FediForumTM

Event Listing

Project Map

@fediforum@mastodon.social
@fediforum.org

FediForum October, 2025

/2025-10/

All times are given in pacific daylight time (UTC-7).

Monday, October 6 (the day before FediForum)

Optional “Meet & Greet”. Come by to check out our online venue and test your equipment if you like. This is entirely optional.

Tuesday, October 7

8:00am Welcome and opening.
Keynote: The Stakes Are Real: Why the Open Social Web Matters Now.

Ben Werdmuller is the senior director of technology at ProPublica.

Previously, he built open source social networking platforms that powered social movements, trained aid workers, and ran inside governments, Fortune 500 companies, and Ivy League universities. He lives outside Philadelphia.

Follow @ben@werd.social or @werd.io.
Collaborative agenda making for the unconference. Bring your session ideas!
9:30am Unconference sessions.
Unconference sessions.
Unconference sessions.
12:30pm Community announcements
Session recaps, closing.
1:00 pm End of FediForum day 1.

Wednesday, October 8

8:00am Welcome and opening.

Speed demos: developers show off their cool open social web software in 5 min.

Full playlist on PeerTube or YouTube.

Bouncing from ActivityPub to ATProto

Last FediForum, we announced Bounce, a Bluesky to Mastodon migration service. This time, we’ll be Bouncing in the other direction. More info about Bounce.

By Anuj Ahooja, Executive Director & CEO (@quillmatiq.com, @quillmatiq@mastodon.social), and Ryan Barrett, CTO & Lead Developer (@snarfed.org, @snarfed.org@snarfed.org)

Frequency Social

A federated, privacy-first social networking app that prioritizes genuine connections over engagement, addictive algorithms, and invasive tracking. More info about Frequency Social.

By Jesse Karmani, founder (@jesseplusplus@mastodon.social, @frequency@frequency.app, @jesseplusplus.bsky.social)

Castopod v2.0 has plugins!

Host podcasts with extensible plugin hooks, Podcasting 2.0, Fediverse integration, full self-hosted control. More info about Castopod v2.0.

By Benjamin Bellamy (@benjaminbellamy@podcastindex.social)

CrowdBucks

CrowdBucks is an open-source Fediverse-native platform for crowdfunding, tipping, payments, and memberships. Supporting server admins, open-source developers, creators, and more. More info about CrowdBucks.

By Charles Iliya Krempeaux (@reiver@mastodon.social)

Cross-instance search in Manyfold using Fediscovery & FASPs

Fediscovery FASPs provide cross-instance features to fediverse servers (e.g. search). This demo will show how we added it to Manyfold. More info about Manyfold.

By James Smith (@floppy@mastodon.me.uk).

The world's first federated app store

Our custom Mastodon server for AltStore PAL federates apps, updates, and news items to the open social web. More info about Altstore PAL.

By Riley Testut, AltStore CEO (@rileytestut@mastodon.social, @rileytestut@threads.net, @riley.social)
Collaborative agenda making for the unconference. Bring your session ideas!
9:30am Unconference sessions.
Unconference sessions.
Unconference sessions.
12:30pm Session recaps, closing.
1:00 pm End of FediForum day 2.

News announced at this FediForum

Some was picked up by Techcrunch (here and here) and by The Verge here.

AltStore is officially joining the Fediverse!

By: AltStore, sideloading of iOS apps for everyone

Using ActivityPub, we plan to federate apps, app updates, and news alerts from AltStore to the open social web. Each AltStore source will receive its own ActivityPub account, which can then be followed by any other open social web account. You’ll be able to like, boost, and reply to everything, and most importantly all these interactions will appear natively in AltStore. In other words, you’ll be able to comment on an app on Mastodon, like an app update on Threads, then open AltStore and view all these same interactions in-app. Even better, if you login with your open social web account you can comment, like, and boost right from within AltStore! (More info)

We plan to add these features to AltStore PAL in the next few months — but to celebrate our first appearance at FediForum we’re making our Mastodon server available TODAY in beta at explore.alt.store.

A mobile app for any community, powered by the open social web

By: The Newsmast Foundation

Over the coming month The Newsmast Foundation will launch three mobile apps for organisations, powered by and connected to the open social web. A news app, for an independent news publisher, combining WordPress integration with local community and global news channels. A community app for a campaign championing ‘movement media’ as an alternative to big tech and mainstream media. And a local language Fediverse community app. All supported by the Patchwork Dashboard, channel.org feed generator and hub creator demoed at previous FediForums. (More details.)

We will demo and discuss these (and one more!) on the FediForum track at SFSCon in November. Press info to follow as the apps are launched with our partners.

New features for Bounce

By: A New Social

We will be announcing new features for Bounce, a tool that enables migrations between ActivityPub and ATProto, and show them off on FediForum Day 2, Wednesday, in the demo track.

Alquimídia launches Forum for the Brazilian Fediverse

By: Alquimídia Association in partnership with Projeto Bolha and the Brazilian instance community

The #FediverseBR Forum is a platform for instance administrators, moderators, activists, and enthusiasts of federated networks to share knowledge and strengthen the Fediverse in Brazil. Developed using the free Discourse software, the forum is maintained by the Alquimídia Association in partnership with Projeto Bolha and the Brazilian instance community.

Check it out at fediversobr.org.

Mastodon team shares work on bringing “Packs” to the Fediverse

By: Mastodon

The Mastodon team is sharing initial thoughts and a Fediverse Enhancement Proposal to bring federated, consent-based, shareable collections of user recommendations (think: “Starter Packs”) to the Fediverse.

See blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/10/our-ideas-about-packs/

A new US Non-Profit Organization for digital privacy rights, advocacy and consulting.

By: BT Free (Big Tech Free)

BT Free is working on 501(c)3 status to take donations to foster the Fediverse. Our first platform is tubefree.org, a PeerTube instance. We are working on news articles and consulting with small and local businesses in the Raleigh area to help them host their own content.

Social media interop is required by law in Utah next summer: read how it may impact you

By: Dazzle Labs

We’ve put together a white paper explaining what the Digital Choice Act requires, who must implement it, and what social media services big and small can do to become interoperable to conform with the law. Current draft of the white paper is here, we’d love your feedback.

We also want to connect the people in social media organizations (both commercial platforms and open-source projects) that are looking at understanding this law, and implement support for it. If you think you may be affected and would like to connect with people in other affected social media services, leave your contact info here.

Request your copy of the Open Social Network Cookbook

By: Media Economies Design Lab @ the University of Colorado Boulder

Grounded in the work of the Open Social Incubator, which brought together communities from around the world exploring open social networks, we are soon to release a cookbook zine of what these communities are putting together.

At FediForum, we’ll provide an early look at the cookbook and give participants a chance to be the first to see it once it’s out.

Fireside Fedi is Coming up on Episode 50

By: Fireside Fedi

Fireside Fedi, the fediverse powered show that interviews folks from around the fediverse, is coming up on episode 50 within the next few weeks!

Check it out at video.firesidefedi.live.

Unconference Session Notes