Bringing Back Conversations: Matthias Pfefferle on ActivityPub and WordPress
On the podcast today we have Matthias Pfefferle. Matthias is the creative force behind the ActivityPub plugin for WordPress, and he’s here to tell us how this plugin integrates with the broader Fediverse ecosystem.
Matthias, as you will hear, is a passionate blogger who started his journey in the early 2000s. His interest in decentralised web standards, such as pingbacks and trackbacks, eventually led him to the creation of the ActivityPub plugin for WordPress.
The primary goal of ActivityPub is to create a decentralised communication protocol. This protocol supports the integration and interaction of various social networks in a way that maintains the user’s autonomy over their data, unlike traditional social platforms like Facebook or Twitter, which erm… don’t allow that kind of thing!
With the ActivityPub plugin installed, WordPress sites can join the Fediverse. When a blog post is published, it’s no longer just a blog post confined to your website, it becomes a part of a larger social media network. Followers on platforms like Mastodon or PixelFed can see your content directly in their feeds and interact with it without ever leaving their preferred social network.