Andy Piper<p>I’ve worked in tech for many years, and one of the events that has been a constant part of the calendar is SXSW. I remember signing up for Twitter back in 2007 just after I heard about it while chatting in Roo Reynolds’ office at IBM, from a visitor who had been at SXSW where it first took off (referenced in a post back over <a href="https://andypiper.co.uk/2007/03/02/technology-gets-everyware/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>).</p><p>That was nearly 20 years ago now – and in all of that time, I never had the opportunity to go to SXSW for the tech part1 of the festival…</p><p>This year, our friends at Flipboard created a side event they called <a href="https://about.flipboard.com/fediverse-house/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Fediverse House</em></a>, as a eye-catching label for a series of talks and sessions around the open social web </p><p>[<em><strong>yes</strong></em>, it was broader than the Fediverse; some other platforms and topics were represented, too. It was great to be able to talk about the Fediverse]</p><a href="https://social.brookslawson.com/@brooks/statuses/01JP0Y7BTY0F59SYVVHGAB89KQ" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a>Image credit: Brooks Lawson <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="u-url mention" href="https://social.brookslawson.com/@brooks" target="_blank">@brooks</a><p>I was excited to be able to join the event2, and even more so, I was honoured to be asked to join a panel moderated by <a href="https://flipboard.social/@miaq" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the wonderful Mia Quagliarello</a> all about building communities on the new social web. I briefly mentioned this trip on <a href="https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/04/trunk-tidbits-march-2025/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the most recent Mastodon blog post update for our updates during March</a>, but I’m now able to include more about the content here.</p><p>Here’s the video of our panel discussion, available <a href="https://flipboard.video/w/fr6Ajy9YxgmW3ZGdAycBca" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">on Flipboard’s PeerTube</a> – or, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gcVoAJWtoE&list=PL186B9D34083AB90B" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">on YouTube</a> for those of you that are not yet Fediverse-enabled, or who want to watch on your TV or something 🙂 I hope I did <em>an OK</em> job, representing the good people of the different communities on the Fediverse. I know that my own experience and perspective is not a universal one and I do my best to reflect that when I talk about our spaces.</p> <p>As well as this panel, the event included some fantastic talks from folks such as <a href="https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Molly White</a> and <a href="https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Cory Doctorow</a> (clips are <a href="https://flipboard.video/c/fediverse.house/videos" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">on PeerTube</a>); it gave me an opportunity to learn more about the ATProto ecosystem from chatting with the nice folks from Bluesky; I was able to meet writers from one of the best publications on the web today, <a href="https://404media.co" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">404 Media</a>; and, it also provided a chance to spend time IRL with friends from the Fediverse – including the excellent <a href="https://mastodon.social/@box464" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jeff Sikes</a>, and also people I greatly respect and appreciate from <a href="https://wedistribute.org" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">WeDistribute</a>, <a href="https://social.wedistribute.org/@deadsuperhero" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sean</a> and <a href="https://social.wedistribute.org/@damon" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Damon</a>.</p>Guitar sculpture titled ‘Vibrancy’ by Craig Hein, located in downtown Austin<p>Anyway… I still haven’t actually been to SXSW 😄 </p><p>This year, I did something better than that. Thank you to the Flipboard team for all your work in putting Fediverse House together! </p> <ol><li>I was <em>in</em> Austin one year during the music festival, and managed to get to a couple of sessions, but I wasn’t in town specifically for the event, that was a surprise bonus. ↩︎</li><li>Thank you to the <a href="https://socialwebfoundation.org/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Social Web Foundation</a> for making my trip to Austin possible. ↩︎</li></ol> Share this post from your <a href="https://jointhefediverse.net/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">fediverse</a> server <p></p> <span class="">https://</span> Share <p>This server does not support sharing. 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