Dear friends,
So much has happened in the past month and a half. A real whirlwind. I'd love to take this opportunity to revisit some of the highlights from June and July so far.
Early June
When I announced on my Mastodon account that my Fediverse promotional video – "Introducing the Fediverse: A New Era of Social Media" – was almost ready for its big debut, with subtitles in English, French and Italian, I was contacted by scores of people on the Fediverse who volunteered to translate the video in more languages.
How many? 14!
June 6th
I had the honor of premiering my Fediverse promotional video at the online "unconference" FediForum.
Riyen Patel (the video’s camera operator and cinematographer) was by my side as we unveiled the video to an audience of Fediverse champions and developers. If you’re curious, the video recording of our presentation is on this page (scroll down to June 6: https://fediforum.org/2025-06/).
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive - so much so that the video is currently showcased on FediForum's homepage: https://fediforum.org/
June 10th
When the Fediverse promo video was ready for its big public debut, it had subtitles in Catalan, traditional Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese Brazilian, Spanish and Swedish. All thanks to the generosity of Fediverse volunteers (check out the full credits here).
The video was released on my blog on Tuesday morning, June 10th:
Elena Rossini
The message announcing the release was the top trending post on Mastodon all day long! (with over 1500 shares)
People's reactions were incredibly positive and enthusiastic.
Because of all the foreign language translations (Fedi volunteers, you're amazing!) the video managed to reach a really wide audience.
One of my favorite reactions is this toot by Tim Chambers:
Even more amazingly, many people on the Fediverse volunteered to mirror my video or to keep a web browser tab opened on it, to take advantage of PeerTube's P2P functionality, so that my server wouldn't be overwhelmed by all the requests. (Did I mention I self-hosted the video on my own PeerTube instance?) This worked brilliantly and with the exception of a brief downtime one day, the video loaded fast and played smoothly at full resolution. One of the quirks of PeerTube is that you can see how many people are watching a video at any given time. A follower sent me a screenshot showing 96 viewers watching simultaneously and saving me something like 5GB of bandwidth.
June 13th
I traveled to Amsterdam, the Netherlands (a flash trip that lasted less than 24 hours) to speak at #PubConf2025 on the subject of "Engagement Strategies for the Fediverse."
I was delighted to reconnect with Fedi friends like Andy Piper, Laurens Hof and Freddie Johnson... and to meet for the first time Sandra and Björn Staschen of #SaveSocial:
My co-panelists Babette and Wendy were really inspiring.
A great - albeit too brief - trip.
June 16th
I did something really controversial (well, controversial for some people on the Fediverse). Following the advice of my two brilliant interns Sam and Riyen, I published the Fediverse promo video on YouTube... hoping to reach an even wider audience of people not familiar with the Fediverse. The choice proved to be a little divisive because Fediverse purists believe in boycotting Big Tech platforms. Kind people of the Fediverse with large followings (Randahl especially, thank you!) recommended to like and comment on the video on YouTube, so that the algorithm would pick it up. The strategy worked and the video was quickly seen by more than 10,000 people, getting hundreds of comments. To stop an avalanche of critiques on the Fediverse (general sentiment: “why are you uploading a video about the Fediverse on YouTube?”) I had to edit the video description saying it had originally premiered on the Fediverse’s own PeerTube.
June 17
My amazing interns Sam and Riyen edited the video down to small bite-sized versions optimized for social media sharing. We made them available for download here: https://elenarossini.com/portfolio/introducing-the-fediverse/
June 20
I recorded a French voice-over narration for the Fediverse promo video and released it here:
Elena Rossini
June 23
I recorded and released the Italian voice-over narration for the Fediverse promo video:
Elena Rossini
June 25
An opinion piece in Spain's leading newspaper El País mentioned - and even embedded - my video:
Thiago Ferrer Morini
Huge thanks to journalist @tferrer!
July 8
A team of volunteers - led by Jan Dytrych – produced a Czech-language version of the Fediverse promo video and released it on PeerTube:
What’s next?
I'm currently producing a Spanish and a German voice-over narration for the Fediverse promo video, so that it can reach an even wider audience.
My other big project for the summer is to adapt the script of the Fediverse promo video into a zine - with versions in English, French and Italian - that I could drop off at Free Little Libraries, so that even people who are not online could read about the Fediverse. I’m excited about such a project (big props to Michel Patrice for the idea) because it’s absolutely scalable - volunteers could translate it into even more languages. It would be a simple sheet of A4 paper that anyone could print out at home, fold, and drop off in their communities.
In addition to all this, I’m also experimenting with federated microblogs on my main Wordpress site - basically, anything I post is immediately published to the Fediverse too, with comments on the Fediverse immediately syncing with the blog and appearing there.
There is a line in my Fediverse promo video that we cut at the last minute because I couldn’t figure out how to illustrate it with motion graphics - as in, I could not think of any visuals that could go with it. The line was: “the Fediverse genuinely connects people, like the original promise of the internet used to be.”
These days I’m finding a lot of joy and hope in the Fediverse, feeling its full potential. I’m hoping to recruit more people in this “rebel alliance” standing up to Big Tech.
Elena
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