Why Mastodon is the Next Big Thing in Microblogging

August 9th, 2024 Written By Aman Singh, Edited by ChatGPT

Image Created by Aman Singh using WIX AI 09-12-2024

The Growing Shift from Twitter to Mastodon: A Look at the Microblogging Alternative

Mastodon’s Rapid Rise: In this article, we look at how uncertainty, particularly at Twitter, is driving change.

There are signs of users who are, for the first time ever, at least slightly thinking about their use of Twitter after Elon Musk officially became the owner of the platform. As for the most part, all users appear to be patiently waiting and have not yet gone on to delete their accounts and have begun to experiment with other social networks. Currently, one of the possible contenders that is experiencing a growing interest is Mastodon – a decentralized social network that received a boost of new users after the purchase. In fact, the company got more than 70,000 new registrations the day after the deal was closed. At the weekend, its official mobile app hit new records for downloads as more people searched for a new digital home.

What is Mastodon?

To anybody who has been living under the rock, Mastodon is not some new shiny social media tool vying to benefit from Twitter’s woes. But in fact it has been launched in 2016 and is a free and open source social media platform to traditional social networks. If you’re already a Twitter user, you will already feel somewhat at home – you can follow other users, tweet – or ‘toot’, use hashtags, upload images and interact. But here’s the big difference: Mastodon is not owned or operated by a single entity. Rather, it functions through a set of autonomous servers, or “instances” or “nodes,” which have their own sets of rules and user groups. These are part of a “fediverse” (a network of interconnected servers), where people can communicate across server unless their server admin blacklists some server.

For example, mastodon. social is one of the biggest instances, hosting over 800,000 users. Another large server, pawoo.net in Japan, has more than 760,000 users. Despite being hosted on different servers, users can generally communicate with one another—unless a specific server has been restricted by the user’s instance.

Why mastodon is getting popularity?

The recent turbulence in Twitter’s leadership is the primary reason Mastodon is gaining traction at the moment. Within days of Musk’s official takeover of Twitter, more than 70,000 users signed up for Mastodon. The same day, the official Mastodon app rose to the 38th position in the Social Networking category in the U.S. App Store — the highest since April 2022. This earlier high was when Musk’s initial bid to buy Twitter first started making the rounds; that some Twitter users are considering moving to other platforms back then.

And so by the end of October, the Mastodon app rises even more, into the 21st position in the Social Networking category. This year, the app reached 34,000 downloads on a single day — its highest since it was launched, on October 29, data from Sensor Tower reveal. That that was installing for three days starting from October 28 to 30, reached nearly 91 thousand, which is 658 percent higher than the previous three days with their 12 thousand installs. These new downloads contribute to Mastodon’s lifetime installs, which have now exceeded 489,200 on iOS and Android.

Microblogging is proof that deep thoughts can be delivered in bite-sized, sometimes snarky, portions.

Notably, Mastodon still has not revealed the Top Overall iPhone apps in the United States category in its entirety. One possible reason? People are now using third-party apps of Mastodon rather than using the official app; There are choices like MetaText and Mercury, which have different tastes in looks. MetaText actually rose 14 places in the Social Networking category, and Mercury also increased a couple of places as well. But these apps are still quite specific, and none of them is in the top 400 and beyond.

A Broader Trend of Users Leaving Twitter?

The growth of Mastodon, we see, is indicative of a broader ambiguity among the Twitter community. Some of them seem to be disappearing from the platform without much of a fuss. Tweepsmap is an analytics platform that analyzes data from over 400k Twitter accounts and it noted a 30% higher than usual decline in followers on October 28th, a day after Musk sealed the deal for him to own Twitter. Although this increase in unfollows is not massive, it does show that there are some people who are going that step further to delete their profiles.

Notably, based on the Tweepsmap data, liberal-leaning accounts seem to have lost slightly more followers that day, though the decline is below 0.2%. Although it is not a large loss, it does suggest that some groups – most notably those who do not trust Musk and his management of Twitter – might be even more likely to leave the platform.

Mastodon’s Growing Pains

With this influx of users, Mastodon is experiencing some challenges. Its most popular instance is mastodon.social, which has faced occasional outages as the server struggles to handle the increased demand. As of October 27, Mastodon had gained over 123,000 new users, bringing the number of active users on the network to more than 528,000.

Mastodon’s founder, Eugen Rochko, has been working tirelessly to keep the platform running smoothly. He recently invested in more powerful hardware to upgrade the network’s database servers and revealed that he’s been putting in 12- to 14-hour days to handle the platform’s rapid growth. Unlike Twitter, which generates revenue from advertising, Mastodon relies on user donations and contributions from individuals and organizations to keep the lights on. It’s a different model that allows Mastodon to remain ad-free but also means the platform operates on a shoestring budget.

Future of Mastodon and Decentralized Social Media

As Twitter continues to navigate this period of change, Mastodon appears to be one of the beneficiaries of the social media shake-up. While the exodus from Twitter is still relatively small, the increasing number of people experimenting with Mastodon suggests a growing interest in decentralized, user-driven social networks.

The next few months will be critical in determining whether Mastodon can sustain this momentum and become a permanent fixture in the social media landscape. For now, its rise reflects a broader desire among users for greater control over their online spaces and a shift away from corporate-run platforms.

Mastodon’s recent growth highlights the potential for decentralized social networks to thrive, especially in moments of uncertainty. Whether or not it becomes the next big thing remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: the social media landscape is evolving, and Mastodon is playing a key role in that transformation.

The genius of Mastodon is that it was built for its user base, meaning that even the structure of the project is decentralized and democratic. As adopted across numerous servers, users can generally communicate with other users across the different servers, excluding those who have been banned by the admin of the server a user belongs to. What this does is foster a new type of environment that organizes communities in a way that aligns with the interests and beliefs they hold.

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Sources:

• Mastodon microblogging app, discussed in Sarah Perez article, "Mastodon’s microblogging app saw a record number of downloads" October 31, 2022.