Guys check out pixelfed. Its better than Instagram.Same concept of fediverse as Lemmy and Mastodon.
Website: https://pixelfed.org
Servers: https://pixelfed.org/servers
Even has a android client called pixeldroid on fdroid.
I love the idea of this, but the only reason I check Instagram is to see what my friends are posting, which I couldn’t do on an alternative, sadly.
Same for me. Same with Snap. I’ve never used SnapChat before, but once I actively went to parties it’s impossible to not use it.
That really is an issue. Shave your head, put an orange robe on and evangelize… I’ll try to convince as many people as possible in my friends circle!
Lol
This is actually why I’m excited for ActivityPub in Threads. I’m hoping that it can function as a gateway drug to the Fediverse.
“Like Threads? Then continue to follow all your friends there while moving to an ad-free Mastodon client!”
Totally, I really wish the panic would die down. I’d love it if I could bring my friends over here, and there’s no way they’re going to do that without something like Threads.
I use Instagram (well, Instander) for the bands I like. I wish I didn’t have to but it’s useful for these reasons. Ditched Facebook but unfortunately can’t loose them both 😤
This is why I have a barebones Facebook account. Simply so people can reach me that only use that.
This being said it is also sandboxed into web browsers and I refuse to give them permissions for my phone.
@Yoz I’ve been on Pixelfed for about a year; highly enjoyable. All the good of instagram without the celebrities and “influencers”. I also follow my Pixelfed account from my mastodon so I can boost to all of my mastodon followers as well.
I’ve never used Instagram before but I would like to start posting photos, however the vibe I’m getting from Pixelfed is this is a medium for photography art. I’m learning to facet gemstones and thought it would be cool to do photos of my gems that I cut to show my talent progress. Would that kind of non-photography art fit in on Pixelfed?
@meggied90 I’m not a photographer in any sense; I literally post the same things I would have posted on instagram - restaurants, things I see on daily walks, family photos. I follow people who post their exercises/run routes, dogs, whatever. I got the same initial vibe you mentioned, but I assure you, it has been an extremely welcoming community to me.
Thank you! You’re soothing my nervousness quite a bit lol, I’ll take the plunge and start posting as soon as I have my equipment!
yes. I follow some guy (gal?) who does ceramic jewelry work. the only way to make the fediverse more interesting is by adding multiple perspectives, hobbies and interests. your content will undoubtedly be welcomed.
Thank you for the reassurance, I think I will share my hobby once I start! Maybe someday you’ll see a gemstone on your feed and recognize my name. 😄
yes. I follow some guy (gal?) who does ceramic jewelry work. the only way to make the fediverse more interesting is by adding multiple perspectives, hobbies and interests. your content will undoubtedly be welcomed.
What is there to do? Is it just meme accounts or did your friends start using it too?
I mostly use instagram to interact with IRL friends and follow some meme accounts, so I’m curious what this app even looks like if my friends aren’t on it.
I don’t really understand how that would work. I’m on Instagram because I follow some specific artists, collectives, companies, labels, etc., and secondarily for friends. If those are not on Pixelfed, what is there to follow?
Although Lemmy suffers of quite a content draught on less populated communities, it still works like Reddit since you follow topics, not people.
Maybe I should give it a try. I’ve been on instragram for like 10 years and I’m quite proud of the quality of content on my page (smartphone nature photography) but I only have like 23 followers and posting there seems like talking to trees. Why even bother if people rather watch short videos instead of photos.
Yep you need pretty girls in your photos, shorts, reels, stories, 20hashtags per image, and co stant interaction bait just to gain some bot followers
I quit a few years back and do not miss it.
I mean, yes if your goal is to have many followers on Instagram. I mainly use Instagram to share stuff with family and friends, because this is the only app which all of them use.
For some unsolicited advice, you could do better with networking on Instagram through hashtags, following similar people and browsing their work. I posted desolate building photos for 2-3 years and ended up with ~500 followers, which isn’t really much but a lot more than 23.
They have made the algorithm steadily worse over the years, though. Back in 2013-2014 people I knew from a niche art community ended up with 5-50k and since then it has slowed down a huge amount. People whose followers increased by 20,000 from 2014-2016 have increased by maybe 3,000 in the subsequent 7 years.
Yeah I’ve been using hashtags but probably incorrectly because I’m tagging what’s actually on the photo and not what the popular hashtags are. I’m also posting quite irregularly.
I’m not trying to grow a big audience or anything. I’ll keep taking photos for myself nevertheless but I’d also like to share the best ones with others but with intagram it just feels like waste of time. On twitter I post about just as often but there I have 1600 followers (of which a significant portion is bots though)
If you want people to see your work, you have to find the popular hashtags for your niche. Check out photos by people who post similar stuff and see what they use. For my stuff I could have labeled them #door #abandonedbuilding or #oldstorefront but the tags in popular use are more like #facadelovers #windowshiding and #ihavethisthingwithwalls.
What’s your Instagram address?
Or better: open a second parallel account on Pixelfed. And let us know your account.
It definitely is a good alternative for the original Instagram idea (a place for photographers to share their pictures) before Meta bought Insta and turned it into Facebook 2.0.
Hate the be a downer but I can’t see anyone but “tech savvy” people joining this. I can’t even get my sister to verify her Zelle account to get money I sent her. Having to choose a server is going to be wildly confusing to most people.
Well, to be fair, Zelle sucks, but point taken.
Out of curiosity how would you choose a server? I joined Lenny.ml as it was the first one I saw.
I joined after the Apollo debacle started with Reddit, so I joined what had the most users at that moment and it was lemmy.world. But I already had a good idea of how these federated apps work, so I wasn’t super worried about which I picked. I imagine a random normie instagram user would delete the app as soon as they saw the list of servers, if they even got that far.
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Just so you know the ml stands for marxist lennist I’m pretty sure
well do you know what “ml” stays for in your full user name?
They will adapt or be left behind, at least for a while. In fact, that might be a good thing.
Kbin replaces Reddit for me.
Why not lemmy?
Different strokes!
Kbin federates with lemmy so what’s it matter?
@float
@Yoz @activator90 Well, Lemmy.ml blocks kbin instances. Which is not cool, try to avoid that instance.
Because when you search for a community on kbin, you can join communities from the search results. As far as I can tell, in Lemmy, you have to click into each community in order to join, so building my list of subscribed communities on Lemmy will take a while, especially considering all the server load problems Lemmy instances have been having with the influx of new users.
For me Lemmy is more accessible so i use it even that i know that kbin can not only see stuff from lemmy and kbin, but mastodon too (at least following people is possible)
So kbin has more features. As i was testing it there where some conversations about people switching for the better algorithm.
I think kbin is in general (with features) better but i like lemmy more.@activator90
@Yoz Long story…
They’re adding support to sign up to pixelfed with your mastodon account as well. Pretty neat.
https://mastodon.social/@dansup/110671802845980100Oh sweet!
Are there any mobile apps for pixelfed?
PixelDroid is the main app for Pixelfed. It is not the official app, that is still in development.
You can also login to pixelfed from https://tusky.app
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Just enter the domain of your pixelfed account. Then enter username and password.
Pixelfed also has the mastodon api built in so tusky can be used.
Yes, several. An official app and a good number of other 3rd party apps.
The creator has an official app pending in the iOS App Store right now.
In addition, they’re releasing a “log in with Mastsdon” feature within like the next 24 hours.
Creator here: https://mastodon.social/@dansup
There’s also the Tusker app while we wait for the official app.
I only wish it was easier for me to find people to follow, really wish more people I knew IRL joined PixelFed
You can’t be on what amounts to the bleeding edge of Social Media and expect your friends to be as well unless they’re all nerds that actually care about such things (like all of us clearly are).
No social media site started with millions of users and all of your friends. They all started small, and slowly grew to that size.
Well said, the problem is, I post nothing on instagram. So my presence on pixelfed is not at all a reason for anyone in my circle to join lol. I imagine since we’re all the nerds of our families/friend-groups here, this is probably the case for a lot of us.
I only use Instagram to follow public figures, so moving to Pixelfed is a no-no.
Instagram also has a full account data export feature, and Pixelfed can import from that data. When I used it earlier this week it seemed to ignore my latest posts, which use the webp format instead of jpg or png. But since the import is processed server-side once they resolve that I should be able to import from the same zip and get just those missing posts.
I didn’t know this was possible! Thanks for sharing, will give this a try.
I don’t understand Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, so I really have no use for Pixelfed or Mastodon.
Edit: I really don’t know why my top level comments get posted as a reply…
I find Instagram useful to see posts about local events, all artists are there
I enjoyed Instagram in its early days when it was mostly just photography instead of what it is now when even photographers have to turn photos into videos to reach anyone
Your comment is a top level comment, not a reply. At least it is on kbin.social. What are you using?
I guess then it’s one of the scripts acting up somehow.
A great Pixelfed client for iOS is Vernissage.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vernissage-for-pixelfed/id1663543216
I was trying that one, but I think I like Tusker better and it can do both Mastadon and Pixelfed.
Ah, I didn’t like Tusker at all as a Mastodon client and went with Ivory. But, I’ll give it a chance as a Pixelfed client and see how it goes.
This inspired me to try Ivory with Pixelfed and it works!
I’m new to mastodon and pixelfed. I had just used the original mastodon app which I don’t think works yet with pixelfed. I am going to try ivory now as I was not thrilled with Tusker either but I liked it better then vernisegge or whatever. So far ivory looks amazing! $15/yr isn’t bad either.
Is the instance admin able to view posts/messages of private accounts like they can do on Lemmy?
Your private messages are never private unless you’re on a platform that specializes in private messages (Signal. Matrix, WhatsApp (if they are to be believed), XMPP via OMEMO…)
I understand that encryption will not be present but the software should atleast not allow the admins to view the private pictures or messages by default as part of admin tools.
I wouldn’t use this until I’m assured of that as posting pictures can lead to being doxxed or they can be found in some unpleasant places on the internet if the admin is not trustworthy
