I don’t know if you have heard, but Loops.video is a Reels/Tiktok like app from the creator of Pixelfed. I recall it being announced, and checked just now on a whim. All of a sudden, it appears pretty close to ready to launch!
FederatedTok seems like it could be a good idea, depending on what kind of algorithm they come up with, or if each server creates their own.
Will be an interesting experiment to say the least.
I think this one is especially tricky because it seems to be all about The Algorithm (I hate that “the algorithm” has become a thing people say, but you probably know what I mean when I say it). The secret sauce that makes it work is the algo, which is very data driven, and how that works on a federated platform I’m not sure.
I desperately want something like this to succeed though, it’s exciting seeing major projects taking off. I’ve been on Lemmy since the beginning, and it is quite big now. Mastodon had a surge, probably the surge that federation needed. But I think Loops could potentially prove to be the most significant one yet. I can’t say this model of content consuming is ideal, necessarily, but I think the important thing is showing that it can be federated.
I don’t know who remembers the dog days of friendica and diaspora being our only hopes. Those were dark times, and now things are really taking off.
Despite your (and my) personal feelings about this type of media consumption, it’s the current mainstream thing and could be a driving force into making federated platforms more visible. There’s a million FakeTok apps out there, it’ll be interesting to see what happens when a decentralized competitor hits the market.
As much as I hate it, I feel like I need to participate to make sure it gains enough traction to matter…
FOR SCIENCE!
That was actually why I was initially so active on Lemmy as well. I have been a bit dispirited by pro-Russian trolls arguing in bad faith and ingratiating themselves with frequent article posting, getting a pass from Lemmy admins. So I’ve been a bit disappointed lately. And I expect they will push into federated short form video. I’m not sure what the solution is other than to hope for better admins.
But that said, it’s all in the backdrop, and in the foreground is the fact that the fediverse can be built out over the internet to handle social media and rebalance it away from all-or-nothing death star level control of individual companies. That, to me, is a win. And the only way it wouldn’t be a win is if, I think, companies show they are up to the task of containing trolls, and that a fediverse wild west is exposed to coordinated inauthetic activity in a way that can’t be controlled.
