I moved to Mastodon this week.
Elon Musk started to impact on the Twitter, so much so that lots of people were talking about moving off the Twitter and onto other similar services, with Mastodon getting much of this traffic. We had some discussions about Mastodon at work. I went out and created an account on mastodon.cloud and then discovered I had already created an account before, well back in August 2018, on mastodon.social. So, I went back and deleted the new account and started to use the original account.
Though I had been on Mastodon since 2018 the recent influx has got me back on the app. Though my stream of stuff seems to be mainly people telling people how to use Mastodon and what and what not to do on the service and how it is different to the bird place (they mean the Twitter).
Reminds me of Twitter in 2009 when there was a similar level of new users starting to use that service. Back in 2008 I wrote this blog post about how I used the Twitter. I basically said Twitter was all about the coffee.
You can say pretty much the same about Mastodon.
However for me Mastodon is all about the coffee.
It’s the coffee you drink with colleagues during a break from work, where you discuss work stuff, but also discuss your commute into work, what you saw on TV last night, what bizarre thing you just saw, the weather.
It’s the coffee you drink whilst browsing the web and when you find an interesting web site and you post the link to your blog, in an e-mail, on your VLE.
It’s the coffee you drink in a coffee shop, where you’re reading the paper, reading a book, chatting.
Mastodon is the coffee you drink in the Library reading a journal, a book, writing stuff.
It’s the coffee you drink with fellow delegates during a break or at lunch at a conference. Where you discuss the keynotes, the presentations, the workshops, where you are going next, your hotel, the food, the coffee, what you do, where you’re going, what gadgets you have in your gadget bag.
Mastodon is about these moments, but without the physical and geographical limitations. Mastodon also allows people from different institutions, different sectors, different organisations, different departments to share these moments. I brings in people from different industries, different countries, different perspectives.
When you decide to follow someone, ask yourself could you drink coffee with this person, would they drink coffee with you?
At the end of the day Mastodon is all about the coffee as Twitter was in the day.
