“Bridgy Fed, a project: to connect the open social web, is now becoming a nonprofit”

Sosyal ağ Bluesky’yi Mastodon ve diğer siteleri içeren daha geniş fediverse (diğer adıyla açık sosyal web) ile bağlamak için çalışan Bridgy Fed , A New Social adlı yeni bir kar amacı gütmeyen kuruluş içinde kuluçkaya yatırılan ilk uygulama olacak. Salı günü duyurulan kuruluş, Bluesky’nin AT Protocol’ü ve Mastdon’a , Meta’nın Threads’ine ve fediverse’nin geri kalanına güç veren ActivityPub gibi protokolleri benimseyenler de dahil olmak üzere açık sosyal web için altyapı oluşturan geliştiricileri, araştırmacıları, yeni kurulan şirketleri ve endüstri liderlerini bir araya getirmeyi amaçlıyor .

The nonprofit itself was founded by CTO and Bridgy Fed founder Ryan Barrett along with engineering leader, now A New Social’s CEO and executive director, Anuj Ahooja.

Ahooja has been actively involved in fediverse-related projects, having previously advised a service that was looking to fund the fediverse via paid subscriptions to premium feeds. That service, sub.club, has already wound down, citing a lack of funds. However, it’s expected there will be a lot of experimentation in this new era of social web development, as people try out different ideas, fail fast, and then move on to others.

The idea to form a nonprofit around Barrett’s efforts with Bridgy Fed came about as the project grew from a personal side project to one attracting wider attention — and even contentious debate at times about how the technology should be built, he says.

As he continued to talk to people about what he was building with Bridgy Fed, he saw a future where the work would become a more established infrastructure. That required some sort of organizational structure and additional voices offering input and direction.

Barrett says he was open to the idea of raising outside capital from VCs, but admits he didn’t see a clear business for Bridgy Fed. “In terms of what it is as a product or a service, it’s in a funny position … The business model was not clear to me,” he admits.

So, instead of going the startup route, Barrett teamed up with Ahooja, who was already planning to organize a collection of utilities under a nonprofit structure with A New Social. Ahooja had seen a post from Barrett asking for help with Bridgy Fed and realized that they should talk.

“It just kind of clicked in the early phases of our conversations,” Ajooja says. “I had an idea of not just what Bridgy Fed is today, but the implications of a combined network and what you can do with it. I think that really resonated with the way Ryan was thinking about it, as well.”

A New Social is now recruiting a board of directors to guide its efforts. The organization will initially focus on Bridgy Fed and raising funds via other sources, like crowdfunding, grants, and investments from industry partners. (The latter conversations are already underway, we understand.)

It will later work to identify other open social projects, like Bridgy Fed, which are working to build for the open social web or connect the different open ecosystems that are currently separate from one another. Later, that may include those building with different protocols like Farcaster, nostr, and others.

Kâr amacı gütmeyen kuruluş ayrıca bu projeleri ve geliştiricilerini belirlemek için Bluesky , Flipboard , Meta ( Threads uygulaması aracılığıyla ActivityPub ile entegre oluyor ) ve Mastodon gibi alandaki mevcut liderlerle de çalışacak .

“Buna başlamadan önce bile platformların gemide olduğundan emin olduk, çünkü gemide değillerse varlığımızın bir önemi bile olmaz,” diye belirtiyor Ahooja. “Bence bir organizasyonun önemli olmasının nedenlerinden biri de buydu, bu yüzden tüm bu farklı platformlar etrafında bir sürecimiz olurdu: onları aynı odaya toplayıp bu konuşmaları yapmak.”

A New Social, son zamanlarda açık sosyal web’e odaklanan tek kuruluş değil. Son zamanlarda, ActivityPub protokolünün ortak yazarı Evan Prodromou tarafından kurulan bir diğer yeni kar amacı gütmeyen kuruluş olan The Social Web Foundation (SWF), fediverse’i genişletme ve kullanıcı deneyimini daha da kolaylaştırma odağıyla faaliyete geçti. A New Social, büyüdükçe SWF ve Independent Federated Trust & Safety ( IFTAS ) gibi diğer kuruluşlarla çalışmayı planlıyor .