Yesterday a new version of Mastodon was released and it included support for author attribution.
What does it mean? That preview links to articles shared on the Fediverse - you know, those fancy cards with image and blog excerpts - now display a new item: "more from: _" with the name of the author, their avatar and a link to their Mastodon profile. Like this:
And why is this a big deal, you may wonder?
Because whenever people come across an interesting article or blog post, they can follow its author at the click of a button. This allows writers and creators to grow their audience on the Fediverse.
But there's more: one of the tenets of the Fediverse is that you own your data: you can download a CSV file listing the social media handles of your followers.. and take them with you if you choose to migrate to a different instance.
This is a total game changer.
Robb Knight wrote a step-by-step guide about it on his blog:
Robb Knight
Spoiler alert: this is really easy to do, with only 2 steps.
I quickly added the code to the header of my Wordpress sites. And listed them on my Mastodon profile page.
This blog – powered by Ghost – has a different CMS. I had to edit my theme and add code to a couple of .hbs files with "head" and "header" in their names. I call it my "spray and pray" approach.
About to hit "publish" to see if it worked.
See you in the Fediverse!
Elena
💓 Did you enjoy this post? Share it with a friend!
👫 Follow me on Mastodon (my favorite network!) and Pixelfed. All my other social media links are available here.
📽️ If you'd like to support my work, you could buy or rent my documentary The Illusionists on the globalization of beauty. Watch the opening on Vimeo:
💌 If you'd like to say hi, my contact information is here
✏️ If this post resonated with you, leave a comment!