Twitter may have a new problem. Just six months old, Mastodon is an open-source version of Twitter that just might upset a few Twitter stakeholders. Name aside (seriously, an extinct animal?), the fledgeling service is getting a lot of tongues wagging for fixing more than just a couple of competitors (read: Twitter) bugbears - a core part of Clayton Christianson's Disruptive Innovation theory (see table below). A larger amount of characters (500), fewer trolls, chronological timelines, public timelines, better block and mute tools, per-post privacy - what's not to love?
New platforms like Mastodon (created by Eugen Rochko) are somewhat ten a penny (remember disaspora, Pownce, Indenti.ca?) but few so brazenly steal from a platform's user pain points to form a new one off the bat. Feature creep and steal is currently rife among existing platforms (cough...Facebook) but to form a network specifically on issues users face is a bold move needed in a sea of growing similarity. Mastodon's impact is likely being magnified because of the fallout from Twitter's recent reply functionality shift.
It's unlikely to be plain sailing for Mastodon though. Currently, Mastodon is full of a diverse group of people - early adopters to be sure - but also people into cybersecurity, memes, anime, Minecraft. The interface, ethos and general feel of Mastodon hark back to a somewhat bygone age. Without a fluffy interface (although it has been praised by many) Mastodon still feels very un-mass market friendly. The open-source nature will also put people off - most have never understood what open-source means and more importantly don't want to. 'Nodes', 'code' and 'private rooms' still freak a lot of people out, people like and want fluffy interfaces like Twitter and Facebook.
Tools for finding your Twitter friends on Mastodon have already sprung up - a key way the service will grow. Mastodon's user base is still tiny (+126,000 per the public counter) compared to Twitter's +313 million monthly active users (it has roughly double that amount of accounts) but the costs to run Mastodon are in the very low hundreds not millions like other services. What is interesting is that Mastodon meets so many of the hardcore criteria for disruption even with the flaws. No-one will need a Mastadon strategy just yet but if it continues growing at this rate Mastodon may be something to think about.
If you want a comprehensive how-to guide for getting on with Mastodon check out the guide from OpenSource or see the video below.
