If you are coming in and then please find a seat. If you are leaving, then please do so.
Quietly, that would be great. We would like to get started with our next speaker in this room.
This is a social web dev room. That falls then 2026.
And I am really excited to have Benjamin Bellamy here to talk about amplifying our voices.
And I assume, cast a port and hook casting and other things.
But we will leave him to tell you his topics. Thank you, Benjamin.
Thank you, Andy.
Hi, everyone. Wow. So many people.
So I am going to talk about the Fedivers, obviously, and a little bit on the podcasting.
So first, I want to introduce myself. I am Benjamin Bellamy.
I love podcast. I love first software.
I am a business development manager for truly open source AI solution at Nina Goha, French company.
I am a founder of the company Adorece, which develops open source tools for podcasters.
I am the father of cast a pod and when I don't know what to do, I take picture for Wikipedia.
And I am a member of the collective Wikipedia portraits.
But enough talking about me. Let's talk about you.
So who here is a developer?
99%.
Who is on the Fedivers?
99.9.
And who is a developer for the Fedivers?
Yeah, like, almost 10%.
So some values, you probably won't learn anything from me today.
I think you know already everything.
As many of you know, today is a critical day.
We've been struggling for years to convince people and neighbors or family to move from the big text to open source,
federated social networks and it's been hard, almost impossible.
We need ways to promote that, but it's not easy.
And there's this one guy who is helping us make it more easy to promote the Fedivers, to promote open source software,
to help us explaining why that matters.
And I think we should all here be grateful for the tremendous work he's doing to help us.
Of course, you know who I'm talking about.
His name Donald Trump.
You didn't have to approach for that, thank you.
So yeah, we know that big text.
We call them gathams in France.
They get cheaper.
They control everything.
They don't create a single content.
They don't do anything.
But they decide who is allowed to talk and who is not.
So let's imagine a social network with no algorithm and not advertising tracking every move.
So these are basically the main two issues that we have with the usual Twitter ex Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and everything.
If you remove these two, then it's all good.
And it was good at the beginning.
One thing also that I would like to say is because why do people go to these big text social network is because it's where everyone is.
But one thing you should know is that you are not a number.
Who knows what this stands for?
Recognize it?
Yeah.
We're all.
Yeah.
It's from the prisoner.
So you are not a number.
The content quality is not related to how many followers you have.
Your happiness shouldn't be related to the number of likes you get.
And the quality of culture does not rely on the numbers of shares.
And that's something that's, it's very easy to forget these.
But we have to remember like every day.
So what became with all these big text network and platforms?
There's this one book I read last year.
It's basically the only book I read last year.
But it was a very good one.
It's called an institution from Korean doctoral.
And basically the whole book is about this.
When a platform emerged, there are three stages.
First, it's tremendous.
Excellent.
Perfect.
Brilliant.
Merville.
For everyone.
And this is just like a trap to help the platform grow.
And to get more users.
So that's it can become sustainable.
And then the second step is about using users for business customers.
And then everyone for shareholders.
But the thing that's I, I got from the, the whole book,
the main, the key point, according to me is that if someone can make it worse, he will.
And when you realize that, if you have the company has the power to make things worse for profit,
obviously, they will.
So eventually, your traps on the platform where quality is not good,
your, you lost control.
You lost control on your contents.
You get like strikes and something like that.
But everyone stays because everyone stays.
That's resupid.
But that's the reason.
Everyone stays because everyone stays.
So,
geopolitical fragmentation, creating digital borders, of course, is a problem.
We shouldn't be dependent on US or Chinese platform.
Again, thanks Donald.
Thanks to AI.
Like the huge benefit from AI is now.
We all know that our data are valuable.
Before that, everyone used to say, yeah, I don't care.
What will they do with my data?
They're worthless.
We know they are not worthless.
They're very valuable.
And even in the US, they are very reluctant to provide and to give all their data to big takes.
And so now, European independence is very, very important for the future for us,
but also for our children.
So, the social web alternative.
Obviously, you all know like 95% of you know activity pub.
It became a standards in 2018, so like eight years ago.
We have 25 million users and 20,000 instances on the Macedon mainly.
What is really good and what I really appreciate on the Fediverse is that it's fairly federated.
And you can have different platforms for different kind of contents.
You can choose your server, keep your connection,
and it's open source and community-driven.
If you were there before hearing to a Macedon, you know that are ready.
A terrible genius networks, so this is a very important part,
because silos is what makes things ugly.
And if you are able to follow users from another platform,
this is what makes things really interesting.
So, it's federated, but it's also federated across different kind of media.
I'm quoting some of these, so Macedon, peer to pixel feds, mobiles,
they have a talk later.
All these can talk to each other.
So, actually, the pub breaks silos.
So, some limitations, though, because you have to know where you're going.
So, it's complex, implementing activity pub can be cumbersome,
especially if you want it to be compatible with everything, including MasterDone,
which has its own way of talking activity pub after admit.
Okay, the ability to challenge identity portability.
It's not easy if you want to go from one instance to another to keep your identity.
You can take your followers of some of your contents,
but your identity, you lose it.
It's like another one.
You can say, I changed my identity, but you have to change it.
And it's not easy to self-host.
So, two alternatives to activity pub,
80 protocol, which is the protocol developed by Blue Sky.
So, it's much more complex, but it's more recent.
So, I have some drawbacks and some advantages.
There's a company behind.
So, so far, so good, but who knows what it will become later.
And it's highly concentrated as of today.
Master, who is using Master here?
Okay, not so many.
There are some really good things on Master.
Some things that I really like.
Like the identity.
On Master, your identity is your public key.
So, you can move from one server to any other.
It's your public key.
So, you can move with your identity.
So, that's something I really like.
Bitcoin integration is something that I don't like,
but you have the right to disagree.
And it's not easy to understand how to get onboard.
Master on is not easy, not stories on another level.
Okay, and now I want to talk about the web 1.0.
Who was here when the web 1.0 was invented?
Oh, like 25%.
We're not that old, actually.
So, this was like before the big text.
Back then, everything was federated.
It was all about protocols and standard protocols.
Nothing remains from these ancient times, except podcasting.
Podcasting is relying on RSS, and it was like this almost 30 years ago,
but still.
Of course, podcasting is being attacked every day.
The main threat is called YouTube.
They call themselves YouTube podcasts.
They are quotes here, because if it's on YouTube, it's not a podcast.
They're trying to steal that word.
If there is like a video, it can be a podcast,
because a podcast is just an immediate enclosure with an RSS feed.
So, the fact that there's a video doesn't forbid according to me,
from being a podcast.
But the fact that it's a silo, that you don't have any RSS feed,
that it's like a black hole.
Everything that gets in does not get out, makes it's YouTube,
but not a podcast.
So, podcasting did evolve a little bit since the last 30 years,
in 2020.
Some guys developed a new DTD, new fields,
to enrich podcasting.
And why am I talking about this?
Because, among all these features,
transcript chapters, some bids, value for value, person, location, etc.
Two of them transcripts and chapters were implemented in 2024 and 2025.
By Apple, Apple implemented something that was developed by a community
and open source community.
So, this should remind us that innovation doesn't need gatekeepers,
that we, as a community, as an open source community,
we can move walls, we can make things change.
If it's good enough, if it works, eventually it can prevail.
Oops.
Okay, so a word about cast supports.
So, as I said, at the very first slide,
I'm the father of cast support, which is an open source podcast hosting platform,
on the Fedivers.
It has activity per native integration from day one.
It's been recorded, so expect some new features in the next week's month.
The podcast is a Fedivers, an activity per actor,
and so you can like, comment, and we share an episode from your feed.
And this is very important to us, because the RSS allows the creators
to keep control on their content and activity per,
allows the creators to keep control on their community.
And the relationships between the creator and the audience.
If you go to a big tech social media, if you're using Apple podcasts,
if you get banned, you lose everything, the content disappears,
and all the interaction that you had disappear.
So, thanks to activity per, you keep control on these.
These are some of the features that cast support implements.
So, I'm going to read them one by one, no, I'm not.
So, one thing that's important in the end is that some of us are
creative content are just for fun.
I am some of us are creating content for living.
At some point, if we want a solution to work,
there's need to be some monetization somewhere, either advertising,
because it's not a bad word.
If it doesn't steal your personal data,
it can be like tipping, subscription,
but you need to be able to provide ways to monetize.
Some people in the audience are working for interledger and
web monetization, I guess.
That's a very good solution.
Cryptocurrency is another one, which personally,
I don't like for many reasons, but anyway,
you have to be open to the needs of the people you are talking to.
And now, I wanted to do a demo, but I was told that
it's PDF only.
So, just some screenshots.
So, this is a podcast.
It's a very good one if you speak French.
It's mine.
And you can see here an episode,
and someone who posted a comment,
basically about my co-hosts who is saying stupid things
and too bad for him.
And thank you to our listeners.
And the comments goes back to the podcast.
So, this is the podcast hosting platform.
Here, we can see the same message,
but on MasterDont on the frame of soft instance.
Here, very nice pictures taken by me,
on my PixelFed account,
PixelFed.Social.
And here, the same bets on MasterDont.
So, you can see content from one platform to another.
So, now you know everything.
Where do you start?
So, you can go to join the Fediverse.net,
or join Fediverse.Wiki, or Fediverse.Party.
And you will find instances tutorials
how to start going to the Fediverse,
and how to explain to others family neighbors
how to start on the Fediverse.
And of course, join MasterDont.org.
And of course,
MasterDont.org.
And I think that's it.
Oh, no, one thing.
There's this really nice article that I wrote
on the European Open Source Academy magazine.
It was published yesterday, I guess.
And it's about discovery with that world garden.
So, basically, stuff that I talked about today.
And that's it for me.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Before taking some questions, one other thing.
We just published a new script
that allows you to install a customer on the server.
I tested it on Ubuntu, Debian, and FEDOHA.
You can go to blog.casiper.org
then there's an article explaining everything.
I also should tell you, never, ever, to occur.
Yeah, I could do.
I was going to say, we all have a untrusty
Cal script directly.
Cal install directly for the internet.
James.
No.
Yeah.
Somebody had a question.
Hi.
I love cast-a-pot.
I have a podcast.
I've had a podcast for a long time.
I literally just started a new podcast.
And I was looking at a cast-a-pot again.
And while it struggles I have, as I host,
I could host cast-a-pot.
I got a bunch of ratty pies.
I've got a static IP.
But I'm worried about bandwidth.
And I'm worried about all of that stuff.
So I looked at, also, do it through cast-a-pot.
The main site.
And I have to say it was just a bit too expensive.
So is there a way to just...
So I put my podcast on archive.org, for example,
and just link it in.
It doesn't seem like there's a way to do that.
I don't have to do it in RSS,
but it doesn't seem to possible in cast-a-pot.
So I look confused.
I'm not trying to understand it.
Okay.
So right now, I want to...
So a bit of RSS is that you can link the podcast
to another location.
But the actual RSS...
The actual content is somewhere else.
But the RSS is hosted by me in cast-a-pot, for example.
But it doesn't seem possible in cast-a-pot to do that,
because I'm worried about bandwidth.
For cast-a-pot,
we try to...
now, or the needs,
like to...
the most common thing.
So everything is at the same place.
You can use like a CDN, or you can use a three.
But in the end, we need access to the files,
to be able to modify the ID3 MP3 tags.
So it would be too complicated to have this so far.
But if enough people are asking for it, open an issue,
and maybe someone will do it.
But I have to say,
we're not...
it's not on our roadmap.
That's something we already heard,
but not often enough.
I forgot to say one rule.
If you ask a question, two rules.
It has to be a question,
and it's one question.
Otherwise, my memory doesn't...
My heap size is only one question.
So I'm on the way.
I'm also doing work on non-noted objects,
in the favorors,
and also how's the customer instance,
which is publicly available.
And the question is,
could you maybe go to slide 20?
To illustrate,
to make the question sustainable for everyone.
Because I think,
there,
get me if I'm wrong,
you oversimplified something,
and basically what you're doing here
is you're sharing a note,
which reference a link to the actual podcast episode.
And I want to get your thoughts.
Are you happy with the state?
No, maybe.
Want to improve it?
Why do you make this decision that way?
So quick answer,
no.
When we started working on that six years ago,
we had the discussion,
and it was very vivid.
I'm stereo.
We didn't know if you wanted to create a new message type,
or to use the existing ones.
And back then,
we didn't know if the project would last a month.
So we decided to use the formats from MasterDone,
because this was where all the users were.
So we wanted them to be able to actually
like see the message and repost it.
But now,
I think it's maturing up,
so that we can create new message type,
dedicated to podcasts.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, question.
Going back to the advertising topic you mentioned.
Don't you think this is possible to find a responsible way
for doing advertising?
What?
Responsible way.
The publicity responsibility.
Yes.
I do think it is.
Actually, this was the first mission for the company
and the company,
the company and the company.
That's me and my partner story,
which we call and still call.
It's contextual monetization.
Because, like if you're listening to radio fonts,
and you're listening to podcasts from a
are totally unrelated because they just take the money from the pockets who have
some money in it, and it's totally unrelated, and podcasting is a very cultural product,
so it should be easy.
The thing is, and the thing that we didn't manage to do as a successful test is you need
to have a large amount of content, and the large amounts of an unsurced advertisers.
I got the mic, so I'll get it, I get it as the question.
My question is about digital sovereignty, which we led with a lot, and podcasting.
How do you connect those two together?
What's the case for digital sovereignty for, say, European podcasters?
Digital sovereignty for podcasting?
The thing is, with podcasting, it's very easy to be sovereign or to be autonomous, because
you can host your content wherever you want, you can listen to it wherever you want, and
there are many indexes, so I'm using podcasting.org, which is open source, open data, but
there are others, so it's exactly the web 1.0, which when everything was still sovereign.
What are the new features, it did to activity purposes, in the upcoming 2.0 release?
You have to ask yes indirectly.
But basically, the thing about activity purposes, implementation and cost support, so it's
like six years old, back then we weren't as experts as we are now, so it needs some
recording.
My question is, are there already enough people asking for working hashtags?
I am asking for hashtags, so yeah, enough.
Okay, I think we're going to call that one, and then we have a gap for 10 minutes,
but Benjamin, thank you so much, round of applause, please everybody, one more final word
from the stage.
Thank you, everyone.
Tomorrow at noon, I'll be doing another talk about a new project that we have at the
home, which is called Pod Libre, and which is like a podcast editing software for your laptop.
Oh, very good.
And we have some stickers here, please take some stickers, I don't want to bring them back
to Paris.
Okay, again there's a sticker table over here, if anybody have stickers to share or want
to collect stickers, I've heard the whispers, you're wondering about the t-shirt and
wearing United Federation of the Fedivers, that is from Leo, you can get that on his space
fund store.
There's a really cool, if you search for awesome Fedy merch, there's a really cool
coper repo with like links to people that sell stickers and t-shirts and things.
If you want to wrap your favorite Fedy projects or the whole Fedivers, then you can do that.
We have about a 10 minute break at this point, so if I can go grab a coffee refreshments,
you can go grab a coffee refreshments, you can go grab a coffee refreshments, you can go grab a coffee