First two chapters turned in

After a couple of months of deep writing, I've just turned in my first two chapters for the ActivityPub book for O'Reilly Media. Finn the Human from Adventure Time saying Yussssss It's been a really tough process for me. I've never written a book, or really any text of this size, before, so learning how … Continue reading First two chapters turned in →

Birthday Inventory 2023

Today, October 14, is my birthday. I'm far from home, in Brussels, with my wife on a trip to celebrate our anniversary and my birthday. We had a long, exhausting flight from Montreal, got in yesterday evening, and dragged ourselves out for dinner and got to sleep at a reasonable hour. This morning, coffee and … Continue reading Birthday Inventory 2023 →

ActivityPub on WordPress.com

I'm really happy to see the ActivityPub plugin enabled for all free and paid WordPress.com accounts. I've been using the plugin on this blog for about a week, thanks to Matthias Pfefferle at WordPress, and I have some thoughts about it so far. The first thing is that it's definitely more like having a fediverse … Continue reading ActivityPub on WordPress.com →

ActivityPub, the SocialCG, and the social web

I have some strong feelings about the social web (aka "the fediverse") right now. I don't aways communicate them well, because they feel so essential to me, which can be frustrating for my friends, colleagues and allies. I want to set out some steps for my reasoning. I think the social web is very important. … Continue reading ActivityPub, the SocialCG, and the social web →

Ecoregion Hashtags

One of the things I'm interested in is gardening with native plants. So, I love following the #NativePlants hashtag on the fediverse. I get to see people using native plants in their gardens, talking about interesting species, and showing great gardening photos. However, the native plant gardening community is pretty big. And the social web … Continue reading Ecoregion Hashtags →

A New Social Web Working Group at the W3C

One of the outcomes of the W3C worldwide technical conference, TPAC, this year, was a suggestion from W3C staff that we consider forming a new Social Web Working Group (WG) for revising the ActivityPub and Activity Streams 2.0 standards. There has been some controversy about this idea, which I wanted to address with a blog … Continue reading A New Social Web Working Group at the W3C →

This blog is now on the Fediverse!

I'm excited to say that you can now follow my WordPress account on the fediverse! This is really exciting news; the ActivityPub plugin on WordPress is starting to roll out to WP users. To follow me in Mastodon or another fediverse service, use my account on this blog, @evanprodromou . Connecting these two parts of … Continue reading This blog is now on the Fediverse! →

Not Too Late

I recently read the book Not Too Late by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua. It's a book about the climate crisis, with a focus on providing some level of incentive to sufferers of climate despair. I have really enjoyed Rebecca Solnit's other work, so I thought I'd give this book a try.It's a collection … Continue reading Not Too Late →

ActivityPub Book for O’Reilly Media

I've signed an agreement to write a book about ActivityPub for O'Reilly Media. ActivityPub is the protocol for connecting social networks across the Web; it's what currently underpins Mastodon and will be used by Threads.net. The book should be available sometime after summer 2024. The book will be a developer guide that will help programmers … Continue reading ActivityPub Book for O’Reilly Media →

Federated Social Media for Canada Webinar

I have been involved in the development of the protocols that enable distributed social networking in apps such as Mastodon. As Meta's new product, Threads, starts making its move into the social web AKA "the fediverse", there have a been a lot of questions about what role Canadian institutions can play. To help out, I'm … Continue reading Federated Social Media for Canada Webinar →