The Fediverse officially connects with WordPress

The Fediverse in on the rise and I already argued why Mastodon is here to stay, being a new home for all those fugitives from other, self-destructing Social Media-platforms. While many already know this, Automaticc’s (the company behind WordPress) latest acquisition now deeply connects all the WordPress-blogs with those ActivityPub-sites out there, pushing the Federation-based integration into WordPress to a whole new level.

There is no real magic behind this move - at least no technical - while the impact and signaling effect for the appreciation of the Fediverse is huge: WordPress didn’t develop this one from the scratch but, according to CEO Matt Mullenweg, has hired the author of the famous WordPress-plugin “ActivityPub”, Matthias Pfefferle.

Although the plugin could already be used with a simple “Click-and-deploy”-install like we got used to with WordPress, this knightly accolade fuels the integration into Mastodon, Pleroma, Friendica, Pixelfed and various other ActivityPub-based services sailing under the “Fediverse”-moniker. Once installed, readers are able to follow the WordPress-blogs on their preferred federated platform, view the blog posts and reply with comments. The replies posted to a federated site like Mastodon then become additional blog post comments.

With being in-house at Automatic, Matthias Pfefferle will gain access to more resources and support to make the plugin more functional over the time and secure its further development, expectedly steering out of the “Beta”-status in the nearer future. According to Mullenweg, the plan now is to experiment with and test the plugin like Automaticc has once done with the “Gutenberg”-editor which turned out to be the new editor for WordPress afterwards.

While the detailed terms of the plugin’s acquisition aren’t being disclosed, it won’t be a large purchase as the plugin is created by a single person. Matthias Pfefferle will officially join the ranks of Automaticc in April, proving that the embracement and adoption of the Fediverse by modern companies these days isn’t an exception but a modern “going-with-the-flow”-attitude! A big step for the Fediverse!

(Source)