What's this all about?
Watching the goings on in America, it's hard to escape the conclusion that the major American technology companies have, to put it lightly, taken off their masks. Similarly, it's difficult to escape the conclusion that the Trump administration intends to use the tech oligarchy to impose a kind of digital imperialism. That doesn't sound like something I want, and I've embarked on a journey to find other ways forward.
You didn't answer the question.
Right, right. Sorry. PlotWise is going to be a social network specifically for authors and readers. You'll be able to add your books, do some promotion, talk about the creative process, collect reviews and so on. Readers will be able to find things to read, share their thoughts, etc. You'll also be able to do some publishing and maybe even some selling further down the line. It's also a site for people who offer services to authors, so if you're a cover artist, a blurb writer, a voice actor or similar, this service will be for you too.
It's all advertising and algorithm free, and you will own your data, and it won't hold your followers hostage if you decide to leave.
But who will use a social network that doesn't have users?
That would be a good point, but I've chosen to build this platform on top of the open ActivityPub standard, which means That there are millions of users already. All you have to do is join Mastodon, or Pixelfed, and you'll be able to interact with people who join PlotWise.
Not only that, but as PlotWise will be open source, you can run your own instance should you choose to. They will all interact with each other (known as federation).
A new social network? Isn't that overkill?
No, I don't think so. I have no interest at all in using Mark Zuckerberg's products any longer. Not now he's come clean about who he really is. The idea that moderation is bad is obvious folly. The idea that diversity, equity and inclusion are bad is downright inhumane.
But they'll change their minds again when Democrats retake the White House, so what's the point?
If that's true, then they have no morals and I'm still not interested.
What about BlueSky?
BlueSky may be fine, but it has some issues for me. First is that while it claims to be decentralized, that's only in theory. At the moment, it is very much centralized (in America, which I increasingly view as unsafe), which means your data and your audience are not necessarily your own. It would not be difficult for BlueSky to become another X. There's also some questionable people involved in the ownership of BlueSky which I think makes this outcome more likely. While I'm not saying don't use it, it's not a service for me.
I believe it's possible to follow Mastodon users on BlueSky currently, though, but I don't know how that works. If you're there, you should be able to follow me on Mastodon.
How long will it take to launch PlotWise?
It'll be a while, but I'm hoping for months rather than years. For the time being, consider joining Mastodon or Pixelfed, and you can follow me there.
Are you done with Meta's social media offerings, then?
Unfortunately, yes. My Instagram account will continue to exist for a while longer, but I've already deactivated Facebook and Threads, and I never had an X account.