Looking for fediverse platform for a minimal corporate website.
Some friends have websites. I encourage them to do. But they have them only to publish contact info, opening times, and a couple of photos of their business. What would be the best fediverse platform for this? Of course being able to post/toot news every now and then, is also a good feature.
How would federation help with this usecase?
@CannotSleep420 @geoma What is the currently accepted/perceived use case for federation then?
I personally perceive that the Fediverse is currently appealing to geeks, organizations that look for digital sovereignty or autonomy, curious people looking for something new, die-hard alternatives
I'm only speaking for myself here, but I see federation as a means to create a large platform that isn't controlled by any single entity. Whether or not federation will be useful depends on whether there will be posters, and who those posters will be. Federation lends itself well to social media applications because social media is driven by users creating accounts and posting. Any change in state - be that a new post or comment being created, something being upvoted or downvoted, something being reported, etc - fans out from the server it happens on to other servers that are federated with it. Contrast this with what OP mentions their friends do with their website: "[T]hey have them only to publish contact info, opening times, and a couple of photos of their business." In this scenario, what data would be getting federated? These sound like static sites.
It could be that OP is asking for something closer to a business's facebook page. In this case, some federated software might be better suited for their needs than others, but I don't think that's the same thing as a corporate website.
Static site generator. It's hosted for free, super fast, easy to use. Done.
Not everything needs to run fediverse. That's ridiculous bloat tbh.
WordPress
yeah but needs hosting or using wordpress.com which is full of shitty trackers.
A website implies hosting.
I guess what you are actually asking for is something like a facebook page?
You are going to need hosting no matter what.
I don't think the fediverse has this, but I'm a bit confused why so many of these comments are puzzled at why you would want it. We have fediverse twitter, fediverse insta, fediverse reddit, fediverse discord, etc -- why not fediverse facebook/myspace/carrd? Where users could just have small personal (or corporate) pages about themselves that aren't as blog/news focused on the main(user) page.
I don't even think it would be a huge stretch to implement: a big focus on user page customization with a small microblog interface taking up a portion of the screen would do it. (Disclaimer: not saying easy to create, just not that far out of reach vs everything else the fediverse has).
I use GoToSocial, which is a mastodon-like fediverse software that’s perfect for single-user instances. You can set your profile as the landing page at the root URL, and it also supports customisable CSS for your page too.
You can check out a sample profile (GtS’ official account) here.
do they want to publish news every now and then, or do you just think they should? it seems like they are happy with what they have now.
there is nothing worse then outdated wordpress full of spam, where no one publishes anything because they don't actually want to, but they were convinced by someone else that they "need it"
Maybe WriteFreely or Plume? These are blogging services with Fediverse connection.
Yes I've tried them and they could be used but aren't really made for a corporate website
I think the whole Fediverse isn't made for corporate websites. I don't want to sound too negative here. But the Fediverse is made to engage with people, have discussions and to provide a level plaing field between parties. The point of corporate websites is to push info in a top-down approach and retain strict control over your image. You have the aspect of communication in common. You want to be able to communicate with your customers. But that's probably it. Even if they ask for support, it's often private info and directed directly at you and other people shouldn't be able to read their contact info etc.
Furthermore lots of customers don't want to engage and talk about software for example. They want to buy it and use it as a tool to do their job. Not have a community. But that depends on the exact use-case. I can't imagine a community for pressure-washer customers. But there are also lots of examples with a healty and mutually beneficial communities around software products.
It really depends on your use-case. If I were in your position I'd ask myself what my customers probably want or need and do that. Often that's a static website plus a forum or something like that (and something like a blog for news). And some means to get in touch directly for support.
A bonus of the fediverse is that it interconnects. You could choose two or more pieces if software and combine them if you don't find one solution that fits you.
These things used to be called yellow-pages and there were some attempts to take them online before many people seem to have decided that Facebook is good enough or so. Although there are also various eBay like sites that offer "store pages" these days.
I guess a kind of federated yellow pages for local listings combined with a simple market place would make some sense.
@poVoq @geoma This looks interesting. Would you imagine the marketplace as paired to the local listings?
Given that one big problem of the fediverse for business applications so far is discoverability, I imagine to have a federated service that indexes all posts from accounts on that instance, and also has a marketplace. It basically is a federated Etsy? 😳
I'm sorry, I think I didn't explain well my motivations. First of all, as many of you also are, I am a libre software and ethical platforms promoter. I am always looking for ways to help people migrate, for example, form instagram to pixelfed and the fediverse. It is difficult, mostly because of the network effect, so we need groups that are willing to make the change. Sometimes I help people and communities with their IT issues ad honorem, but in exchange I ask them to use and promote libre/ethical platforms. So, the other day I was thinking... what if, instead of trying to find how to make people move to the fediverse, we promote the fediverse as a platform for solving a need people are nowadays having? And it turns out I found a lot of people wanting a minimal website with minimum hassle. Instagram was not designed for websites, and the hindrances it intentionally has, make it a much worse platform thaan what a static site or a even a CMS site would be. But a lot of people and businesses use Instagram as their main "website". So, the thing is, what if for example I could set up an instance, in which I provide premium support to "clients", and I could even charge for this! (I am not thinking in making money, but where I live, although it sounds stupid, people sometimes value more what is paid than another "free" web platform.) And I give them their minimal space for posting their things with an easy interface. They will get the interactions with peoples as a plus. They will see they won't have ads nor need to have an instagram account. Maybe this will help boost peoples migration to the fediverse. Pixelfed for example is perfect for artists... it offers a portfolio feature. But for other kinds of business, we need something more like facebook pages. Firefish (ex calckey) has pages functionality... I don't know... I am just thinking out loud.
You want Facebook for that. Maybe one day the fediverse will be corporation tolerant, but it's not today.
Depends on your definition of tolerant.
If it implies adtech and trackers, then no. If it implies joining a random instance and spamming it, then no.
But any organisation is free to manage their own fediverse instance or get managed Mastodon hosting on their own domain.
So fans of their products can follow them and their webcare team can respond to questions.
I'm not sure that there is any point in a fediverse platform. That implies you want interaction (e.g. comments) from other locations, and therefore need moderation etc. A local blog site with 'share to Mastodon' buttons (if they exist) is probably all that's needed.
Yes. could be. I am trying to promote the fediverse as much as possible so maybe I am overly doing it. What about just a minimal ethical/privacy friendly hosted service to put your data on? people use facebook or instagram, but they really could do with something so much lighter.
Since this is for a business, ultimately they should also put the info on their social media pages (ex. Google maps listing, instagram)
They would look super cool/modern in my eyes if they also had a Mastodon account.
Otherwise I think the best option here might be Drupal/WordPress. It's an open source way to build the website, and it's used by many large corporations too. If the needs are simple, WordPress may handle it. If the needs are more complex, Drupal should get it?
create a simple landing home page with business info then, either self host or create accounts related to the business on fediverse services; use them for interaction, branding, advertising etx. link those social media accounts on the website home page.
@SomeoneSomewhere @geoma Probably it just means that people are on massive platforms like Instagram only because everybody else is there (?)