break from Twitter, claiming that the system is wrecked and that social media needs to focus on decentralized networks.
2019 - 2022 Dorsey creates Bluesky
Twitter's co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey sets up Bluesky. He has representatives from Mastodon and ActivityPub to come over and collaborate.
Dorsey makes Bluesky an independent company, then steps down as CEO of Twitter and becomes board member at Bluesky.
2022 Musk acquires Twitter
OCTOBER
Elon Musk finalizes acquiring Twitter. Layoffs begin.
Former Twitter employees Terrell and Brown found Spill.
2023 Threads by Meta arrives
JANUARY
Meta begins developing Instagram Threads, "the Twitter of Instagram."
The app is partially based on decentralized networks from ActivityPub protocol.
MARCH
Mastodon reaches a staggering 10 million users in just 4 months, marking a +1700% increase.
JUNE
A beta, invite-only version of Spill is launched.
JULY
Meta launches the highly-anticipated Instagram Threads.
The app attracted 70 million users within 24 hours, despite its unavailability in Europe due to compliance.
In the meantime, ActivityPub is being used by Mastodon, Threads, Flipboard, Medium, Tumblr, and now even has its own WordPress plugin.
More Twitter competitors are: Rumble, Truth Social, Cohost, Post, Substack Notes, Farcaster, Nostr, Damus, and Spoutable.
The future ahead
Will Twitter rise to its former heights? Will Threads become its successor? What will the new equilibrium look like?
We’ve got to wait and see!
Did you find this interesting? Let me know :)
Written with ❤️ by Luca Rapisarda
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