Those Memes are Not for Me
Wherein I share my thoughts having tried out Bluesky and why when it comes to the Fediverse, I’m not going anywhere.
Jared White
Expressively publishing on the open web since 1996.
Entranced by Portland, Oregon since 2017.
Fresh Fusion
A weekly show where we discuss the business, the art, the ethics of content creation on the open web. Hosted by Jared White.
Federation Wars
Should we be concerned about imminent centralization of decentralized social networking? Nope.
Leave Your Comments Down Below
The episode in which I comment on my own articles. 😂
ActivityPub Everywhere All at Once
Everything Everywhere All at Once won big at the Oscars, but it's not the only ’verse-spanning creation making it big this year. ActivityPub is having a moment, and we're here to chronicle the rise of numerous new instances, applications, and networks—including the very WEIRD and wacky news that Meta (of all companies!) is exploring an ActivityPub-powered decentralized social networking platform of its own!
90s Internet Nostalgia Trip
As Arnold would say, I’m back, baby! Yes, I am rebooting my first blog ever, and this new daily weblog all about tech and nerd culture news with a dash of fun 90s nostalgia on the side will feature archives reaching all the way back to 1996. Are you excited yet? You should be!
iPad TV & Putting YouTube in Perspective
How can one feel like an intellectually fulfilled citizen of the open web & fediverse and still consume regular YouTube content? Here's what I have done to corral this monster into a cage…and in the process unlocked a whole new environment for computing & entertainment. Life after Big Social can be so much better.
Care to Comment?
Blog comments are BACK, and this time it’s not about software people have to use on your blog or on their blog or even over on corporate social media…it’s all about the fediverse. Using Mastodon’s API, it’s possible to find the right “toot” (that is, published status) and display all replies—from Mastodon as well as the wider range of fediverse software—as blog comments. Woo hoo! Let’s dive in.
An Interesting Reflection on the Nature of the Podcast
Or in French, une réflexion intéressante sur la nature du podcast. Yes, a très intéressante discussion ensued on Mastodon over the past few days: what is a podcast? What is the medium of podcasting? What is the format of podcasting? What is the history of podcasting? Why is a podcast called a podcast? Oddly enough, responses are all over the map, and my attempt on Mastodon to pin down a definitive definition of podcast proved rather controversial! Why?! Let’s break it all down—and ask my 2005-self from the dawn of the podcast age to weigh in on the controversy! (For the impatient, skip to 16:00.) And of course…since this is the 88th episode of Fresh Fusion, I can’t help but pepper in a few references to Back to the Future along the way…
It’s a Bird! It’s a Blog! No, It’s a…Newsletter?
Where do you put the stuff that you write? Where do you post your posts? How do you publish things online now that Twitter is imploding and the Fediverse is rising? Has blogging made a comeback? What's the different between a blog and an email newsletter that's available via the web? Questions abound, and I'm here to talk about all of it and my thoughts around smart growth of a healthier, more open web.
My Yearly Theme and 3 Words for 2023
In this episode, I recap all my “3 words” in previous years which helped set the tone for what I hoped to accomplish throughout the year and the values to focus on most. And then I share with you my yearly theme and “3 words” for 2023, why I chose those words, and what my overarching goals are for the new year. I hope this episode inspires you to join me in choosing your own words for 2023!
My Top 10 Genre Movies & Shows of 2022
Happy New Year everybody! I meant to record this show last week, but I was sick for most of the holidays. Oh well. I'm just glad I *have* a top ten list like this because honestly, I thought a lot of geek entertainment fare earlier this year rather sucked (quite a few disappointments coming from Disney in particular). Thankfully, things picked up as the year progressed, and we were able to finish out 2022 with an excellent list of some of my favorite properties not just in 2022 but ever. Let's dive in!
Harry & Meghan, Taylor Lorenz, and the Campaigns of Hate
Today, we are all John Mastodon. And in this episode, I talk about the explosive docuseries concerning Prince Harry & Meghan Markle and the outrageous, toxic relationship between the British tabloids and the Royal Family, and the even BIGGER story about how online mobs form to target victims whether they be celebrities or journalists or creators and how we need to push the reset button on online discourse because the vitriol has gotten completely out of control!
E-Scooters & the News with FeedBin
In this episode, I follow up on some of the continuing Mastodon/Twitter zaniness as well as some interesting takes around the web on “generative AI”, then dive right into my review of the Anyhill UM-2 e-scooter and an initial look at FeedBin for managing and reading news feeds. As Captain Pike would say, hit it!
Pocket Casts: Best Podcast Player in the World?
In this episode I take a deep dive into (my) history of playing podcasts over the decades, and how I eventually arrived at using Pocket Casts as my preferred podcast player of choice. Pocket Casts is chock-full of great features, not the least of which is support for playing videos (apparently not a universal feature of third-party podcast players). Listen to how I use Pocket Casts from day-to-day, as well as my thoughts on the UI design of this multi-platform (and now partially open source!) software.
Who Gives a Toot?
You won’t want to miss this episode wherein I pull back the curtain into major new developments for the future of this show, follow up on my 2019 social media predictions and compare with how current events are playing out, share specific thoughts on how to think about Mastodon instances and the health of the network, and challenge the veracity of the claim that Americans are growing more and more lonely. It’s an action-packed episode, so let’s get started!