I was recently checking out the new fediverse.info (you should check it out, btw, it’s very well put together), and was struck by something as I was going through. Under the apps section, where users are prompted to pick an app, there is the question: “What do you want to do?”. It’s not a bad question, based on how the fediverse is structured. Each app has a niche, and so you need to pick an app based on the type of interaction you want to have.

However, what I noticed is that there is no “General” category. I.e., sites that do multiple of these things well. Sure, some sites might have some type of event functionality, and you can share images/videos on mastodon, lemmy and other microblogging/forum sites, but none of it is done to a standard that would make it your go to for any of those types of functions. So, it is necessary to say “what do you want to do” in order to guide people to the site that specializes in what they want.

Yet, this being the fediverse, all of these platforms can talk to each other. So does it have to be that way? Is there a way that we could move towards a more unified and multifunctional fediverse, vs a series of islands that each have different functionalities? What would that look like, and are there any platforms out there that are doing a more unified fediverse experience, specifically having a lot of different functionality/content types in one site/app?

I know people hate facebook comparisons, but I’m thinking of the level of different content/functionality that facebook has, posts, audience control, private/group messaging, groups, marketplace, events. This is the standard that is expected for social media these days. Can the fediverse live up to that expectation?