What is Mastodon?
Mastodon is an app founded by a German Software Developer, Eugen Rochko, who made it at Friedrich Schiller University, Germany in 2016. Earlier Eugen was a Twitter user, but eventually, he became dissatisfied with Twitter and launched something of his own. Mastodon is a decentralized, open-source, ad-free platform that is made up of 1000s of different servers which run across the world.
What can be done on Mastodon?
The Mastodon app comes with some features that are similar to Twitter. It includes following other users and groups, sharing photos, videos, and audio using hashtags, and even boosting posts. Here, you can even edit your posts. Mastodon posts can take up to 500 characters. To sign-up for the app, first, download it. Then select servers based on your interest, region, and purposes. Doing this makes the app list 7 ground rules that need to be followed. Then, fill up your display name, and set up a username, email ID, and password. After you do this, you will get a verification link on your email ID. Click on the link to get started. The users on Mastodon can talk by typing @username posts but users still don’t have the option for messages to be delivered to a DM inbox.
Can Mastodon really be a substitute for Twitter?
Mastodon is made of many different instances, or servers instead of being managed by one company on one domain name. So, it is quite different from Twitter. Signing up and finding your friends on Mastodon is a little harder than on Twitter. There are strange little quirks as Tweets are called “Toots”. Also, Mastodon doesn’t have the same level of polish as Twitter as it is not maintained by professionals. Emails and loading can be slow as well. Following is also not as simple on Mastodon as on Twitter. This is because if the one you want to follow is on a different instance than you, you will have to copy and paste their entire username into Mastodon’s search box. All in all, Mastodon is not as easy to use as Twitter, and nor does it have as many users generating content that will bring you back day after day. But what goes for it is that it is free and open-source with 1000s of different servers guarantees that the platform can’t be bought for $44 billion.
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