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2024-10-18 19:54:48

benpate@mastodon.social

Wow! I'm making #Bandwagon -- an open source, community-focused alternative to #Bandcamp that anyone can self-host.

As of this morning, there are 99 #Musicians and #Bands who have set up #Fediverse profiles on https://bandwagon.fm -- and half of those already indexable on search engines.

So I'm humbled by the number of people who are giving it a go. There's obviously lots of people out there looking for something new.

I promise to do my best to give y'all the tools you deserve.

2024-10-19 12:46:57

AJ Sadauskas

ajsadauskas@social.vivaldi.net

@benpate Ping @davidrovics and @pomCountyIrregs

2024-10-19 14:18:00

Brian Johnson

BrianJohnson@universeodon.com

@benpate Given the way “follows” work in the Fediverse, have you considered some kind of account folks can follow where new Bandwagon members are introduced?

2024-10-19 17:32:11

Ben Pate 🤘🏻

benpate@mastodon.social

@BrianJohnson

Yes. I *am* working on better music discovery, and talking to other resources for musicians on the Fediverse to see how we do better together.

In addition, there needs to be something you can "follow" for sure. Right now, I'm looking at it from a search perspective. As in: what if you could subscribe to tags on a search index? In a sense, each search query could become its own ActivityPub "actor"

Do you think this is a viable option?

2024-10-20 00:45:42

Brian Johnson

BrianJohnson@universeodon.com

@benpate As I understand it (and I don’t know if this is a fediverse thing or a Mastodon thing), I can follow a hashtag, but posts with that hashtag have to originate on my home server, or get to my home thru “account following” for me to see it. My server won’t just comb the entire fediverse for posts with that hashtag.

If I am correct, then I can’t learn about new artists on another server (if it is fairly new and not widely followed) by following hashtags, I would need to follow an account. That’s why I suggested some sort of “announcement “ account I could follow.

2024-10-20 00:51:20

Ben Pate 🤘🏻

benpate@mastodon.social

@BrianJohnson Yes, I think that's how it works now. Definitely a Mastodon thing, and probably similar across the Fediverse.

I think we've gotten sidetracked, so enthralled by the way things *are* that we've stopped imagining how they *could be*

On my laptop right now are the larval stages of a search index that you can "Follow" just like any other actor.

Different search queries would serve you a different version of that actor, letting you follow in real time anything in search index.

2024-10-20 07:20:29

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Brian Johnson @Ben Pate ?? Not everything in the Fediverse supports following hashtags. For example, Mastodon does, Hubzilla (from where I'm posting right now) does not, (streams) (where I have two more channels) does again.

Still, searching literally the whole Fediverse is technologically impossible, watching the whole Fediverse for things to happen even more so. Your instance would have to know absolutely every Fediverse instance out there. All of them. No exception.

This means it would have to know in real-time when someone spins up a new instance of whatever for the first time, be it Mastodon, be it CherryPick, be it (streams) or Forte, be it the first private pre-alpha of something they've just developed from scratch. It would have to know because it'd have to immediately start indexing everything that happens on that new instance.

And there is absolutely no way of being notified about that. Even if every Fediverse server application implemented such a notification feature, where would it send that notification? To all running Fediverse instances out there? And how is a brand-new instance supposed to know all Fediverse instances out there before it spins up for the first time so that it can notify all of them when it spins up?

I think I'll have to write an article on this, as often as the question pops up why there is no search that covers the absolute entirety of the Fediverse.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Search

2024-10-19 15:24:02

AJ Sadauskas

ajsadauskas@social.vivaldi.net

@benpate Does Bandwagon support artists selling MP3s of their music on the platform?

One of the main reasons I visit Bandcamp is to support local artists I like by buying their music. Does Bandwagon allow this?

If not, will it be rolled out in a future update?

2024-10-19 15:28:51

Light

light@noc.social

@benpate What makes this different from #Funkwhale?

2024-10-19 16:19:13

Erlend Sogge Heggen

erlend@writing.exchange

@benpate I hope you can find a way to collaborate with these people: https://subvert.fm/blog/a-collectively-owned-bandcamp-successor/

Both of your projects look awesome, and would work even better together!

2024-10-20 08:39:05

Randulo.com (Randy)

randulo@mastodon.social

@benpate Excellent initiative, I'm in!

2024-10-20 17:49:27

hairylarry

hairylarry@gamerplus.org

@benpate

I'm on Bandwagon but I lost track during my fall festival season. I do have some more albums I want to post.

Thanks

2024-10-22 14:21:48

Clifton Molina

clifmo@c.im

@benpate sounds awesome. I have questions. I'm not a creator. But an avid listener and sharer of free-trade taper audio of live music, stuff on archive.org. Affiliated with @phishnet . Can I self host?

2024-10-22 18:03:33

Dan

ill_logic@mastodon.social

@benpate I'm excited for the prospect of how this could work with the Fediverse. Maybe I subscribe to artists as a Mastodon user to see when they drop new albums? Comment on tracks? Install a music app that lets me listen to "radio" of random tracks from my followed artists.

Long term ideas of course, and maybe not in line with what you have in mind (particularly if artists will be trying to make money), but I look forward to seeing where this goes!