Looking over my 2024 predictions before I make some 2025 predictions, to soberly say which ones I got right, wrong and way wrong.

▶️ For starters got this one WAY, WAY wrong: " 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."

The open social web did grow to about this big, but did so on BlueSky, while Mastodon and fediverse based social grew too, but by less…about 1 million registered users or so this year.

▶️ Also wrong. (I think, by the metrics I used) " 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." I say I think because I think I got the metric wrong in my own prediction. For instance, according to fedidb Flipbaord had almost 7,000 Monthly Active Users, (federated Flipboard accounts) but thy had almost 18 million “status counts.” And Wordpress software saw just under 30,000 users accounts on just over 9,000 servers, it saw 6.7 million total posts.

Still by the metrics my prediciton chose that is another swing and a miss.

▶️ OK finally got one I’d say 3/4th’s right: “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.”

This feels correct, with the one note that the order was actually “Threads, BlueSky and Mastodon” seeing the benefits.

▶️ This one I think I got right, but also think the role was minor. Suspect the next midterms it will be a larger role but that is the subject for another post. “Disinformation that originates on the Fediverse will for the first time - have a role in the 2024 US Election, spreading into other centralized platforms.”

▶️ This one I count as fully correct. BlueSky did federate out to other PDS’s. But not in a major way yet. And Bridgy Fed did a robust roll out. “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.”

▶️ This one I count as a 3/4th correct prediction, too. The partial miss is that it did so for some countries but not ALL yet. And as we don’t have data on how many federated accounts exist, the size of federated Threads is hard to guage. But anecdotal evidence that it is at least hitting the scale I predicted. “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.”

▶️ Meta did a responsible and slow roll out of federation that I do think helped this prediction be true this year. And they actually moved to a bit more than “read only mode.” So here is what I predicted a year ago: “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.”

▶️ Got this one right too. And I was right that it wasn’t Tumblr, the platform was Ghost. “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.”

▶️ Back to another miss. Actual combined monthly average users of Lemmy, Kbin, Mbin and PieFed more like 43,000. So that was WAY off. “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.”

▶️ On this one, I count it as half correct, but wrong again missing on my prediction of adoption numbers, while I was right that offerings like Loops, and federated podcasts via Podcast Index launched. But not at 50K users yet. “One whole new category of software will grow to a solid foothold in the Fediverse - 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.”

▶️ Jury is out on this one and hard to say via FediDb data. Mastodon and other Fediverse accounts did see Brazilian users grow as X was temporarily banned there, but saw far less influx than BlueSky did. “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.”

OK what do you all think? Was this review more or less accurate to what I got right and wrong?