It was ~2 years ago that we started this blog as a way to share long-form musings or the simple stuff going on in our lives with, well, with anyone who wanted to read it. Then, ~2 months ago, coffeenow also joined the fediverse, and now has its own account on Mastodon.

It’s no doubt that Mastodon is not your standard choice for promoting a blog if your purpose is to drive engagement (here, just using the term to mean getting eyeballs onto your writing), but of course that’s not the purpose. We basically just want to offer an option for people to find, follow and interact with our posts in a way outside of RSS.

Sreenshot of Mastodon sign-up page

Mastodon basics (as we understand them)

Mastodon is something that, like many, we became aware of when it started being mentioned as a Twitter alternative - first in 2022, then again more recently as Twitter began imploding into a horrid mess as paid-for ‘blue tick’ accounts (including many spamming crypto scams or really extremist views) became heavily promoted to users.

First, what it isn’t. Mastodon is not (mostly) a social media platform - it is open-source software (AGPL-3.0 license) that allows anyone to run their own social network, on their own server or ‘instance’.

How that becomes different to an old-school style forum is that each instance then connects to each other via a protocol known as ActivityPub, a standard maintained by the W3C, the same group that do the general web standards. This means, when you log into the Mastodon instance you have joined, you don’t only see the stuff on that instance but also stuff ‘federated’ from other instances, hence you become part of the ‘fediverse’.

And, it’s not just Mastodon that is part of the fediverse, other platforms - for example, Pixelfed, an Instagram-like network - also use the ActivityPub protocol and can be federated into the network with Mastodon. Thus, via the one account, on the one instance, on the one platform, you can interact with many platforms.

Fediverse software icons form nodes joined in a network by arrows

©Fedi.Tips. A simplified diagram of connections in the fediverse.

A common analogy is to think of Mastodon as a technology in the same way you think about email. However, I don’t think that truly covers it - I’m definitely not truly clear on quite how it works in terms of who sees who in all this federated networking.

Why Mastodon

So if the fediverse isn’t one thing, why have we chosen Mastodon and how have we chosen the instance we have versus another.

Well, despite any muddle on my understanding on the in and outs of federation, what I am clear on is that the Mastodon software will show you stuff in your home feed in a true chronological order - there is no algorithm that determines what you see; you choose people (or hashtags) to follow and, hence, you choose who and what appears in your feed.

And - let’s shout this out loud - there are no adverts - it’s not standardly supported in the Mastodon software (most instances are funded by donations or sponsorships for the server costs - as the user, a lot of instance admins will allow/encourage you to make donations to their costs, and we intend to do just that for the instance we are using).

There’s also no trackers on standard Mastodon websites, something that’s very rare to find in any website today, where Google analytics and Facebook pixels are almost universally embedded [that’s not to say no data is collected about you when using Mastodon - you still need to read the privacy policy from your instance - but on the whole it’s data needed to operate, not hoovering up everything possible to target ads at you].

So, if you think the above is something you believe in, and it for us, then Mastodon is really a great choice.

But, having decided on Mastodon, you need to decide on your instance. Although these days, somewhat controversially, the Mastodon sign up process directs you to try @mastodon.social, that’s not where we are.

Despite some arguments that it doesn’t much matter which instance you choose to join (and it’s true you can always move instances - taking your followers with you), our experience is that it probably does, or it least it does if you browse your ‘local’ timeline (containing all posts by instance members) or follow hashtags.

That’s because of the way federation works - although technically everyone is connected to everyone else in the fediverse (apart from those that are blocked by your instance), if you see everyone, you see an awful lot of noise. Conversely, your experience might be quite isolated if you only are part of a very small group.

Instances typically have a primary focus; perhaps art, science or tech. For us, we simply chose a generalist, but truly UK-based instance (by that I mean the hardware running the instance is based in the UK, not just the majority of users). It’s worth mentioning, the instance admins are also the ones who decide on moderation policies - but as a first rule, any instance with a link on the Mastodon picker does have to sign up to the Mastodon covenant.

As it happened, we got round to setting up our Mastodon account not long after the previous post, on the London marathon, went out, and until we get this post up, that all that’s on the account (we haven’t been reposting):

Screenshot of mastodon post for coffee now ''A new running thing... but not in London Ok, so for those who don't know, the London marathon didn't happen for me this year. I think I've always been clear that there was a bit of an 'if' getting to the start line. When you are pushing yourself doing runs that are that far, there's always a risk of picking up an injury...'

Oh, and if it anyone’s wondering, embedding posts from Mastodon is very easy, just a click and copy for some html, but in the IceCubes app, it’s also easy to click a few dots and you get an image of a post, which is just a bit more future-proof - Twitter stopped their feed API last week, and although we never used it here, right now, there’s a whole load of websites/blogs/apps (including public service channels) with broken feed boxes showing no content, so image it is.

Please feel free to follow and chat with us at @coffeenow@mastodon.me.uk.

Our personal Mastodon microblogs

After a bit of experimenting with Mastodon for an account for this blog, both James and I have now taken the plunge and got ourselves Mastodon accounts for more general social media pottering - while Threads might have its 100 million, there’s plenty more who still haven’t abandoned Twitter, and Bluesky is growing, I’ve tended to find there’s still lots of posts that are interesting/amusing enough on Mastodon.

A doddled mug with a photo of coffee beans spilling out

Banner logo for Clare’s account - trying to be clever representing content on Mastodon vs content on the blog.

Our accounts aren’t for stuff we intend to keep forever - it’s just sometimes you might want to share your photo of a cake or cat, or your friend’s cake or cat, or write a report on a running race without that being enough content to be worth writing a full blog post for.

For any one wanting to follow us, please do:

Posts are likely to be up for a few months before being deleted. I don’t think all posts, or reposts (‘boosts’), will follow the adage “Mastodon is for what you love, not what you hate”, but it is a platform that works for more than moaning, or at least not just moaning at corporate entities (#cataday!).

Finally, where now with coffeenow

Well, this is a blogiversary post, so it’s worth thinking how far we’ve moved to make the Papermod Hugo template a bit more our own; we have a working hamburger on mobile, an image gallery, a few hover things going on in the desktop view, collapsible sections for the all posts archive, etc.

Next, we might give some thought to new high-contrast and dark-mode colour schemes (accessibility can always be improved), and perhaps, just perhaps, Mastodon might work out to provide a commenting system.

As to content, well that really depends on if anything occurs that seems worth sharing.

I don’t even suppose the content that has made it here is at all exciting for anyone that doesn’t know us; I don’t suppose it’s that exciting for those that do [and even if it were, I don’t suppose anything more exciting than 2022’s wedding will happen]!

But for us, blogging is for the not just for the reader, but also for the writer. And it doesn’t all have to be all so serious.

Happy #caturday

A black-and-white cat drinks from a puddle at the base of the statue of a young Rembrandt

A contribution to #caturday. Taken at the birthplace of Rembrandt in Leiden.

Extra shots

Credits