ActivityPub

Nowadays, ActivityPub is a topic of increasing interest in modern society. With the advancement of technology and globalization, ActivityPub has become increasingly relevant in our lives. From its impact on the economy to its cultural implications, ActivityPub has been the subject of debate and analysis in different areas. In this article, we will explore the many facets of ActivityPub and its influence on our daily lives. From its history to its future projection, we will dive into an in-depth analysis of ActivityPub and its role today.

ActivityPub
Communication protocol
Developer(s)World Wide Web Consortium
IntroductionJanuary 23, 2018 (2018-01-23)
Based onActivity Streams, JSON-LD
Websiteactivitypub.rocks
Mechanics
Mechanics

ActivityPub is an open, decentralized social networking protocol based on Pump.io's ActivityPump protocol. 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.

Project status

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, 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 World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published the ActivityPub standard as a Recommendation. 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.

The W3C Social Community Group previously organized a yearly free conference called ActivityPub Conf about the future of ActivityPub.

Former Diaspora community manager Sean Tilley wrote an article that suggests ActivityPub protocols may eventually provide a way to federate Internet platforms.

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.

Software using ActivityPub

Software name MAU Initial fediverse-compatible release Type
Akkoma 4,164 2022 Microblogging
BookWyrm 4,834 2021 Book cataloguing
Castopod 2020 Podcasting
Epicyon 2019 Microblogging
Firefish (f. Calckey) 10,935 2022 Microblogging
Friendica
(f. Friendika; orig. Mistpark)
2,335 2019 Blogging, image gallery, event planner, groups
Funkwhale 600 2018 Music hosting
Gancio 2020 Events, calendar
GNU social
(f. StatusNet; orig. Laconica)
137 2008 Microblogging
GoToSocial 42 2021 Microblogging
Guppe 2021 Groups
Honk 2019 Microblogging
Hubzilla
(f. RedMatrix; orig. Friendica-Red)
933 2015 CMS, blogging, wiki, image gallery, file hosting
Inventaire.io 2021 Book cataloguing
Kbin 33,112 Pre-release Link aggregator, forum, microblogging
Lemmy 69,784 2019 Link aggregator, forum
Libervia (in beta as of 2022) 2022 Instant messaging, microblogging, blogging, file sharing, event management
lotide 2020 Link aggregator
Mastodon[failed verification] 14,791,133 2016 Microblogging
Mbin 456 2023 Link aggregator, forum, microblogging
Micro.blog 4,964 2017 Microblogging, blogging, photoblogging, podcasting
microblog.pub 2022 Microblogging
Misskey 15,541 2018 Microblogging
Mobilizon 2020 Event and group management
Nextcloud Social 2018 File hosting
Owncast 203 2022 Live video streaming
PeerTube 18,646 2018 Video sharing
Pixelfed 18,733 2018 Image sharing
Pleroma 18,094 2019 Microblogging
Plume 2018 Blogging
Postmarks 2023 Bookmarking
Sharkey 752 2023 Microblogging
Soapbox.pub 2020 Microblogging
Socialhome 42 2016 Microblogging, blogging
Streams 2022 Blogging, wiki, image sharing
Takahē 5 2022 Microblogging
Threads 130 million (February 2024) 2023
Wordpress (via plugin) ? 2023 Blogging
WriteFreely 2018 Blogging
Zap Blogging, image gallery, file hosting

Expected or announced future implementations

See also

References

  1. ^ "Sandstorm and the Social Web". zenhack.net. 29 May 2016.
  2. ^ a b "W3C Recommendation 23 January 2018".
  3. ^ Jackson, Joab (28 April 2022). "Challenges of Creating a Decentralized, Open Source Twitter". The New Stack. Retrieved 29 November 2022.
  4. ^ Klemmens, Ben (2023-01-02). "Mastodon—and the pros and cons of moving beyond Big Tech gatekeepers". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
  5. ^ "ActivityPub Conf 2020". Archived from the original on 2021-06-02. Retrieved 2020-08-01.
  6. ^ "ActivityPub Conf 2019".
  7. ^ Tilley, Sean (23 September 2017). "A quick guide to The Free Network".
  8. ^ "W3C Social Web Incubator Community Group Mailing List". Retrieved March 18, 2024.
  9. ^ "FediDB - Fediverse Network Statistics". fedidb.org. Archived from the original on July 24, 2023. Retrieved July 24, 2023.
  10. ^ "akkoma.social". Archived from the original on April 5, 2023. Retrieved April 7, 2023.
  11. ^ "Akkoma: A vision to refocus Pleroma". Coffee and Dreams. 24 June 2022. Archived from the original on July 1, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  12. ^ bookwyrm. "Bookwyrm". Archived from the original on May 26, 2021. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  13. ^ "BookWyrm (@[email protected])". LGBTQIA+ Tech Mastodon. 6 May 2021. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  14. ^ "Castopod features". Archived from the original on May 6, 2022. Retrieved November 7, 2022.
  15. ^ "Release v1.0.0-alpha.1: chore(release): 1.0.0-alpha.1 [skip ci] · ad-aures/castopod". GitHub. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  16. ^ "Epicyon ActivityPub server". epicyon.net. Archived from the original on July 24, 2023. Retrieved July 24, 2023.
  17. ^ "Epicyon 1.0 release | LibreServer Blog". blog.libreserver.org. Archived from the original on June 9, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  18. ^ "Firefish". Archived from the original on November 8, 2022. Retrieved July 22, 2023.
  19. ^ "firefish". Codeberg.org. Archived from the original on July 26, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  20. ^ "Friendica 2019.01 released". Retrieved 2019-01-24.
  21. ^ funkwhale. "Funkwhale". Archived from the original on May 2, 2019. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  22. ^ Collective, Funkwhale. "Funkwhale Blog ~ Funkwhale 0.17 is out!". blog.funkwhale.audio. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  23. ^ "Home". Gancio. Archived from the original on July 24, 2023. Retrieved July 24, 2023.
  24. ^ "v0.21.0 · les / gancio · GitLab". GitLab. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  25. ^ "GoToSocial". GitHub. Archived from the original on January 1, 2023. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  26. ^ "Release v0.1.0 · superseriousbusiness/gotosocial". GitHub. Archived from the original on July 22, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  27. ^ immers-space. "Decentralized social groups for ActivityPub". GitHub. Archived from the original on November 22, 2022. Retrieved November 22, 2022.
  28. ^ "Release First major release · immers-space/guppe". GitHub. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  29. ^ "humungus - honk". humungus.tedunangst.com. Archived from the original on July 24, 2023. Retrieved July 24, 2023.
  30. ^ "honk 0.1". flak.tedunangst.com. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  31. ^ "Hubzilla - Frequently asked questions". hubzilla.org. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  32. ^ "Hubzilla (1.0) release". 21 October 2016. Archived from the original on October 21, 2016.
  33. ^ "Inventaire toot". mamot.fr. December 7, 2021. Archived from the original on August 28, 2022. Retrieved October 17, 2022.
  34. ^ "kbin.pub - Fediverse of content". kbin.pub. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 24, 2023.
  35. ^ "Fedidevs - Kbin". fedidevs.org. Retrieved 2023-11-26.
  36. ^ "Lemmy - ActivityPub for link aggregation". nlnet.nl. Retrieved 2023-06-05.
  37. ^ "Libervia progress note 2022-W45". salut-a-toi.org. November 2022.
  38. ^ "lotide". Archived from the original on October 31, 2020. Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  39. ^ "Release v0.1.1 · lotide-org/lotide". GitHub. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  40. ^ a b "Server-Server - ActivityPub implementation reports". Retrieved 2019-01-02.
  41. ^ "Mastodon Users update post". GitHub. Archived from the original on February 25, 2024. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
  42. ^ "Mbin - a fork of kbin - community-focused". fedidb.org/software/mbin. Archived from the original on February 28, 2024. Retrieved February 28, 2024.
  43. ^ "ActivityPub for your blog". Micro.blog. 14 November 2018. Retrieved 2022-12-23.
  44. ^ "Mastodon and ActivityPub". Micro.blog. 8 March 2021. Retrieved 2022-12-23.
  45. ^ "microblog.pub: A self-hosted, single-user, ActivityPub powered microblog". sr.ht. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  46. ^ "Release 2.0.0-rc.1 · tsileo/microblog.pub". GitHub. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  47. ^ Wallen, Jack (22 January 2019). "Nextcloud Social is a promising collaborative feature". Tech Republic. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  48. ^ Poortvliet, Jos (2022-10-28). "No need to trust Musk. We go federated with Nextcloud Social!". Nextcloud. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
  49. ^ Poortvliet, Jos (10 December 2018). "Nextcloud introduces social features, joins the fediverse". Nextcloud. Archived from the original on December 10, 2018. Retrieved December 10, 2018.
  50. ^ "Owncast v0.0.11". March 5, 2022. Archived from the original on March 5, 2022. Retrieved March 5, 2022.
  51. ^ Krasnoff, Barbara (August 2022). "Eight photo-centric social sites that are not Instagram". The Verge.
  52. ^ "Pleroma — a lightweight fediverse server". Pleroma. Archived from the original on January 20, 2023. Retrieved January 22, 2023.
  53. ^ "Pleroma's First Release! 0.9.9". pleroma.social. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  54. ^ joinplu.me. "Plume". Archived from the original on May 10, 2019. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  55. ^ "Release 0.2.0 (Alpha 1) · Plume-org/Plume". GitHub. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  56. ^ "postmarks". github.com. Archived from the original on September 15, 2023. Retrieved October 7, 2023.
  57. ^ "Postmarks". GitHub. Archived from the original on September 23, 2023. Retrieved October 7, 2023.
  58. ^ "Sharkey". joinsharkey.org. Retrieved 2024-01-11.
  59. ^ "soapbox.pub". gitlab.com. Archived from the original on February 7, 2024. Retrieved February 22, 2024.
  60. ^ "History - Soapbox Docs". Soapbox.pub. Archived from the original on December 23, 2023. Retrieved February 22, 2024.
  61. ^ "Release v0.1.1: Merge pull request #6 from jaywink/travisify · jaywink/socialhome". GitHub. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  62. ^ "streams". Codeberg.org. Archived from the original on July 9, 2023. Retrieved November 2, 2022.
  63. ^ "Official release". Mike Macgirvin. Archived from the original on December 13, 2023. Retrieved September 23, 2023.
  64. ^ "takahē". Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  65. ^ "Release 0.3.0 · jointakahe/takahe". GitHub. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  66. ^ Peters, Jay (15 December 2023). "Adam Mosseri spells out Threads' plans for the fediverse". The Verge. Retrieved 19 December 2023.
  67. ^ Perez, Sarah (February 2024). "Threads now reaches more than 130 million monthly users, says Meta, up 30M from Q3". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2 February 2024. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
  68. ^ "ActivityPub for WordPress". Github. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  69. ^ "Engage a Wider Audience With ActivityPub on WordPress.com". WordPress. Retrieved 2023-10-12.
  70. ^ "WriteFreely". WriteFreely. Archived from the original on July 29, 2023. Retrieved July 24, 2023.
  71. ^ "Hello, World". WriteFreely. 10 November 2018. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  72. ^ "Zap". zotlabs.org. Archived from the original on June 20, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  73. ^ "Support ActivityPub for merge requests (&11247) · Epics · GitLab.org · GitLab". GitLab. Retrieved 2023-08-26.
  74. ^ "First forgejo monthly update - December 2022". forgejo.org. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  75. ^ Perez, Sarah (23 May 2023). "Flipboard becomes first app to support Bluesky, Mastodon and Pixelfed all in one place". TechCrunch. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  76. ^ "Flipboard is pivoting to ActivityPub and the fediverse". The Verge. Dec 18, 2023.
  77. ^ Perez, Sarah (2023-12-11). "Tumblr's 'fediverse' integration is still being worked on, says owner and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
  78. ^ Perez, Sarah (2022-11-21). "Tumblr to add support for ActivityPub, the social protocol powering Mastodon and other apps". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-12-19.

Further reading