About this blog

"a secret new internet you may not have heard of, a paradise to which we may all yet escape."

That's the Fediverse and the wider social web*. It's what this blog is all about. And it's what we're celebrating, building and growing with Patchwork.

The social web gives us all a chance to move away from walled gardens and rewild the internet. Going back to an older version of the web, where people interact directly, outside the reach of big tech. Using the most up to date technology to make this happen.

Patchwork is bringing organisations onto the social web. We're talking to independent news publishers, non-profits and academic institutions - organisations which can make a difference. This blog is a place to record how we're going about this.

There are three parts to what we're doing, and they'll all be covered here:

• hub-pat.ch - Patchwork servers, running on the social web's biggest software platform, Mastodon. They're the on-ramp to the social web.
• feed-pat.ch - Patchwork channels, built around communities and distributed across the Fediverse, Bluesky, Threads, nostr and Farcaster.
• app-pat.ch - the Patchwork app, celebrating connections and communities, and dropping addictive algorithms and engagement hunting.

Patchwork is a technology offering being developed and run by the Newsmast Foundation, a non-profit with a mission to use social media tools for the greater good of society: knowledge for all, for good. We've pioneered many of the Patchwork tools in our content curation offering, Newsmast.

Knowledge for all for good

Building communities, connections and conversations in the Fediverse and beyond. We’re diverse, democratic and dedicated to building safe, committed communities that change the world. Boosting knowledge sharing by building communities led by people who know their stuff. Helping you learn the news that matters to you directly from those who discovered it. Newsmast is our … Continued

NewsMast

This blog is written and published by Michael Foster, co-founder of Newsmast and Patchwork.

*Quoted from the Spotify summary of the Search Engine podcast "How do we survive the media apocalypse (Part 2) with PJ Vogt and Casey Newton.

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