Substack alternative Ghost now also connected to Fediverse
Almost a year ago, the head of the blogging software Ghost announced that it would be coming to the Fediverse. Now you can try it out in a beta test.
Well-known Internet portals also run on Ghost
(Image: Ghost)
The Substack alternative Ghost now allows users to connect their sites directly to the so-called Fediverse. As part of the beta test, pages for which a paid subscription has been taken out can then interact directly with Mastodon & Co. This means that blog entries, for example, can appear directly in the timeline of the short message service, while comments made underneath them end up in a kind of inbox. Pages can also follow other blogs or news services hosted on Ghost and read their content directly in this inbox. It should even be possible to send short messages directly from Ghost.
Public beta test
Site administrators can now activate the function in the admin interface and thus also take part in the public beta test. If the "Social web (beta)" checkbox is checked, the page can be found according to a predefined pattern from Mastodon & Co. This consists of the handle "@index" – which can also be changed at a later date – and the domain. This can already be seen in the case of the online magazine 404 Media, which has already posted articles from the @index@www.404media.co account. The profile page is filled directly with the details of the page on Ghost.
There will be major changes for blog operators behind the scenes. According to Ghost, there is a two-part inbox, among other things. Long content from accounts that you follow is collected in one area. This can be blog entries – from WordPress –, for example, or articles from pages on Ghost. In the other, on the other hand, there is more of a timeline, as we are used to from Mastodon, for example. It contains short messages from accounts that you follow. You can also send short messages yourself here. There is also an area with notifications, where you are informed about how your own content is being interacted with.
Ghost has been around since 2013 and simplifies online publishing for freelance authors as well as entire publications. The service competes with Substack, among others, but there has been some discussion about the newsletter service. The IT news from Platformer, for example, is now published on Ghost, and The Atlantic also runs on Ghost. Fediverse is a network of independent platforms that are connected via ActivityPub. These are primarily Mastodon, but there are also initial links to Threads and Bluesky. Flipboard and WordPress are also connected. Tumblr is soon to follow.
(mho)
