Here are three new apps building out the open social web

For the past couple of years, the virtual FediForum conference has offered a glimpse at what’s new in the open social web, with last year’s big news being Threads’ foray into the fediverse. This year’s presentation was no different, with several developers showing off new apps that will help to expand the ecosystem of decentralized social networks.

Bonfire Social, one of the new apps, is meant to serve as a framework for creating digital communities, each with their own governance and style.

During FediForum, Bonfire announced that they’re releasing Bonfire Social 1.0 as the first “flavor” of the platform. Bonfire Social comes with a “a pre-configured bundle of Bonfire extensions that defines which features are included,” like custom feeds, profiles, and threaded discussions, along with the ability to share posts and follow other users.

The makers of Bonfire are working on other “flavors” of the platform, including Bonfire Community, which is geared toward private groups and organizations, as well as Open Science, a platform designed for collaboration between academic communities. Bonfire Social federates with Mastodon, Peertube, Mobilizon, and others. You can install Bonfire Social now or check out the demo.

Another new service announced at FediForum is Channel.org, which is designed to help you curate the content you see across the open social web. Users can tailor their feed by tracking specific hashtags and users, including bridged Bluesky accounts and RSS parrots. Other users can follow the channels you create, which are distributed across the Fediverse, Bluesky, and over RSS. You can filter out certain keywords and mute accounts not related to the topics you want to follow, and there are also built-in filters that block NSFW content and hate speech.

Channel.org is built on a customized Mastodon server run by the Newsmast Foundation, a fediverse-focused charity based in the UK, and it sounds like a neat way to create an ultra-curated social feed. The service is currently available in an invite-only beta, but you can sign up for the waitlist to receive updates. You can check out some examples of channels from Channel.org’s website.

One of the other notable services highlighted today was Bounce, an app that allows you to move your Bluesky account to Mastodon, all without losing any of your followers. The app is built by A New Social, the creators of the Bridgy Fed tool that Bounce uses to connect your Bluesky account to Mastodon. Once your account is bridged, Bounce can then transfer personal data servers using the “move” capability offered by ActivityPub and the AT Protocol, letting you retain your Bluesky followers — and the people you follow — when heading to Mastodon.