I don’t understand how the Mastodon compatible username works on Micro.blog. I have a Mastodon account since before and things I post here are cross posted to that Mastodon account: @ndreas@mastodon.social. But if I try to add a Mastodon user name here on Micro.blog it would be @ndreas@... www.ndreas.eu

@ndreas I am still trying to grasp these things myself, but here’s my vague understanding: @ndreas.mastodon.social is one entity that is based on the instance mastodon.social, where as @ndreas is a different entity, which is accessible to Mastodon-based folks, but isn’t based on an instance. They are two different “people.” You either want to be the Micro.blog @ndreas or the Mastodon @ndreas, but not both. @ndreas, the Micro.blog user, can crosspost to @ndreas.mastodon.social.

Does that make any sense? I am currently cross-posting to @jean.social.lol, but I also have @jean which I could use and skip being a member of an instance. I am not sure what to do yet…that should be obvious! 😅

@ndreas I am still trying to grasp these things myself, but here's my vague understanding: @ndreas.mastodon.social is one entity that is based on the instance mastodon.social, where as @ndreas is a different entity, which is accessible to Mastodon-based folks, but isn't based on an instance. They are two different "people." You either want to be the Micro.blog @ndreas or the Mastodon @ndreas, but not both. @ndreas, the Micro.blog user, can crosspost to @ndreas.mastodon.social.

Does that make any sense? I am currently cross-posting to @jean, but I also have @jean which I could use and skip being a member of an instance. I am not sure what to do yet...that should be obvious! 😅

@ndreas I can’t get my head around it either.

@jean thanks! I was guessing that’s how it works. But how do I get access to the @ndreas account on Mastodon? I can’t figure that out.

@ndreas what do you mean by how do you get access? Basically, all your posts on your blogs are basically toots on that account. And people on Mastodon can follow it, reply to it and you should get as you get Micro.blog replies.

@pcora I mean. Can I log in to Mastodon as the Micro.blog account?

@ndreas no, but other can follow it and their replies you show as mentions on Micro.blog. See this conversation where I replied from my social.lol mastodon account as an example.

@ndreas @pcora I just followed @jean and I hope this doesn’t cause my whole existence to implode.

It would be nice if one’s Micro.blog About text could populate the @micro.blog profile.

Reply referencing my M.b activity pub handle has been deleted because it seemed to cause the microblogging equivalent of feedback. 🙉

@ndreas You know how email is this cool thing that mostly just works. You can have an @gmail.com address and send a message to someone with an @hey.com address and vice versa.

Someone else can run the email server on your behalf, or you can run one yourself in a closet from home. You can have one email address, two or five, or how many you want.

Also, you can use whatever client you want. Gmail’s web-based client, a fancy app on your phone, or a text-based one in a terminal. They might have different features and user experiences, but they all “speak email.”

All this is possible thanks to a set of rules. A bunch of protocols. You might have heard of SMTP and IMAP, for example.

Imagine for a while an alternative world where social media worked the same way as email. That you could write to your Instagram friends from your Twitter account. Or follow that old aunt who still has Facebook from your TikTok account.

There would have to exist a set of rules for how all this should work. A social network protocol. And, of course, Twitter and all the others would have to support that protocol. The chance of them doing that is pretty slim because of… well, money.

But protocols for making it happen already exist. ActivityPub is one such protocol. ActivityPub is for social networking, what SMTP is for email.

And Mastodon is one piece of software with support for ActivityPub. Pixelfed is another (Instagram-like), PeerTube a third, and Owncast a fourth (YouTube-like and Twitch-like). And they can all talk to one another, thanks to ActivityPub.

Micro.blog is another service with support for ActivityPub. So to split hairs, when you’re “activating your Mastodon-compatible username”, you’re really activating ActivityPub support. So people on Mastodon will be able to follow you and vice versa. But the same is true for Pixelfed and PeerTube. Or any other software supporting ActivityPub.

Just like it’s up to you how many email addresses you have and which providers and clients you use, it’s up to you which ActivityPub-compatible services you use and how many identities you want.

Micro.blog and Mastodon can talk to each other but differ regarding features. For example, Micro.blog has bookshelves and newsletters while Mastodon has boosts (retweets) and favorites (likes). And so on.

It’s different services. You won’t be able to log in on your Mastodon instance with your Micro.blog account (or the other way around).

Micro.blog is not Mastodon, similar to how Gmail is not HEY. But users on respective services can communicate thanks to shared protocols.

@sod dude. this is such a great and helpful and clear explanation.

@sod mycket pedagogiskt. Tack. Men en sak förstår jag fortfarande inte. Mitt Mastodon-kompatibla @ndreas går inte att hitta på mastodon

@sod damn that was a helpful explanation. Thanks!

@ndreas Inte 100 % säker men tror det är för att din blogg är onåbar på ndreas.eu (utan www). Prova att logga in hos din DNS-leverantör (iwantmyname?) och peka även den nakna domänen (ndreas.eu) till Micro.blog-servern.

If you want both the root domain and www.yourdomain.com to work, you’ll need both an “A” record for the root domain and a “CNAME” record for the “www” version. Also, enter “www.yourdomain.com ” in the settings in Micro.blog. (By including “www”, Micro.blog will know to also enable the root domain version.)

– Custom domains

@Annie @maique @Bruff Oh, thank you, glad you liked it. 🥰

@sod I’m not @ndreas , but thank you so much for writing this clear explanation. It’s helped me understand what this is all about. 😀

@sod The email analogy helped clear the cobwebs in my brain too. Now that I have ‘activated’ my Mastodon-friendly username on Micro.blog, Mastodon users can follow it without me joining Mastodon, right?

@sod BINGO! Wrote about this, too (I think on Mastodon haha). What most tech pundits and mainstream media who cite the discoverability issue of the fediverse as a whole, and Mastodon in particular, is that they don’t understand that it is EXACTLY the same as e-mail.

One thing that made Mastodon a bit complicated is the LOCAL and FEDERATED timelines. Posting locally on most Mastodon instances is also visible in the fediverse (unless you use HomeTown Mastodon-fork, which does not echo locally posted toots to the fediverse. Last I’ve checked this was not merged with the main Mastodon trunk). I think this is why Eugen (Mastodon author) decided that the Mastodon mobile apps hide these two, to simplify it for new users, and IMHO, to make it look like Twitter. :)

Mastodon’s list of instances adds to the confusion – one is dedicated for some topic/theme/what-not, but posting locally means posting in the fediverse anyway. NO point in looking for an instance that is dedicated to coffee, for example, since there is no local community to start with.

@sod Wow! That explanation has opened up a whole new online world to me. I loved the email analogy. Thank you very much for taking the time to share this.

@sod This is a great explanation - this should go on indieweb.org!

@sod tack! Vad grym du är

@sod Awesome explaination.

@jean hi! Seems to be something wrong here.

@sod you just gave the Irish national broadcaster the most coherent explanation of layers in our online spaces.

@ndreas I see dozens of my Irish friends on my MB timeline. I used MB’s discovery tool to find them via their Mastodon addresses and after following them via my MB login, they’re now bubbling up in whatever MB app I use.

@topgold cool.

@pratik Yes, that is correct. I followed you successfully from my Mastodon account just now.

@topgold @BenSouthwood @hollie @crossingthethreshold @rom @Miraz @jayeless I’m delighted you found it useful. Thanks for reading and sharing! 🥰

@rom as everyone else has said, one of the better explanation of how it works that I’ve come across. But do you know if I can follow folks on Mastodon in microBlog? Can I reply to them from mB? If I follow the email analogy that should be possible.

@ndreas Yikes, it looks like I did cross the streams. I promise not to do it again. Tagging @help.

@jean @ndreas oh.. so it was a Micro.blog issue, not a gluon one. I got hundreds of notifications overnight! :P

@lukemperez @sod My Q about replies too. Will they see it on Mastodon? If they reply to my reply on Mastodon, will I see it on Micro.blog?

@lukemperez Thanks! Yes, you should be able to follow people from any other ActivityPub-compatible service, like Mastodon, and reply to their posts. It’s documented over at the Help Center.

@pcora @gluon I am so sorry!

@sod this is all well and good. Although I have a mastodon account, I think I prefer to follow-interact with the handful of folks I know there through microBlog. Then I’ll have two streams to manage, mB and Twitter (I’m in the minority here who have no plans of leaving). Many thanks! 🤙🏽

@sod Perfect and perfect. I just didn’t want to reply to someone’s Mastodon posts on Micro.blog if they are not seeing it.

Reminds me of the time when I was replying from my private Twitter account to someone’s public Twitter account and they were not following me. Someone else kindly told me I was screaming into the abyss.

@sod I was planning to set aside time today to figure this all out. Your explanation is very good.

@sod @ndreas Great explanations, thank you. I realized that the help page on domain names was a little out dated… I’ve updated it. You can enter either the “www” version or root domain and Micro.blog will do the right thing.

@jean apologies not needed. No harm done. 😊

@pcora @jean agreed, no apologies needed

@manton I’m appreciating @sod’s explanation, feeling yesterday as though I got it. However this morning when I think about this my mind feels like I’m trying to get into a yoga pose that my body is rebelling against. I think that I just need to activate my presence via ActivityPub and start experimenting.

@lukemperez that question, my friend, is for @manton :)