Tim Chambers

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 08:01:37 -0500

Merry Christmas everyone!

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 18:31:25 -0500

Cool, added this search tool to my micro.blog site, will find out best way to add it to top of the UX:

www.timothychambers.net/search-sp…

My 2026 Open Social Web Predictions

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 09:50:49 -0500

I just finished reviewing my 2025 predictions (how do you think I did grading myself?) www.timothychambers.net/2024/12/2…

Now it’s time to make some bets for 2026. I do this not to prove how great my prognostication muscles are, but to shine a spotlight on trends I think are vital, spur discussions, and give some attention to projects that have earned it. As always, I try to make these as quantifiable, verifiable and crisp as I can. Here goes:

🌱 MILD

Safe bets — would be surprising if these DON’T happen.

▶️ Bluesky will cross 60 million registered users in 2026. Growth will slow from 2024’s explosive pace but remain steady, driven by continued X dissatisfaction and improved features.

▶️ The ActivityPub Fediverse (excluding Threads) will cross 15 million registered users, monthly active users (excluding will plateau around 2-3 million. Another good year in terms of stable base, but no big waves of new users. Both Bluesky and Fediverse growth won’t come from big waves of migration this year.

▶️ Any smaller waves from X/Twitter or from a newly bought TikTok will benefit Meta (Threads/IG), BlueSky, and Fediverse in that order. I see nothing that would change that prediction that was true last year, too.

▶️ Threads will pass 500 million monthly active users and remain the largest ActivityPub-adjacent platform by a wide margin. But see the next prediction:

▶️ Threads federation will remain partial, and opt-in through all of 2026. Full two-way federation will NOT ship in 2026 but may move from about 90 percent there, to 95 percent done, inching forward but not finalized and prioritized as a feature. As Manton wrote, that’s better than fully closed, and better than them stripping it out. (which they might do but I’m predicting not) My bet: the status quo continues. www.manton.org/2025/12/1…

▶️ Ghost’s ActivityPub integration will bring 75,000+ new federated accounts to the Fediverse and Ghost will finish 2026 in the top 10 Fediverse server software by MAU.

▶️ WordPress-based federated accounts will cross 50,000 as measured by FediDB. Currently at approximately 26,000 accounts across 12,700 servers, the WordPress-to-Fediverse pipeline becomes a meaningful growth contributor.

🔥 MEDIUM-SPICEY Plausible bets — could go either way, but evidence points toward yes.

▶️ BridgyFed will shift to “opt-out” for Bluesky users bridging to ActivityPub — and the discourse will be far less contentious than the 2024 debates predicted. Cross-protocol interoperability quietly normalizes.

▶️ At least one fully independent ATProto stack — PDS, Relay, and AppView operating without dependency on Bluesky PBC infrastructure — will achieve viability in 2026, meaning it has paying customers or sustainable funding. This will be the year ATProto proves (or fails to prove) it can exist beyond Bluesky-the-company.

▶️ Mastodon gGmbH will hit key sustainability milestones in 2026. Their hosting revenue model will exceed internal targets, the new organizational structure will unlock additional grant funding (beyond NGI/NLnet), and the pace of Mastodon development will noticeably accelerate — shipping more significant features in 2026 than in the previous two years combined.

▶️ Bluesky PBC will raise another round of funding in 2026 and announce more details on a proposed business model. Following their $15M Series A (October 2024), the company will close a larger round to extend runway. The announced business model will NOT be advertising-based. I’d expect subscriptions, marketplace fees, or enterprise services.

▶️ The first “ATProto-native” social app that is NOT microblogging will cross 100,000 users. Whether it’s Frontpage (link aggregation), Leaflet (long-form), Smoke Signal, or something new — the ATmosphere diversifies beyond Bluesky-the-app.

▶️ Flipboard’s Surf app will launch its 1.0 version in 2026 and cross 1 million downloads across iOS and Android by year end, with 100,000+ monthly active users. It will become the most-downloaded dedicated Open Social Web client, surpassing Mastodon’s official app and Graysky.

▶️ Fedify will power the federation layer for at least one mid-sized social platform (500K+ users) that adds ActivityPub support in 2026. The “build vs. buy” calculation for federation shifts decisively toward “just use Fedify.”

▶️ Fediscovery will ship in a stable Mastodon release in 2026, moving from behind feature flags to production-ready. The specifications for pluggable discovery providers — covering account search, follow recommendations, and trends — will reach 1.0 status, and at least one public Fediscovery-compatible provider will launch for general use. Small instance operators will finally have a real option to improve discovery without running their own infrastructure.

▶️ The new “ActivityRank” algorithm in Loops will prove that ethical recommendations and decentralization can coexist. Dan Supernault’s approach — where each instance trains its own algorithm while surfacing content across the ActivityPub network — will be recognized as a breakthrough in solving the fediverse’s discoverability problem. By the end of 2026, the pattern will be studied or adopted by at least two other ActivityPub platforms.

▶️ ATProto will advance from Internet Drafts to an official IETF Working Group in 2026. Following the September 2025 submission of initial specifications, Bluesky will secure enough support and independent implementers to form a dedicated Working Group — moving from “proposal being discussed” to “standard being formally developed.”

🌶️ SPICY Hot takes - a bit more risky - but I’m calling my shot.

▶️ A well-known digital-native media publication (10M+ monthly visitors) will federate via ActivityPub in 2026 and publicly share positive results. Whether through Ghost, WordPress, or custom implementation, this outlet will report that federated followers drove meaningful engagement — making the business case for federation legible to other publishers for the first time. By year end, at least two additional publications will announce federation plans, citing this pioneer as proof of concept.

▶️ At least one major news organization (top 50 US by traffic) will announce it is leaving X/Twitter entirely and making Bluesky or the Fediverse its primary social distribution channel. The “institutional exodus” begins.

▶️ At least one major national government or major city will launch an official presence on BOTH Bluesky AND the ActivityPub Fediverse in 2026 — and it will be a European government. Expect surprising additional early adopters after this from Latin America, Asia-Pacific, or Africa to follow that lead and make moves that year to do the same. This is the year the move to “digital sovereignty" from US tech will benefit the open social web. Eurosky will inch along with some promise.

▶️ Nostr ↔ ATProto ↔ ActivityPub three-way bridging becomes functional via BridgyFed or another service by end of 2026. The “protocol wars” narrative collapses into “just pick your client.”

▶️ AltStore will be live with Federation features in at least 5 countries by end of 2026 (currently EU + Japan, with Brazil, Australia, UK announced). AltStore is an independent iOS app marketplace created by Riley Testut and Shane Gill — the first major alternative to Apple’s App Store, made possible by the EU’s Digital Markets Act. The federated app marketplace model will prove viable outside Europe, challenging Apple’s App Store dominance in multiple regulatory regimes simultaneously. Their ActivityPub integration — where app updates flow to Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky — will become the most compelling non-social-media use case for decentrlized social features, proving definitively that such protocols extends beyond microblogging.

▶️ Loops will become the third most-used Fediverse software by MAU by end of 2026, trailing only Mastodon and Pixelfed. The short-form video platform will cross 100,000 monthly active users, with Loops-originated content generating significant federated engagement from non-Loops clients — proving that ActivityPub can power video-centric social experiences.

▶️ PieFed will emerge as the most feature-rich Threadiverse platform by end of 2026, surpassing Lemmy and Mbin in moderation tools, user experience, and federation capabilities. The platform will cross 10,000 monthly active users and its rapid development pace — shipping major features weekly — will make it the default recommendation for anyone starting a new Reddit-style community in the fediverse.

▶️ More laws akin to Utah’s Digital Choice Act will pass or advance - sparking first steps towards interoperability to mainstream US discourse. The Utah law takes effect July 1, 2026, and several other states will pass similar ones, requiring social media platforms to enable data portability and interoperability. At least one major platform will announce ActivityPub or AT Protocol support to comply. The “Digital Choice” framing will prove more politically viable than “antitrust” for breaking Big Tech’s lock-in.

What did I miss? What did I get wrong? Let me know — and I’ll see you in December 2026 to grade these.

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 13:45:21 -0500

Happy Solstice! Good on all of us for making half way out of the dark. (And yes, that’s a Doctor Who reference) #solstice youtu.be/raDM5Hewe…

My 2025 Open Social Web Prediction Score Card

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 21:38:21 -0500

A year ago, I made a set of bold predictions about where the Open Social Web was headed. Now, at the end of 2025, it’s time for a sober, if occasionally amused, look at what I got right, what I got wrong, and where I was wildly optimistic. I’m currently working on my 2026 predictions, but before moving forward, I wanted to grade 2025 honestly and in public.

Here were my 2025 predictions: www.timothychambers.net/2024/12/2… And for fun, here were my 2024 predictions: www.timothychambers.net/2023/12/2… So, how did my 2025 Nostradamus cosplay turn out?

THE WINS 🎯 ✅ Fediverse Growth: EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS Predicted: Cross 12 million registered users Actual: ~12.8 million to 16+ million registered users (FediDB, Fediverse Index, December 2025) I undersold this one. The ActivityPub-based Fediverse didn’t just cross 12 million, it pushed past 15 million by early 2025. Monthly active users stayed relatively flat, but that was true across Bluesky as well. Note on Fediverse stats: Tracking a decentralized, opt-in network is messy. Different trackers count different servers.

✅ Ghost 1.0 Fediverse Support: SPOT ON Predicted: Ghost launches 1.0 Fediverse support Actual: ActivityPub beta in March 2025, full Ghost 6.0 release in August 2025 This played out exactly as hoped. Ghost is now a serious player in federated publishing and even open-sourced its ActivityPub middleware. Major kudos to Jon and team.

✅ Migration Waves: DIRECTIONALLY CORRECT Predicted: Waves to Threads, then Bluesky, then Mastodon. Actual: Pretty much exactly this. The waves weren’t enormous, with the exception of Threads, which benefited from Instagram integration. Still, the order and pattern held, especially around major news and election moments.

PARTIAL CREDITS 🟡

🟡 Threads Federation: 60% RIGHT, FUTURE UNCLEAR Predicted: Full two-way federation in 2025, opt-in. Actual: Partial two-way federation, opt-in. Likes and follows are bidirectional. Replies and quote posts are not. Federation remains opt-in, as predicted, but progress has been slow. Recent interviews with Threads leadership describe federation as “maintained” rather than prioritized. Hope that isn’t as bad as it sounds. Score: partial win.

🟡 Ghost as a Top-10 Fediverse Server: CLOSE, NOT YET According to FediDB, Ghost has launched ~13,600 federated blogs, which is extremely impressive. Again according to FediDB, they rank around #21 by total users when sorted by all fediverse software software. This feels likely for 2026.

🟡 BridgyFed Opt-Out: HALF RIGHT Predicted: Bluesky and Threads move toward opt-out

Mastodon enables server-level opt-in or opt-out Actual: Mastodon server-level opt-in launched (Sept 2024) Individual users on Bluesky and Fediverse still must opt in

I correctly predicted Mastodon’s server-level opt-in, which effectively makes bridging opt-out for users on participating instances. My own instance, indieweb.social, is planning to do this, as did Newsmast. However, individual user opt-out has not arrived on Bluesky or Threads.

The nuance: the technical capability exists and willingness seems present at big platforms, but funding appears to be the gating factor. This is one problem that you can help fix:

Give here: www.patreon.com/ANewSocia…

And buy some merch here, I got the stickers and my standing desk looks all the better for it: store.anew.social

🟡 Bluesky Growth: 80% RIGHT Predicted: 50 million registered users Actual: ~41 million (Dec 2025) I overshot, but directionally correct. Bluesky added ~15 million users instead of the ~25 million I predicted. Engagement did drop after the post-election surge, but growth remains impressive.

🟡 Threads Growth: 67% RIGHT Predicted: 600 million MAU Actual: ~400 million MAU (Aug 2025) I was optimistic, but adding 100 million MAU in a year is nothing to sneeze at. Threads has clearly cemented itself as the dominant post-Twitter microblogging platform and seems focused on pushing toward 1 billion MAU.

🟡 New Non-Microblogging Platform with 50k Users: ABOUT 60% RIGHT

Bonfire and Loops both hit 1.0 with impressive features, but not 50,000 users.. Loops has 35,000 users. Bonfire just under 2,000. So not there. Yet.

🟡 Fediverse MAU Baseline: MIXED / LIKELY HALF WRONG Predicted: MAU would not drop below 1 million Actual: Tracker-dependent FediDB showed MAU dipping below 1 million at points in late 2025, while Fediverse Index often reported just over 1 million. This one lives in Schrödinger’s box. I’ll score it as half-wrong.

🟡 Global South Relevance: DIRECTIONALLY CORRECT Predicted: South America and Africa grow in relevance Actual: Not yet dominant by country stats, but relevance is emerging for both BlueSky and Mastodon. Adoption shows up first through shared and diaspora-run instances, journalist and activist communities, and migration during political stress. This is exactly how influence tends to appear before raw numbers catch up.

THE MISSES ❌

❌ Another Major Platform Joins ActivityPub: FLAT OUT MISS. No top-20 US social platforms joined. I did correctly predict Tumblr would not but that’s WAY too easy. The Alt-Store joined, which is meaningful, but not yet in the top 20. So that’s a miss.

❌ Bluesky MAU Baseline: FULL MISS Predicted: MAU wouldn’t fall below 20 million Actual: Stabilized around ~5 million MAU The spirit was right, Bluesky stabilized, but the numbers were not.

❌ Bridge-Enabled Users: MISS Predicted: ~20% of users bridged between ActivityPub and Bluesky Actual: ~125k–126k bridged accounts Against ~6 million combined MAU, that’s ~2%, or ~4% under generous assumptions. The limiting factor is infrastructure and funding, not interest. (See my earlier note on giving to them)…

❌ No Viable Bluesky Relay Alternatives: HAPPILY WRONG Blacksky successfully launched a fully operational relay and AppView alternative in 2025. This is a miss I’m genuinely glad to have made.

PREDICTIONS STILL AWAITING DATA 📋 These need more verification:

📋 Aggregator apps in the top five Open Social Web clients by downloads

📋 250k+ posts from Lemmy/Mbin/PieFed in 2025

📋 250k+ federated podcast episodes

If anyone has solid data here, please reach out.

FINAL VERDICT 🎓

Overall score: Strong C+ / B- I mostly nailed the macro trends: growth, federation becoming real, and Ghost shipping. Lots of partial credits. My most interesting near-miss was BridgyFed, and I was clearly too optimistic about Threads federation. On to 2026.

What predictions would you make? I promise to grade myself just as honestly next year.

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 10:48:33 -0500

Yes. Yes it is. #ABC #JimmyKimmel

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 21:56:51 -0500

This is the most impactful thing one can do to protest corporate caving to autocracy. Canceling Disney and Hulu subscriptions. I suggest you do the same. Now. And boost messaging like this to friends. Push back hard.

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 15:26:18 -0500

TikTok’s enshitification with its new right wing owners may accelerate as fast as X’s did. Might be next window for the open social web. #tiktok

www.thewrap.com/tiktok-pu…

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 21:01:10 -0500

Case study that sometimes it takes an “extinction moment” to start doing something you should have been doing for over the last decade or more: organic, authentic digital outreach. #Democrats www.npr.org/2025/09/1…

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 16:45:25 -0500

This summarizes the situation better than anything else you will read. There, saved you a lot of time. #charliekirk youtube.com/shorts/tg…

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 16:19:35 -0500

Well played, Apple. #theStudio #Emmys

Sun, 14 Sep 2025 16:44:31 -0500

Pretty accurate progression so far. #Charliekirk

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 10:45:10 -0500

Just a note. #groyper

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 09:47:23 -0500

This is my priors on this too, btw. But we will see what we see. As i said before believe nothign you don’t see validated by trusted sources. #charliekirk

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 20:35:45 -0500

Hashtag #BandofFools #FBI

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 20:24:35 -0500

Yeah, pretty much. #CharlieKirk

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 14:55:39 -0500

Every year, I’m: “Just double the battery life and I’ll upgrade IMMEDIATELY.” #AppleEvent www.theverge.com/news/7745…

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 12:25:10 -0500

On most stoplight polls at each intersection at my area near work. #FreeDC

Sun, 07 Sep 2025 15:32:39 -0500

✊ Am happy to endorse this statement - along with many thought leaders from both #ATProto and #ActivityPub sides of the Open Social Web dev community… writings.thisismissem.social/statement…

Sun, 07 Sep 2025 12:58:51 -0500

A small but big thing: every profile UX on the open social web should copy #Threads: Show the full handle w/ domain plus a “Copy” button in account details. None do now—Mastodon, Bluesky, PixelFed, etc. Only Threads does, and it’s a must-have.

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 21:09:37 -0500

I can track with this.

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 12:27:00 -0500

First real study of #Threads-#Fediverse interop at scale. Key bits: Fedi→Threads replies dominate (likely due to current UX on Threads for fedi), surges tied to rollout events, steady growth, & interop didn’t worsen convo tone. Early but encouraging data: arxiv.org/html/2502…

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 05:35:51 -0500

Words I commonly misspell - such as colleague, bureau, restaurant, technique, liaison and others - when I look it up, all were derived in English imported in from French. For my poor spelling, I firmly blame the French.

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 19:04:57 -0500

Am working on tracking progress on #SevenUXSins article I wrote. Anyone interested in helping me in tracking browser support for custom protocol handlers? (Key ti fixing Sin 3) www.timothychambers.net/2025/06/1… Ping me in comments if so….

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 18:20:44 -0500

Love all of these. Hard to pick just one. #SandwichGuy www.teepublic.com/stickers/…