Perhaps it would be better to submit <a href="https://joinmastodon.org" rel="nofollow">https://joinmastodon.org</a> instead of the flagship instance. The project homepage has links to all the info as well as a directory of servers (instances), which might spread out new users better.
For people who want to know more, I wrote this:<p><a href="http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/ThinkingAboutMastodon.html?HN_20170910" rel="nofollow">http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/ThinkingAboutMastodon.html?HN_...</a><p>Submitted it here ...<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14626958" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14626958</a><p>... but it got very little attention. In fact, checking my logs only about 20 people even clicked through.<p>Perhaps people are genuinely not interested. Attention fatigue?? Who knows?<p>Edit: I should add that I'm here: <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/@ColinTheMathmo" rel="nofollow">https://mathstodon.xyz/@ColinTheMathmo</a><p><a href="https://mathstodon.xyz" rel="nofollow">https://mathstodon.xyz</a> is very quiet, but building slowly.
I am a huge advocate for Mastodon. It is worth remembering that nearly all of the value for the users of a social network comes from other users. Most of Twitter's defining features -- retweets, hashtags, and @ mentions -- were invented not by Twitter's employees, but by its users:<p><a href="https://qz.com/135149/the-first-ever-hashtag-reply-and-retweet-as-twitter-users-invented-them/" rel="nofollow">https://qz.com/135149/the-first-ever-hashtag-reply-and-retwe...</a><p>As a result, building services like this in a distributed way a la email seems much more appropriate. Why let Twitter greedily monetize your content?
I'm looking forward to platforms that are decentralized as well as allow rich media content (photos, videos, etc.) to be embedded/uploaded. Such platforms would have some chance of being an alternatives to centralized walled gardens like Facebook and Google+.<p>Edit: As pointed out by daveid (thanks!), Mastodon does allow uploading photos and videos. So my statement referring to it as text-only was incorrect, and I've removed that part.<p>Update: I created an account on an instance and it looked like Tweetdeck's web interface, which is something I do like during the rare times I login to Twitter. I personally would still like to see something richer and more familiar to people who use Facebook and Google+ in terms of the interface, features like groups, etc. I struggle to keep up with Twitter, and I find groups to be the best place for me on social networks. I also like that longform articles can be posted on Facebook with Notes. The 500 character limit in Mastodon seems a lot better than Twitter, but is still a huge restriction.
I'm a mastodon user, so I might be a bit biased, but I find it a lot better than twitter. Different servers can also carter to different cultures or groups so you can find your own niche there.
I really want to embrace this - but I'm <i>still</i> not able to make up my mind whether I object more to Twitter the company or to the whole concept that Mastodon is implementing.<p>(edit: not that Twitter themselves have done much to offend me - "Twitter the company" above is more of a stand-in for commercial social networking companies at large)<p>2nd edit because I've not had my coffee yet and didn't explain myself properly: the "whole concept" that I'm talking about is, I guess, what people used to call 'microblogging' - a service of which Twitter is the holotype; as far as I can see, the real utility of it is in its constant presence via a phone app, but I am not sure if I want to do that. I definitely <i>don't</i> want to have that in my life by joining Twitter, but I can't make up my mind whether my dislike is more about the companies providing the service, or more about the generic service itself.<p>Does that make better sense? :)
Honestly, it's a barren wasteland, worse than Google+.
As far as I've seen it's mainly used as a replacement for imageboards.
Most of the server topics are either a variant of /b/, or a gathering place for SJWs, furries and lolicons.
The wanna be Mastodon users could use reading my blog post The Importance of Choosing the Correct Mastodon Instance <a href="https://carlchenet.com/the-importance-of-choosing-the-correct-mastodon-instance/" rel="nofollow">https://carlchenet.com/the-importance-of-choosing-the-correc...</a><p>There are some ideological and technical points to consider before choosing your instance.
Previous discussion of Mastodon here - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13303346" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13303346</a>
Mastodon impliments a very very confusing username system, due to the design of domain-name based federation.<p><pre><code> alice@mastadon.social
alice@mastadon.network
</code></pre>
Twitter suffers from impersonator accounts on its own network, imagine the confusion of an unfamiliar user having to find a real account on mastadon.