How to get people to use Mastodon?
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also rebrand it from Mastodon to Trunky.
- Trochaic meter is more addictive: 2 syllables with accent on the first. just like YOU-tube, FACE-book, GOO-gle, TWIT-ter, etc. it's part of why TEEN-age MU-tant NIN-ja TUR-tles and MIGH-ty MOR-phin POW-er RAN-gers was popular.
- Trunky is full of bright bouncy sounds that pop, the T and the K both hit nice, the R is exciting and powerful, the y ends it on a high timbre, it's cute.
- A mastodon is an extinct lumbering beast from the ice age which is the antithesis of anything trying to break out as a hot new service. But this would allow the service to keep its pachyderm branding.
- Change "favorite" to "trumpet" (as in trumpeting praise), again it's trochaic (TRUM-pet) and carries less cognitive LOAD than "favoriting" which feels heavy and committed. Just because you LIKE something doesn't mean it's your FAVORITE thing you know? this would decrease the friction of interaction (which is GOOD).
- keep tooting as the analogue for tweeting, rename boosting to re-tooting for brand consistency, and add a bookmarking function called "Remembering" (because ELEPHANTS NEVER FORGET, right? :D)
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There's actually an Android Mastodon client called Tusky, which I think sounds really nice.
I really know nothing about this stuff >///< thank you for your input!
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I just kept linking to the server and then people started using it. They don't even know they are using mastodon lol.
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That's... Certainly a way to do it!
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The best fedi is one they don't even know they are using
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That wink gives a certain malicious aura to the message...
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I did a short tootstorm thinking out the same problem and coming to some similar conclusions - you might be interested in where we diverge: https://indieweb.social/@tedcurran/113946323075198755
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I'll add to this that when I first registered at mastodon.social, my default view was some fancied up multi-column monstrosity. I managed to turn most of that off, but it was super confusing at first. Start simple and let users add complexity.
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Thank you for sharing, and thank you for speaking about promoting and growing the Fediverse!
I don't dislike your idea, but I wonder how users would react to being encouraged to create a new account.
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Oh... I feel like I vaguely remember something like that, actually...
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Too damn close to tankie (TANK-ie), hard pass.
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Agreed on all counts, except that rebrands rarely succeed without boatloads of cash behind them. And even then not always.
I’ve heard (and experienced to a certain extent) that a rebrand is a sign of the beginning of the end for a product.
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Somebody needs to put this guy in charge of all the branding elements.
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As long as we're suggesting improvements for Masto:
- Remove character limits. This forces users to either not fully explain themselves or to break their post down into 5 different posts which then have to somehow be assembled by the reader. GoToSocial raises this to 5000 as the default. If someone posts >500, by all means, collapse the post.
- Stop fucking tagging literally anyone who was ever involved in a thread. I don't understand why this is a thing. It just makes every message super cluttered and makes me not want to get involved in any discussions for fear of having my notifications blown up with irrelevant BS at any time.
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I think there's a few other issues with server selection
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Longevity. How do you know that the server you are on will be there in 1, 5 or even 10 years? For larger servers like Mastodon.social you have a general idea that it will last as long as Masto itself, but others have very little guarantees on if you'll log in and find your entire feed gone. It only takes
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That brings me to my next point: migration is currently inadequate. Migrating accounts only redirects your following/followers lists and some account settings. All of the posts, reposts and content uploaded are left on the old server and potentially wiped out if it's shut down. Professionals or anyone who wants a lasting online profile need to stick to big instances because they risk losing everything if their server can't continue. I also feel like there should also be an emergency "export all" button the admins can press, so the server will email all users a copy of their data in case of shutdown. That way users who can't export their data manually before the end date will have a copy of it. And this still doesn't solve the issue of small servers shutting down out of nowhere and wiping out every user's profile on there. If that happens to an average user they're probably just going quit Masto outright
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Defederation is a good idea to keep bad servers isolated from the community and let servers dictate how open they want to be. But there's not a lot of indication of what servers have blocked/restricted the one you're signing up for, other than going to another server and seeing if the admins have manually typed up a list of that they blocked/restricted. There's also not a great way to see if the server you're looking at is read-only and any posts you make aren't being seen by users on the other server. Or that you're looking at a server that has since defederated and will no longer update posts. Also (afaik, there's not a ton of good explanations) but if you're newly connecting to a server it will only federate new posts going forward and not previous posts. Which again messes things up for people who want to use it as a consistent timeline. Dropping users into random small/medium servers risks preventing them from seeing their friends posts or cutting them off from their friends entirely
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You mention data privacy as a risk of large servers, but how is it any better on small servers? You have no idea if the user you're handing your data over to is trustworthy or reliable or that the server they manage is secured. And how do you know that a large company won't come in and offer them money to sell the server, and suddenly all your data is in the hands of spammers? And direct posts are not private. Plenty of people on Twt used their real names/emails/pictures. It's not going to be viable to have every user create a burner email and never reveal any info, even in private messages without them deciding it's not worth it. Alternatively, they have to verify the trustworthiness of every admin on a potential server, despite them likely only having a username and posts to work off of
I think there are bigger issues than "just choose a server, they're all like email" that causes people to gravitate towards larger platforms. It's not just connectivity and uptime, there are logistical issues that will impact users if Masto gains more mainstream adoption. I haven't even touched on the threat of bad actors and spam which I don't feel like the network is ready for yet
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Stop fucking tagging literally anyone who was ever involved in a thread
OMG yes. It is so annoying it is like someone keep hitting reply all in an email. And it is not just mastodon, *key does this too. -
rename boosting to re-tootin
I would say reserve re-tootin for when quote post lands on mastodon
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Quite frankly, I never understood the point of character limits to begin with. I mean, sure, don't let people post literal novels on your short-form social media platform, but it being a short-form social media platform already conditions people not to post novels...
Yeah. I see astro_ray in the thread has already replied to that point... It's ridiculous!
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I've weighed in a few times on the "choose a server" thing on various federated platforms. When signing up for a Fediverse service, you're presented with the following contradiction in terms: "Choose an instance. Your choice does not matter. The choice is yours."
There are two ways to fix this:
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We embrace "the choice doesn't matter" and the new user gets assigned an instance automatically. I think this will require some kind of formal agreement and a badge of compliance among server admins, a kind of verified checkmark. Enforce a common set of moderation rules, maintain some technical requirements like uptime and version updates etc. and agree to accept anyone who clicks the random button, you get a checkmark and randomly assigned users. The Windows software install wizard asks you "You want to go with the default settings or you want to make some decisions for yourself here?" Operating system installers do the same thing, and the "something else" choice is often last or less prominent. Because most people just want it to do the normal thing, but sometimes people have a reason to pick something specific. "Join a random server" is a big prominent button, "or, pick a server manually" is a hyperlink just below it.
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Make the choices meaningful. I see this one happening the most on Peertube where storage and bandwidth are both significant costs, so the instances there are more likely to segregate by type of content. "We host arts and crafts" "We host video game let's plays and speedruns" "We host travel and nature videos". Even if you have eclectic tastes, that choice has meaning and thus isn't as paralyzing.
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Also it should make a lil trumpet sound when you "trumpet" something
