Communication protocol | |
Developer(s) | World Wide Web Consortium |
---|---|
Introduction | January 23, 2018 |
Based on | Activity Streams, JSON-LD |
Website | activitypub |
ActivityPub is an open, decentralized social networking protocol based on Pump.io's ActivityPump protocol. [1] It provides a client/server API for creating, updating, and deleting content, as well as a federated server-to-server API for delivering notifications and content. [2]
ActivityPub is a standard for the Internet in the Social Web Networking Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The standard was co-authored by Evan Prodromou, [3] creator of StatusNet (now known as GNU social). At an earlier stage, the name of the protocol was "ActivityPump", but it was felt that ActivityPub better indicated the cross-publishing purpose of the protocol. It is the most widely supported standard (by some margin) in the Fediverse.[ citation needed ]
In January 2018, the W3C published the ActivityPub standard as a Recommendation. [2] Lead author Christine Lemmer-Webber notes that the team predominantly identified as queer, which led to features that help users and administrators protect against "undesired interaction." She also notes that the team authoring ActivityPub had no corporate participation. [4]
The W3C Social Community Group previously organized a yearly free conference called ActivityPub Conf about the future of ActivityPub. [5] [6]
Former Diaspora community manager Sean Tilley wrote an article that suggests ActivityPub protocols may eventually provide a way to federate Internet platforms. [7]
Triages are held regularly to review issues pertaining to the ActivityPub and ActivityStreams 2.0 specifications as part of the W3C Social Web Incubator Community Group. [8]
Software name | MAU [9] | Initial fediverse-compatible release | Type |
---|---|---|---|
Akkoma [10] | 4,164 | 2022 [11] | Microblogging |
BookWyrm [12] | 4,834 | 2021 [13] | Book cataloguing |
Castopod [14] | 2020 [15] | Podcasting | |
Epicyon [16] | 2019 [17] | Microblogging | |
Firefish (f. Calckey) [18] | 10,935 | 2022 [19] | Microblogging |
Flipboard [20] | 2023 [21] [22] | News aggregation | |
Friendica (f. Friendika; orig. Mistpark) [23] | 2,335 | 2019 | Blogging, image gallery, event planner, groups |
Funkwhale [24] | 600 | 2018 [25] | Music hosting |
Gancio [26] | 2020 [27] | Events, calendar | |
GNU social (f. StatusNet; orig. Laconica) | 137 | 2008 | Microblogging |
GoToSocial [28] | 42 | 2021 [29] | Microblogging |
Guppe [30] | 2021 [31] | Groups | |
Honk [32] | 2019 [33] | Microblogging | |
Hubzilla (f. RedMatrix; orig. Friendica-Red) [34] | 933 | 2015 [35] | CMS, blogging, wiki, image gallery, file hosting |
Iceshrimp [36] | 2023 | Microblogging | |
Inventaire.io [37] | 2021 | Book cataloguing | |
Kbin [38] [39] | 33,112 | Pre-release | Link aggregator, forum, microblogging |
Lemmy [40] | 69,784 | 2019 | Link aggregator, forum |
Libervia (in beta as of 2022 [update] ) [41] | 2022 | Instant messaging, microblogging, blogging, file sharing, event management | |
lotide [42] | 2020 [43] | Link aggregator | |
Mastodon [44] [ failed verification ] | 14,791,133 [45] | 2016 | Microblogging |
Mbin [46] | 456 | 2023 | Link aggregator, forum, microblogging |
Micro.blog [47] [48] | 4,964 | 2017 | Microblogging, blogging, photoblogging, podcasting |
microblog.pub [49] | 2022 [50] | Microblogging | |
Misskey | 15,541 | 2018 | Microblogging |
Mobilizon | 2020 | Event and group management | |
Nextcloud Social [51] [52] | 2018 [53] | File hosting | |
Owncast [54] | 203 | 2022 | Live video streaming |
PeerTube [44] | 18,646 | 2018 | Video sharing |
Pixelfed [55] | 18,733 | 2018 | Image sharing |
Pleroma [56] | 18,094 | 2019 [57] | Microblogging |
Plume [58] | 2018 [59] | Blogging | |
Postmarks [60] | 2023 [61] | Bookmarking | |
Sharkey [62] | 752 | 2023 | Microblogging |
Soapbox.pub [63] | 2020 [64] | Microblogging | |
Socialhome | 42 | 2016 [65] | Microblogging, blogging |
Streams [66] | 2022 [67] | Blogging, wiki, image sharing | |
Takahē [68] | 5 | 2022 [69] | Microblogging |
Threads [70] | 130,000,000 (February 2024) [71] | 2023 | |
Wordpress (via plugin) [72] [73] | ? | 2023 | Blogging |
WriteFreely [74] | 2018 [75] | Blogging | |
Zap [76] | Blogging, image gallery, file hosting |
Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text editor. John Gruber and Aaron Swartz created Markdown in 2004 as a markup language that is intended to be easy to read in its source code form. Markdown is widely used for blogging and instant messaging, and also used elsewhere in online forums, collaborative software, documentation pages, and readme files.
Mercurial is a distributed revision control tool for software developers. It is supported on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and other Unix-like systems, such as FreeBSD and macOS.
OpenSocial is a public specification that outlines a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) for web applications. Initially designed for social network applications, it was developed collaboratively by Google, MySpace and other social networks. It has since evolved into a runtime environment that allows third-party components, regardless of their trust level, to operate within an existing web application.
A distributed social network or federated social network is an Internet social networking service that is decentralized and distributed across distinct service providers, such as the Fediverse or the IndieWeb. It consists of multiple social websites, where users of each site communicate with users of any of the involved sites. From a societal perspective, one may compare this concept to that of social media being a public utility.
OStatus is an open standard for federated microblogging, allowing users on one website to send and receive status updates with users on another website. The standard describes how a suite of open protocols, including Atom, Activity Streams, WebSub, Salmon, and WebFinger, can be used together, which enables different microblogging server implementations to route status updates between their users back-and-forth, in near real-time.
Friendica is a free and open-source software distributed social network. It forms one part of the Fediverse, an interconnected and decentralized network of independently operated servers.
PDF.js is a JavaScript library that renders Portable Document Format (PDF) files using the web standards-compliant HTML5 Canvas. The project is led by the Mozilla Corporation after Andreas Gal launched it in 2011.
Distributed social network projects generally develop software, protocols, or both.
pump.io is a general-purpose activity streams engine that can be used as a federated social networking protocol which "does most of what people really want from a social network". Started by Evan Prodromou, it is a follow-up to GNU social, and is designed to be more lightweight and usable for general data instead of just microblogging. The largest StatusNet instance at the time, Identi.ca, which was the largest StatusNet service and ran by Prodromou, switched to pump.io in June 2013.
PeerTube is a free and open-source, decentralized, ActivityPub federated video platform powered by WebTorrent, that uses peer-to-peer technology to reduce load on individual servers when viewing videos.
Vue.js is an open-source model–view–viewmodel front end JavaScript library for building user interfaces and single-page applications. It was created by Evan You, and is maintained by him and the rest of the active core team members.
Mastodon is free and open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services. It has microblogging features similar to Twitter, which are offered by a large number of independently run nodes, known as instances or servers, each with its own code of conduct, terms of service, privacy policy, privacy options, and content moderation policies.
The fediverse is a collection of social networking services that can communicate with each other using a common protocol. Users of different websites can send and receive status updates, multimedia files and other data across the network. The term fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".
Pixelfed is a free and open-source image sharing social network service. The platform distinguishes itself from other image sharing services through its decentralized architecture, meaning user data is not stored on a central server. It uses the ActivityPub protocol, allowing users to interact with other social networks within the protocol, such as Mastodon, PeerTube, and Friendica. Pixelfed and other platforms utilizing this protocol are considered to be part of the Fediverse. The network is made up of several independent sites that communicate with one another, which is roughly comparable to e-mail providers. The parties involved do not all have to be registered with the same provider, but can still communicate with each other. Thus, users are able to sign up on any server and follow others on the other instances.
Eugen Rochko is a Russian-born German software developer, best known as the creator of Mastodon, a decentralized open-source social networking platform consisting of a large number of independently run nodes, known as instances, each with its own code of conduct, terms of service, privacy policy, privacy options, and moderation policies.
Lemmy is a free and open-source software for running self-hosted social news aggregation and discussion forums. These hosts, known as "instances", communicate with each other using the ActivityPub protocol.
Mobilizon is an open source software for event planning and group management, launched in October 2020 by Framasoft to offer a free alternative to the platforms of GAFAM. Mobilizon gained much visibility in hacker circles relatively fast, but also soon within cultural scene in Europe and more recently in the mainstream IT media.
Nostr is a decentralized network protocol for a distributed social networking system. The name is an acronym for "Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays". It was designed with goals of censorship-resistance in mind.
Christine Lemmer-Webber is a software engineer, best known for her lead authorship and co-editorship of ActivityPub. She is currently CTO at Spritely Institute.
Misskey is self-hosted social networking software. It is commonly used as part of the Fediverse network, with Mastodon and similar software.