Dot Social’s Mike McCue talks to PJ Vogt, host of the Search Engine podcast. PJ is also a co-founder of the Forkiverse, a Mastodon instance launched with the Hard Fork team as an experiment in community and a concrete way to show how a decentralized social network can work.

The conversation is a timely reminder that the internet is still something we can — and should — build together.

Highlights include:

01:50 The Forkiverse origin story 06:37 “The best way to talk about this is to try it” 14:30 Reactions to The Forkiverse 19:52 Social media as IRL social gathering 22:13 RSS podcasting: strengths and how fediverse helps with hard parts 25:08 Thinking about further integrations 27:52 Great promises of the fediverse 30:04 Slowing down and trying new things 33:04 Next steps for The Forkiverse 36:20 PJ’s answer to the “media apocalypse” 39:22 How PJ got discovered 42:10 Search Engine’s amazing sound design 45:00 The quality of media now 46:46 Reasons for creators to join the fediverse

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Forkiverse social network: https://theforkiverse.com/
• “How do we survive the media apocalypse”: https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/how-do-we-survive-the-media-apocalypse
• “The Chairs Are Where the People Go": https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780865479456/thechairsarewherethepeoplego/

🔎 You can find PJ @pj@theforkiverse.com

✚ Connect with host Mike McCue at @mike@flipboard.social and @mmccue.bsky.social.

🌊 Catch the wave! Surf the open social web and create your own custom feeds at surf.social, a new product from the people at Flipboard. https://about.surf.social/

As Mastodon celebrates its 10-year anniversary in 2026, the open source platform’s new Executive Director, Felix Hlatky, is focused on what it’ll take to make the next 10 years even more impactful. That vision includes an overhaul in version 5.0, a new feature called Collections, and continuing its critical role at the heart of the fediverse. Highlights of the conversation include:

00:56 What Felix is most excited about right now 02:11 Felix’s Mastodon history 04:16 Mastodon’s growth and organizational change 08:10 Getting set up for success 10:27 Collections — a major new feature 15:18 Lesson to learn from Bluesky 17:05 Weaponization, privacy, nuances around collections 19:35 Making social media more manageable 21:00 Groups 23:44 Power of building at the protocol level 25:40 Collaborations across platforms and protocols 27:27 Bridging technologies and standards work 31:15 Mastodon’s backend infrastructure 33:56 Funding and the EU 37:27 Governments use of Mastodon 40:05 The Forkiverse 45:05 Podcasts in the fediverse 47:14 Custom feeds on Surf, ex dotsocial.surf.social 49:58 Vibrant creator communities on the social web 51:20 Mastodon 5.0, FASPS 53:59 Entering a new era

Mentioned in this episode:

• https://dotsocial.surf.social/
• The Forkiverse https://theforkiverse.com/

🔎 You can find Felix at @felix@mastodon.social

✚ Connect with host Mike McCue at @mike@flipboard.social and @mmccue.bsky.social.

🌊 Catch the wave! Surf the open social web and create your own custom feeds at surf.social, a new product from the people at Flipboard. https://about.surf.social/