Hey everyone I’m wanting to switch more to using Peertube but I’m having trouble finding a good instance.

The first one I signed up for was Spectra video but it seems to not be federated with the rest of Peertube. I’d like an instance that is so I can see more of what it has to offer any suggestions?

Thanks!

We’re re-opening completely free accounts on Write.as, so more people can start a blog on our clean, distraction-free writing platform.

In late 2021, we announced that we were closing free registrations for new users. This was mostly an experiment to help us focus on the paying customers that keep our small business running, and provide a better experience all around.

Since then, we’ve been able to launch our social platform Remark.as, continue evolving WriteFreely, and add a ton of features around collaboration.

In this time, we’ve also realized that free accounts are one of the best ways for people to get started on our platform. While some people know what they’re looking for, and happily upgrade to our full Pro tier within the 2-week trial period, others just need a place to casually write when they feel like it. This takes a longer time, and doesn’t fit our time-based trial model, so we want to support these writers too.

Another goal of closing free accounts was to limit the number of spam accounts on Write.as. As a long-running platform with plenty of positive search engine authority on our domain, we’re a prime target for Search Engine Optimizers and spammers of every kind. Closing free accounts reduced the number of abusive actors we saw, but never stopped them completely.

Now that free accounts are open again, we plan to develop new anti-spam measures that can eventually be used by all WriteFreely instances to reduce the amount of abuse they receive.

New and existing users

Now, anyone can grab a Free Write.as account, and get a permanent space to write online — you can get started here. Our Free tier includes all the basics, including Markdown support, our Fediverse integration, and even support for monetization through services like sub.club. See our Pricing page for the full comparison with our other tiers.

Along with this, if you signed up for a trial between January 1, 2022 and today but never upgraded to Pro, your account is now completely free! This is our way of saying thanks for sticking around — and if you haven’t revisited Write.as in a while, now is a great time to check it out again.

Thanks for writing with us, and we can’t wait to see what you create!

#free #Writeas #accounts #fediverse

Changing Free Registrations

After five and a half years, we’re going to change the way Free account registrations work on Write.as, starting January 1. In short, th...

^{Write.as Blog}

It’s tough being a media outlet these days. Audiences are fractured, referrals from search engines are dropping, and publishers are at the mercy of algorithms they don’t control.

Savvy journalists at forward-thinking newsrooms are not letting this happen to them. Instead, they’re doing the work that arguably has been most critical all along: building direct connections with their audiences. It’s common to do this through email lists and subscription models, but the open social web offers a new, more equitable ecosystem for quality journalism to thrive.

Two people on the frontlines of this movement are Jason Koebler, a journalist and co-founder at 404 Media, and Ben Werdmuller, the senior director of technology at ProPublica. In this episode of Dot Social, the two talk about their fediverse experiences so far and why they’re hopeful for publishing in the future.

Highlights of this conversation:

1:40 404 Media’s one year anniversary and learnings
2:29 Addressing online media’s biggest challenge
4:30 Fracturing of social media, of audiences and challenge for publishers
6:01 Ben and his trajectory in media
7:34 How 404 Media and other journalistic organizations can solve problems around discovery
11:15 Premium feeds and the radicalness of “listen to this wherever you get your podcasts”
14:35 The cons of email and the promise of ActivityPub
16:20 Core selling points of decentralized social media
19:17 Seeing it all come together
20:25 Will Threads become the whale in this pond?
25:13 “Federate or die”
29:05 Benefits of owning your own platform and audience
34:36 The time is now; getting feedback to developers
36:24 Picking Ghost (over Substack)
37:54 Flipboard and the movement toward innovation in the fediverse
39:49 The threat of AI-generated content and how it plays algorithmically
42:45 For You feeds and the “black box” model of surfacing content
44:19 Top wishlist items for the web
48:47 Desire for a better advertising ecosystem

Mentioned in this episode:

“What We Learned in Our First Year of 404 Media”
“Wherever you get your podcasts” is a radical statement
John O’Nolan’s Dot Social episode
Threads announcement from 8/28
“Protocol Wars - The Fediverse Explained!”(WVFRM podcast)

🔎 You can find Ben at werd.io/ and @ben@werd.social. You can find Jason @jasonkoebler@mastodon.social and 404 Media at @404media@flipboard.com

✚ You can follow Mike at @mike@flipboard.social and @mike@flipboard.com

💡 To learn more about what Flipboard's doing in the fediverse, sign up here: about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave