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Pixelfed introduces Loops, a Short-Form Video App
(wedistribute.org)
A community dedicated to fediverse news and discussion.
Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".
Getting started on Fediverse;
I really hope they find a way to keep this on "Loops" and not poison the Fedi with vertical videos.
That's my main concern. Seeing content from other platforms in my Mastodon feed is pretty great right now (Lemmy, PeerTube etc). But hashtag feeds could quickly get overrun by something like this if it works the same way.
That said, making this its own thing instead of building a "reels" for Pixelfed suggests the dev already knows separation will be important, so 🤞
@thegiddystitcher @helenslunch I think hashtag feeds being overrun with vertical videos is an excellent point. (One I hope @dansup considers!)
But beyond that, I think vertical videos through Loops on the Fedi are likely to be far less obtrusive than they have been on other platforms.
What's so annoying about them on Instagram and YouTube is that the algorithm automatically drops vertical videos into my feed.
And there's *lots* of them in my feed, often on topics I'm not interested in.
They're not there because I'm interested, but because they serve the commercial interests of the social media app's owners.
Hashtags aside, on the Fedi, they'll only appear in your feed if you follow a Loops account you're interested in, or someone you follow finds one interesting enough to share.
And if people on your Mastodon server all find them really annoying, there's always the option to just block the Loops servers and be done with it.