WordPress.com, the popular website hosting platform, has announced that its blogs can now be followed on Mastodon and other federated platforms. This comes after Automattic, the owner of WordPress.com, acquired a plugin earlier this year that allowed WordPress blogs to be followed in the fediverse, which includes Mastodon and other decentralized social networks.
Key Takeaway
WordPress.com blogs can now be followed on Mastodon and other federated platforms through the newly available ActivityPub feature. This allows blog owners to reach a broader audience, share their posts across platforms, and engage in dynamic conversations around their content. The plugin enables blog profiles to be created in the fediverse, eliminating the need for separate accounts. As decentralized social networking continues to gain popularity, more companies are embracing the federated model and integrating with platforms like Mastodon.
ActivityPub feature now available for all WordPress.com plans
In a recent announcement, Automattic stated that the ActivityPub feature is now available across all WordPress.com plans. This means that users of the hosted version of the open-source WordPress software can now connect their blogs to federated platforms like Mastodon, Pleroma, Friendica, and others.
By using the plugin provided, blog owners can share their posts to other platforms and receive replies from those platforms, which are then transformed into blog comments. This creates a more interactive and dynamic conversation around the content.
Expanding reach and audience through the fediverse
One of the advantages of using the plugin is that the blog itself can become the user’s profile in the fediverse, eliminating the need to set up a separate account on platforms like Mastodon. Additionally, blog owners have the opportunity to reach a larger audience, as the fediverse currently includes 1.8 million monthly active Mastodon users and a total of 13.3 million users across all federated platforms.
To implement the plugin on WordPress.com hosted sites, users can simply enable the “Enter the fediverse” toggle in the Discussion section of their blog’s dashboard and make note of their default fediverse name. This name can then be shared with others, allowing them to follow the blog on Mastodon or other platforms. Custom domains are also supported, providing users with a shorter and more memorable profile.
For Business and Commerce sites, the process involves installing the ActivityPub plugin and setting up their profile as guided by the prompts.
The growing trend of decentralized social networking
Automattic’s move to support federated platforms reflects the growing trend of decentralized social networking. Other companies, such as Medium and Flipboard, have also embraced this concept. Medium, for example, has launched its own Mastodon server and integrated with ActivityPub, while Flipboard has created its own instance on flipboard.social and integrated with Mastodon for its users to follow updates within the Flipboard app. Instagram’s app, Threads, has also promised to integrate with ActivityPub in the future.
