Facing the attractive threat of AI, publishers turn to decentralized platforms

Mike Macu, a technical industry veteran, sees an opening for a different type of internet where algorithm shots do not call. Mr. MQ, the chief executive of the Internet company Flipboard, is challenging the automatic grip of social media on our attention, making a condition that humans should cure online experiences, not machines.

Three decades ago, as Vice President of Technology at Groundbreaking Tech Company Netscape, Mr. Machue helped to democratizing information access through the World Wide Web. Now, he is creating a position of his company’s new surf browser as part of the growing community of so-called decentralized social media options, as part of the growing community of so-called decentralized social media options.

Online publishers struggle with a chronic problem and a new threat, time can be fortunate. Over the years, he is worried that the internet middlemen – Facebook and a huge platform – have weakened their relationship with those who read or see their content. Now publishers face another issue: the new AI system that can completely eliminate those frightening links with its audience.

Surf offers a window in a cool technology movement echoing in the early days of the World Wide Web. With the help of many internet technical standards that are to encourage the development of a new type of social media, Mr. MQ has made a possible way where media companies can make direct relations with readers.

Unlike the current social web, which is dominated by some large technology companies, new software protocols may seem a bit victorious for now. But they make it possible for internet users to communicate and share information without relying on the same centralized service.

One of the new technical standards is known as Active. Social media platforms using protocols can talk to each other, allowing users on different networks to have original interaction – how emails work in different providers.

Activitypub was formally given in 2018 by the World Wide Web Consortium, a technology standard -making organization. Standard initially attracted interest. But the acquisition of Elon Musk’s Twitter, now known as X, is in 2022, a migration of users and publishers in search of alternatives.

Surf phones, tablets, and personal computer users allow the feed in a single dashboard-like view from various sources. This will also allow them to publish curate collections individually of information.

Surf is still being tested privately by a small company of Mr. MQ, which is planning to introduce the program independently at the end of this year. Nevertheless, while open social movement is still small, it has attracted attention every time that is a disruptive phenomenon such as the purchase of Mr. Musk’s Twitter.

In 2023, decentralized social media gained significant speed when Meta adopted the active standard for its X competitors, threads, and later announced a plan to join with other activity-based services. Mr. MQ “Open Social Web” is already called over 300 million participants, he estimated, and wholesale among them is now the threads users of the meta.

The shared target of the leading users out of silos accelerated with Bluusky’s recent success, which was launched in 2023 by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsi. Although it is built on a rival standard known as the AT protocol, a bridge has already been built between two protocols to connect it to users of social media services.

Mr. McCue said in an interview, “Everyone is mimicking each other’s characteristics only in walls with walls, but now innovation will be decentralized around human connections.”

The 56-year-old Mr. MQ co-established the Flipboard in 2010 as a digital news aggregator. He has made a career to be early to take advantage of changes in internet technologies. He launched paper software to visually display 3-D information in web browsers and then in 1996 sold the company to Netscape for $ 20 million.

In 1999, he co-install the tails networks, described as a “voice browser” and makes it possible to get internet information through the phone. The company was sold in 2007 in a rumor of $ 800 million to Microsoft.

One of the most important abilities of the Open Social Web is that it will allow companies to move away from aggressive advertising, Mr. McQic. He describes the option as a “relevant” advertisement for special interests rather than individuals. For example, advertisement can be posted on a web feed centered on subjects such as backpacking or fashion.

“Instead of chasing traffic, the perception of creating an audience is something we are searching,” said Nilay Patel, editor of the popular news and head of the media website The Verge. “Activitypub can facilitate by allowing more direct and meaningful engagement with our readers.”

In addition to the Meta decision to base the threads on Activitypub, news organizations such as Bloomberg and BBC have started experimenting with technology, as are blogging platforms such as moderate, WordPress and Ghost.

Activity has led a wave of start-up efforts such as Mastodon, a microblogging service, which now has more than 14 million accounts associated with a network of more than 14,000 host computers, as well as start-ups, distributed services such as pixeld and pertub, distributed services that provide facilities similar to Instagram and YouTube.

For several decades, Google’s dominance of internet search has been the inspiring power behind the construction and distribution. But as Google has invested in generic-AI summary to users’ questions, a window of opportunity for all types of discovery tools except chatbots has made the need for options more important.

This theodore M. Nelson’s work is far from the very early roots of the World Wide Web, who saw about a Harvard graduate student in 1961 that the text could move forward on the first computer monitor and writing no longer needs to be linear. He invented the concept of hypertext, which was later adopted as the underlying structure of the World Wide Web. Designers of the new open social web services believe that their option is one step behind the basic ideals of the Internet.

“It goes back to the basic principles where the Internet began as decentralized,” said Eugen Rochko, inventor of Mastodon, said, an open-source social networking platform that allows users to join the server independently operated during being connected through a global network.

The transition from centralized to decentralized models will require a cultural change between publishers and audiences.

Lawyer Mike Godwin, known for his work on Internet rights and digital culture, said, “There are important product questions to solve, such as how to handle moderation and material discovery in decentralized environment.” “But these are the types of new problems that we should face, which come with real innovation.”

Despite these challenges, the enthusiasm among early adopters reminds some of the first few years of the world wide web.

“The energy around the activity reminds me of the early days of the web,” Mr. Nelson said in an recent interview, “Where anything seemed possible, and innovation was around every corner.”