Yep!
Laconica was renamed to StatusNet. Then later when Evan started working on PumpIO, he agreed to have it transferred to GNU. GNU then later merged StatusNet with another project and called it GNU Social.
There are still GNU Social instances around, but they are still running on the OStatus protocol. IIRC, there was work to implement ActivityPub in it but it seems it wasn't finished. Other than that, GNU Social instances are still around.
😅😅😅 Yep, still a minor in most countries.
Yeah.
Although there were already discussions about it as early as 2005 (and earlier), Loic and company had been hosting a Web3 conference in France ("Le Web3") for a few years back then. (The real Web3, not the crypto-Web3. < this is why many, if not most, Fediverse devs don't like crypto, the crypto enthusiasts stole "Web3")
The discussions revolved around: #LinkedData #SemanticWeb #SocialWeb and Federation. It was how Web2 was actually envisioned by Tim, father of WWW, to be a federated social network but big corps took over and Web2 became closed social networks.
Lastly, the first approaches were through tech that existing networks were encouraged to implement. For example, few people remember the "Open Social" set of technologies. The SNS platforms who applied Open Social were Hi5 and Google+ to mention two.
In addition, before the #Bluesky "Open Social"—to promote #ATproto —there already was an #OpenSocial. Before the current Social Web came to be, the label was already being used in the early 2000s for similar purposes but larger and more inclusive.
(Note: trying to remember things from back then)
UPDATE from @drspod@lemmy.ml
Although there were already discussions about it as early as 2005 (and earlier), Loic and company had been hosting a Web3 conference in France (“Le Web3”) for a few years back then. (The real Web3, not the crypto-Web3. < this is why many, if not most, Fediverse devs don’t like crypto, the crypto enthusiasts stole “Web3”)
I think you've retconned a little bit here. LeWeb3 was named as a sequel to the previous conference which was called LeBlogs2. Remember, at that time Web 2.0 hadn't really taken off yet - browsers had only just implemented the XMLHTTPRequest API - so it wouldn't have made sense to already be talking about Web 3.0.
Here is an original document containing some history of LeWeb3: https://web.archive.org/web/20070704054929/http://www.loiclemeur.com/LeWeb3executivesummaryv1.pdf
It started as a suggestion, then we compiled it and made phases of polls. (The instance clised shop, unfortunately.)
Based on those, the most that got the votes was the suggestion "Mycelium". It was inspired by Star Trek: Discovery and the real-world mycelium.
The second one, I can't remember but it was also related to nature's fungi or plants.
The list of suggestions and votes were based on who participated. And at the time it was done, it was the Twitter Migration, and people were complaining loudly about the name "Fediverse". And yet, those who participated were mostly pre-Migration people (who generally didn't have a strong issue with "Fediverse"). 😄
Hashtags is like search without the noise. (Unless of course someone is abusing it.)
Groups are similar to hashtags but without the restriction on what content is allowed as long as it is within the agreed scope. Groups usually have moderation features as well. And it can also be set to private (if supported).
Even if a group is public, if the feature was well-made, replies to a post posted in a group are usually seen by griup members only. Or, if the thread itself is opened.
Compare that to hashtags, replies will always appear for everyone.
In a way it can be seen as a "bot" since how it works is like what feed bots are doing.
Regardless, groups are by nature "boosters" even in silo SNS. Example, FB groups pushes group content to people's personal timeline/feed.
It's similar to how mailinglists work. You send an email to the group's mailinglist address and then it gets boosted/sent to everyone subscribed to that mailinglist group/address.
So, yeah, technically "bots" since its automated forwarding.
Hmm… I like the -ville suggestion. #Threadiville perhaps?
So:
😁
When the first Reddit migration happened, the migrants called it #Threadiverse and has always been that way. Although some tried to change it (Threads was not around yet, or public, IIRC), it didn't work, the migrants prefer Threadiverse so it stuck.
Changing names in the Fediverse is not easy since it has grown humongous already. Back in 2008 it was simply called #Identiverse. Then a few years later it morphed into the #Fediverse (this was before ActivityPub, yes, the Fediverse is years older than ActivityPub).
Back in 2021/2022, we tried to change the name "Fediverse" because Twitter migrants and the Press/Media were whining too much about it. Even though we reached a consensus, the we were far too small compared to the number of new people.
The people who kept on complaining about the name "Fediverse", when they were asked to participate in the disucssion and polls, they did not. When they were presented with the new name, they either ignored us or started whining again. 🤷🏽
Anyway, if there's a huge population involved, it's not going to be easy.
Now, I'm not discouraging you, rather, I shared our experience in the hopes that you'll find a better way. Because personally, I'm not so fond of "Threadiverse", haha.
If you use, for example, the lemmyBB interface, it's no longer "threadi", it's a forum. 😝 (I know, lame reason.)
Oh! One thing that came out of trying to rename the Fediverse, people don't want "-verse" anywhere because it's overused. Multiverse. Metaverse. Fediverse. Threadiverse. Benverse. Omniverse. Panverse. Whoverse. Trekverse.
I think we entered a portal and appeared in 2025, that's why 2008 was only 6 months ago. 😅