Fedibook Week 16

Hi Fedifriends,

In January 2025 I began entering the Fediverse for real and leaving Big Tech behind. After a few weeks I found a friendly new network on Mastodon, a much-less-toxic photo sharing community on Pixelfed, and I later built myself a PeerTube server for hosting the occasional video. I said goodbye to Big Tech — though I decided to keep a channel open on LinkedIn to share my experience there from time to time.

I found that many people share the wish to do the same, but the network effect and old habits die hard. It has become clear that for my kind of friends network — and I have been around for a while — that big F-network is hard to leave. There is no obvious, easy-to-use Fediverse platform for staying in touch with old friends, organising your hobby in a group, or planning the tasks in the cycling team. I tried several but never found one I could see myself recommending widely.

Less than a month ago, on March 19th, I decided to act on that "something is missing" feeling and see if I could build something. I have worked with software development as a very technical product owner and have learned a lot about using AI for coding. Could this be my way to brute-force a viable competitor to Big Tech social media?

At first it was an experiment — where could this go? A showcase for my vision of a better social network, or perhaps a real working open source product? I still do not know entirely. Fedibook has had a very warm reception — although the AI-assisted development part has generated some pushback, which I respect and understand. I think I am already close to having illustrated my ideas in working software. I am also genuinely motivated to keep developing it — I can see both the possibility of actually building it and a real place in the Fediverse for a Friends First platform.

I have been writing posts on Mastodon, on the Fedibook showcase instance, and on about.fedibook.net to get attention and — especially — feedback, because I want to build on as much user input as possible. As development enters its second month I have decided to try a weekly update. Each weekend I will share a collected summary of what happened in Fedibook that week and what the next week might bring.

So here goes...

Fedibook Week 16

The Fedibook Logo

Fedibook has a logo — and it means something. The letter F is constructed entirely from nodes and connecting lines, rendered in the Fediverse's own signature colours. It is a typographic tribute: Fedibook is not just compatible with the Fediverse, it is part of it. That felt worth saying visually from the very first glance.

The Fedibook Project

As the project takes shape, I’ve updated The Fedibook Project page on the about site. I encourage you to take a look to get the latest perspective on what it’s all about.

Friends & The World

This week the home feed was split into two tabs. Friends & Groups is the heart of Fedibook — posts from the people you know and the communities you belong to, in chronological order, always. The World is a separate tab for accounts you follow from across the Fediverse without the full commitment of friendship. The two feeds no longer compete for space. Your most important connections always come first.

This also raised a genuine product question I put to the community: does The World belong in Fedibook at all? The identity of the project is Friends & Groups. If you want open public broadcasting, Mastodon does it better. The conversation is still open — I would love to hear your thoughts.

Fedibook — the Fediverse Group Server

Groups took a significant step forward this week. A Fedibook group now works as a proper ActivityPub Group Actor, meaning members from Mastodon, Pixelfed, and other Fediverse platforms can join and participate — not just users on Fedibook servers. A Mastodon user can search for a group address, send a follow request, get approved by an admin, and start receiving group posts as boosts in their home timeline. They can post back to the group via Direct Message. It is not a perfect experience compared to a full Fedibook account, but it works — and it connects Fedibook groups to the wider Fediverse in a meaningful way.

The "engine" forwarding post to members of the group is the Fedibook server.

Try it out and join the @fedibook-grp@fedibook.net where we walk about fedibook.

PWA Webapp & Web Push Notifications

Fedibook is now a Progressive Web App. On Android you can install it directly from your browser and get a near-native app experience — no app store required. On iPhone the experience is close, with full-screen mode when added to the home screen. We also got Web Push notifications, so you never miss a message from a friend or activity in a group.

For current users to enable push notifications you need to first delete your current fedibook cookie

After this login again and click the notification bell icon and enable notification.

New Server for fedibook.net

The showcase instance at fedibook.net has moved to a new server. Better hardware, cleaner setup, and a foundation that will handle more users as the project grows. If you noticed a brief interruption this week, that was it.

We are now running on a VPS server at UpClouds new datacenter in Copenhagen. It's running on 4GB ram and 2 CPU for a monthly price of €15 a month.

I have no relations or sponsorship from UpCloud. They just have some fair offers that match my need.

Fedibook can run on any host that can run docker.

Invite Your Friends

Fedibook now has an invitation system. You can invite friends directly by email from the Friends page — they receive a personal link to sign up. The system tracks who invited whom, which matters for building a real network of trust rather than a random collection of accounts. An invite-only mode is also available for operators who want to keep their instance small and curated.

If you have been following along and think a friend would enjoy being an early tester — send them an invite. The network only gets more interesting with more people in it.

Fedibook next week

In the comming week I will focus on wrapping up the allready build features. Making sure they work as intended and is understud and usable. Some features feeatures and fixes that might come next week

• Like comment
• New comment on top sorting of comments
• Sign-up and invite term of use (age etc)
• Notification design

Follow along at about.fedibook.net · Showcase instance at fedibook.net · Source code at codeberg.org/sindum/fedibook

Join the conversation at Mastodon #fedibook or join/follow the @fedibook-grp@fedibook.net group on your favourite fediverse platform.

I paying for server hosting and AI usage out of my own pocket. If you like to support the progress any contributions are welcome via my liberapay