Pixelfed – An alternative to centralized image sharing platforms

Yes, it is using ActivityPub, the same federation protocol as Mastodon.

Pixelfed is fairly new, and probably should get it's minimum viable product working before worrying about supporting more formats. And there's a lot of ActivityPub-based software out there, it makes sense to focus on a specific experience people are looking for.

You host Pixelfed where you want to, or use someone else's Pixelfed server. As long as either you or someone else is paying to host it, it's there.

ActivityPub style federation isn't like IPFS. Data is largely still contained on the server it's posted on, but you can communicate with other servers so that people can be notified, interact, and comment on things posted on other servers. But it's a much more traditional server model than IPFS. When a Mastodon or Pixelfed server goes offline, it's content is gone.

> Registrations are closed.

I think the lack of a common name/URL is the biggest problem that is preventing federated open source social networks from gaining mass popularity. I remember when identi.ca came out as an alternative to Twitter. It seemed like it was starting to gain some traction, then they switched to pump.io and closed registrations. I haven't heard of anyone using either since. Look at Diaspora, that never took off either. You might convince someone to try it out, they'd go to the website and it'd be too complicated for them. "Which pod do I choose?" Then they would just go back to using Facebook and Twitter.

> Registrations are closed.

Can someone explain this?

> Which pod do I choose?

That is actually a great UX question. For federated services how do you think we best solve this? I mean everyone wants to just not pick one. But different loss suits people better in terms of location/interests/something else.

UX folks, what patterns would you suggest to help solve this?

That's pretty much how things are developing in the fediverse: each platform meant for its own content type, with the microblogging platforms generally being used for a "main" identity. So platforms like Pixelfed and Peertube can focus on photos and videos, respectively, while still interacting with the larger network.

By not supporting following in the other direction, these specialized platforms can stay focused on the content shared there, instead of also supporting microblogging, video, photos, events, and whatever other types come up in the future. But of course you're not limited to just following in one direction -- comments go both ways. So someone can comment on your Pixelfed photo with a Mastodon account, and you can respond to that comment with your Pixelfed account, and they'll see your comment back on Mastodon.