Build Bridges
- Published on:
- Categories:
- Fediverse 3, Mastodon 6, IndieWeb 12
- Current music:
- 36 —
Inside (2:56AM Mix)
- Current drink:
- Lemongrass, Ginger & Black Pepper tea
This is a very quick shout-out to the Bridgy Fed project by Ryan Barrett.
Its goal is to connect people across otherwise unrelated federated network: Fediverse, Bluesky, and even IndieWeb sites.
After the exodus from more corporate and capitalist networks, people ended up in different parts of the web. Each segment could be well-connected inside, but if you want to participate everywhere where people are now, you often need to create and maintain multiple accounts.
I often see people reposting the same thing in multiple places — which is fine, but not everyone has the spoons to do so. Not everyone is also ready to create an account in a network they do not understand or do not like.
That’s where Bridgy can really help: it is the easiest and most straightforward way to connect your account to other networks.
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If you’re on Mastodon or elsewhere in the Fediverse and want to make it possible for people from Bluesky to follow you, you can either log in with your account here or just follow the
@bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gyaccount from your client (you can use search to find it there via its handle). -
If you’re on Bluesky, and want to make it possible for people on Mastodon and the Fediverse at large to follow you, you can either log in with your account here, or just follow @ap.brid.gy from Bluesky.
That’s it. Bridgy works as opt-in — nothing is bridged without your consent, and by default it will only bridge your public posts.
Here is, for example, my bridged account on Bluesky, where the posts from my Mastodon profile go automatically.
And here is my bridged Pixey (Pixelfed instance) account where the photos from my Pixey gallery go.
Bridgy even handles replies, DMs, and more. It is zero maintenance, and there is zero reason not to use it.
If you know people who are only present on one of the networks and are not bridging their accounts — nudge them to do so!
The more interconnected our web is, the more powerful it is. I find it awesome that vastly different networks can talk to each other thanks to projects like that.