These are fun and like seeing the tech predictions starting to pop up in a lot of other places. Figure I should add mine about the Fediverse.

All of these predictions are based on how FediDB will measure them in the next year:

▶️ The overall Fediverse as measured by FediDB will cross 25 million registered users, and by year’s end over 3 to 5 million monthly active users. The Fediverse will cross over 35,000 servers in 2024.

▶️ Flipboard and WordPress will both move to be at least in the top 10 Fediverse software providers by monthly active users by the end of 2024.

▶️ There will continue to be waves of users migrating to emerging social media platforms in 2024 and they will primarily be going to Threads, Mastodon, and BlueSky, roughly in that order. No new alternative social platforms emerge with any substance in 2024.

▶️ Disinformation that originates on the Fediverse will for the first time - have a role in the 2024 US Election, spreading into other centralized platforms.

▶️ BlueSky will federate out to other Bluesky servers for the first time in 2024, but users will remain primarily at the initial flagship server and others will struggle to gain adoption that year. At least one robust AT to ActivityPub bridge sees wide reach in 2024 on both sides of the BlueSky to ActiivtyPub worlds.

▶️ Threads will federate into all its users who opt-in, at least in “read-only” mode akin to what the early test users see today. This will move Threads to functionally be the second largest Federated server software in 2024, next to Mastodon.

▶️ There will be continued controversy and discussion inside the Fediverse as the Threads interoperability launches …but throughout 2024, the Fediverse works it out, and moderators will without major incidents be able to manage their servers in this new environment - and the Fediverse as a whole navigates this without any major schism forming.

▶️ There will be at least one other medium-to-large new social media platform in 2024 that will formally announce it is adopting ActivityPub and actively building out support for it….and it will not be Tumblr. Tumblr will continue experimenting in ActivtyPub, offering it to users who buy Tumblr subscription ad-free versions.

▶️ Lemmy & Kbin Fediverse servers continue to evolve their features and UX and integrate more closely with the Fediverse and will grow to 1.5 million registered users, and over 200K monthly active users in 2024.

▶️ One whole new category of software will grow to a solid foothold in the Fedivese - beyond the existing microblogging, peer-tube-like videos, longer-form blogging, and Lemmy/Kbin-style social news aggregation. I have no idea what that would be - federated storefronts? federated podcasts? Other? - but it will grow to see over 50,000 registered users.

▶️ At least one other continent becomes relevant for the Fediverse in 2024 - beyond its current concentration in North America, Europe and Asia. Expect growth in Africa and South America and elsewhere but at least one will emerge as an important new growth area for the Fediverse by the end of the year.