TLDR: Customized a browser as dedicated Fediverse front-end, use existing web clients for per-service UI, manage account/password with password manager, and merge the notifications from multiple services into one inbox? Is this possible/good?
Hello all,
It’s me, an eager fediverse adopter who wants all their friends to get onboard and craves an all-in-one solution for federated content, but who knows no code and barely enough IT to get by reading git documentation.
I’ll start by saying that one thing is clear, diversity and experimentation is the essence and benefit of the Fediverse concept. To me, new and exciting ways to use ActivityPub (and other distributed social/comms protocols) get me thrilled and ready for more. The challenge I, and I’m sure many adopters face is the challenge as old as the internet: platform fatigue.
While I want to use all the amazing services the Fediverse offers, managing clients and accounts for each one, and specifically the notification streams coming from all of them, often feels burdensome, decreasing my engagement.
So here’s a simple thought experiment I’ve been playing with: what is the simplest, lowest friction method of accessing and managing multiple notification/content streams without needing to consolidate or centralize client/server development across multiple projects? And further more, how can this set of notifications (and subsequent content interaction) be consolidated yet separated from the other non-fediverse notifications/content across multiple devices?
My naive user mind has pointed me in the direction of dedicated browser instances with customized UI. When I have a webapp I need rapid access to and notifications from I install a dedicated browser instance (or “app” in Edge speak, I know, booo). This works well for me, and in some cases uses less memory than a dedicated application for some reason (looking at you Discord).
So what if a customized browser could be built off of an existing project (probably going to have to be Firefox based, though all eyes on Ladybird), that has a built in password/account manager, and pulls the notification streams from all of the services those accounts interact with into a merged list. Then add filter options for that list including service, account, media type, etc.
All interactions with notifications pulls up a tab of a webclient the user designates for that service, ideally reusing the same single tab unless the user specifically selects open new tab. Each designated service appears on the toolbar as a bookmark, showing notification number beside it. Total notifications and the shortcut to the unified notifications service/Inbox lives on the left or right side of the toolbar and is emphasized.
And that’s it, everything Fediverse under one hood, separate from the main browser, not scattered across multiple installed applications, and with each client self-updating.
The challenge? Of course it is merging all the notification streams. Based on what I know of ActivityPub this seems achievable, but the details are beyond me. I am reminded of RSS emerging as the means of addressing a very similar challenge with the emergence of blogs, perhaps an ActivityPub to RSS gateway/bridge could even be the solution to merge the notification streams and then off the shelf RSS reader extensions could serve for the master notification inbox.
I am also reminded of my beloved Trillian which merged IM services under a single application hood, but faced an ever stacking development load as each service changed. Glad to see they still exist, but it seems like the browser route could avoid that centralized dev burden.
Thoughts from more experienced minds than I? Does this make any sense?
so fun fact, that’s already how lemmy works. communities are not a thing in ap, so you can technically post to whatever community you want, existing or not. the lemmy software then limits users from posting to nonexistent communities. and ap already has the notion of posts having parents, so threading is also built in.
Very interesting, so just with a tweak to the client you could treat communities as basically (hash)tags instead of forums? I suppose what I’m thinking of amounts to unique tag identifiers that are computer identifiable based on subject matter / content. I know that effectively this is what is going on under the hood of the social graph at the large social media sites, but rather than connecting the content together into transparent collections they instead serve it to individuals through the suggestion engine as part of feeds.
Something both “spontaneous” and somewhat transparent in at least the grouping/collection is what I think would differentiate the feature, but how to defend it from manipulation is a big question. How do you protect algorithm/AI guided curation from AI guided manipulation seeking to maximize placement of content in as many groups/collections as possible? Even a reputation system could just be used to reenforce more advanced content placement techniques.
I guess there is always the big shrug, if it is relevant it is relevant.
yeah personally i’m fine with chronological feeds and wouldn’t want an algorithm.