... I am writing this guide for myself, indeed anyone in my position
Why I need this: a preface of sorts
Working with both atproto protocol, and fediverse, I find an array of applications. For atproto these include Bluesky, Leaflet (this blogging application), Flashes (the photo app), and others. For Fediverse, we have Mastodon, Pixel, WriteFreely for similar activities. Every now and then I discover new apps, and so both atproto and fediverse have larger perspective that I need to understand well.
I do not exactly know where to start with these things, so I will go with the order of
...
Let's dive in to both worlds from users' perspective.
... First, atproto
Here's the basic idea with atproto. If you register an account with one personal data server, you are able to log in multiple apps using that account details. Once you log in, any action you perform on that app using that account can potentially be shared in other applications where you can log in with the same credentials. For example, Bluesky is the place where you can read and write short form notes. In Flashes, which uses the same protocol, you can read and upload images. If you have once created an account in Bluesky, you will not need to create a separate account on Flashes to post and read images, you can log in with your Bluesky account. When you do so, and post anything on Flashes, your bluesky followers will be able to read what you posted on Flashes. If that sounds a bit confusing, so let's draw a graph:
Which means if I upload a photo in Flashes, it will show up in Bluesky, I do not have to take any other step. If you follow me on Bluesky, you will be able view my Flashes photo on Bluesky. If you (your account that is) follow my account, you will be able to access my posts or creation, although this will depend on what that app will let you view and interact. For example, see this:
The photo on the left hand side is what I uploaded on Flashes App, followers of Bluesky will see this in their app on the right hand side. Of course followers on Flashes will see the photo on Flashes app as well. Then if I visit pinkleap, which provides an instagram like interface to share photos and videos, I see this:
These things can be nuanced. For example, if I write a blog post in leaflet.pub, which is the long form article writing app (there are others for example pckt.blog , offprint.app and so on), at the time of publishing the long form article, I can opt in to push to bluesky. If I do not, I can keep in leaflet.pub . When I opt to push to Bluesky, it will create a link back to my long form post on leaflet.pub as Bluesky does not allow long form posts. Well, this may seem like an involved process, so here is the workflow, see the images below (see the images in a carousel and click through the arrow on the left or right)
In the first step, you describe the post when you are ready to publish, in the second step, you click "Next" button to see the details, and in the final step, you choose to decide to share on Bluesky. If you do, then you will see the post appear on Bluesky. If you don't, you do not have to share it on Bluesky. You can make changes and then share at a later time.
So in theory, you will only need to have one account that you use to sign in to each of these services, and write the content meant for them (that is, notes for bluesky within 300 characters, long form in leaflet, photo in flashes) so that accounts that follow your account will be able to access what you create or share. You may see how this helps to keep everything simple. All I need to start with is one account on one service or personal data server and use it everywhere else to log on to wherever else that uses the at protocol. Which means, if I provide my friend who wants to follow me on Bluesky, the account is all I need to provide him.
...But this is not how things work in Fediverse
Fediverse runs on a different model. For example, if you want to post short form notes, you use Mastodon. Mastodon is a software hosted on a server named instance. If you want to follow my posts on Mastodon, you will need to follow me on the particular "instance" where I have an account. Now let's say your interest is in posting photos. You can post photos on Mastodon, or you can post on another specialised app within the fediverse ecosystem, e.g. Pixelfed. Another example is if you want to post long form stories, you use Writefreely. As with Mastodon, so with Pixelfed and Writefreely, that each of these applications are hosted on specific instances where you will need to have a separate acount. That said, you can of course use ONE CENTRAL space to gather them all as feeds and read them but you will need to FOLLOW each of these separate accounts. If all this sounds rather confusing, here is a visual graph:
So you can see, fediverse has quite an involved structure. You have to create accounts in separate instances. You can of course follow people in separate instances and then draw in everythig in one feed to read people's posts and images. There are many applications to choose from, and likewise, many instances to choose from. This makes things complicated to some extent.
For example, let's say my home base is in mastodon.social and I post there as @arin_basu@mastodon.social. I also have a separate account at pixelfed.social as @arin_basu@pixelfed.social
This photo is posted on pixelfed social in my timeline. I can view this photo on my timeline (feed) on Mastodon.social if and only if I follow myself (that is if @arin_basu@mastodon.social follows @arin_basu@pixelfed.social. As I follow my pixelfed.social account from my mastodon.social account, the photo appears in my mastodon.social feed as well. This is how it appears in my mastodon feed. I did not have to do anything, as I followed my pixelfed account on my mastodon.
Now here's the thing. If I have an account such as @xyz@pixelfed, then anyone who follows my pixelfed account will see them on their timeline, and that includes people who follow my pixelfed accont on mastodon as well. But on a mastodon instance, so that all my account followers on that mastodon instance can view that photo, I may have to reshare the pixelfed photo. This is because you follow people tied to an instance in Fediverse to see their posts and you only need to follow people in AT protocol. But here too, things get a little more complicated for fediverse when it comes to communities, where you do not follow the person but the community at the instance and therefore you get to see all their discussion threads, not just what the person has written.
... So what happens?
In summary, the two protocols work in different ways but both of them are open, and flexible. There are tradeoffs for everything. The best might be a mix of both, as in Wafrn, but that platform is growing as I write this.