Hope & The Power of a Year

It's been one year since the Newsmast app launched publically. A lot has changed.

The thing with building in a decentralised space is that it's constantly changing. That can be hard to keep up with but, personally, I love it.

Instead of one omnipotent platform, multiple projects build, launch, grow, fail, side-by-side. It's kind of romantic.

When I first joined The Newsmast Foundation team, all I knew was that we were working on a social media app and we wanted it to actually do good. 'Knowledge for all for good'.

I hadn't heard of the Fediverse, I did not know what an open-protocol was, the most technical thing I'd ever done was a Computing GCSE (although, thanks to my now-professional software engineer friend, I did much better than I should've done in this).

The learning curve was steep.

I still don't understand some of the technical stuff, I'm never going to be able to keep up with the hyper-technical discussions many in this space have, but I don't really care anymore.

In a year, our Foundation has launched so many features on Newsmast, a whole new service to onboard organisations, made roots here that we hope will only grow stronger and stronger, and we've built lasting relationships. All of this without the funding of the projects around us.

But it's not just us - the New Social space is moving so fast.

The growth of other projects means that in that time, Newsmast has gone from being a siloed invite-only social media platform, to a space connected to Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky and more.

I don't think we stop and think about that enough. This time last year we were nowhere, a network of federated social media platforms was a niche but nice idea.

Now, we're really seeing a network of interconnected (in some cases big) social platforms. You can scroll through the Newsmast feed and see posts from Threads besides those from Bluesky beside those from Mastodon.

It's actually mind-blowing.

This is where we look to the future

We have this amazing ability to rip down the walls of social media. To give it back to the user.

To do that, we need to stop being so technical, stop gatekeeping this space, and actually start showing others what's happening here.

That's where The Newsmast Foundation is going next and, thankfully, we won't be going in alone. Flipboard, Anuj Ahooja, Tim Chambers, and many many more are all shouting from the rafters about what's going on over here.

I think that's what the next year will be, the year of realisation. We've had the year(s) of technical. Now we need to strip it back, make it human, and start showing the world (whilst finishing off the technical).

Is this hope?

I don't see why not.

Looking back at what we've done in a year (which frankly is too much to talk about), what others have done (again, too much), and all the things that are still to come... I don't see how you can't hope.

Yes, there are problems and not just the technical kind. But that's because we're seeing something built by humans for humans for the first time in a long time. Not everyday will be sunshine and roses, not everyone will agree, and some people won't deserve your attention.

But, by embracing New Social, by taking social media into your hands, you're helping make social media 'for good' something more than an idea.

So, if you're looking for a bit of hope about the future of social media, I hope this can give you some. Look back, see what got us here, look at the progress, and think about what comes next. There's something bright on that horizon.