Mastodon, the decentralized, open-source alternative to x (formerly twitter), is Deploying A new feature that aims to make the app more appealing to those who use it to keep up with news and information from writers and journalists. Starting Tuesday, the company is adding clickable author bylines to posts that can direct Mastodon users to the author’s account in the fediverse, if active, which in turn allows journalists to gain more exposure and grow their following.
The new signature lines go beyond the typical @username references that often accompany news post links and links to other written content, such as a WordPress or Substack blog. Instead, the change will include the news post's title and image followed by another reference below that includes the author's profile photo and name.
The feature is already rolling out at a few outlets, including The Verge, MacStories, and MacRumors (it's also queued up here at TechCrunch, we're told!).
To access these new lines, you will need to use the main Mastodon server at Social mastodon At the moment, either on the web or in an official mobile app. If you use another Mastodon server, it will need to support the recent nightly version of Mastodon, but the feature will only work on moderator-approved websites.
The company says the new lines will also be compatible with its API, making it possible for third-party apps to support the integration in the future.
On the back-end, the innovation driving the feature is a new type of OpenGraph tag, Mastodon says. These are the same type of tags you would have on your website that help determine what type of thumbnail image appears next to the page preview when shared to other services, such as Mastodon, iMessage, Discord, and more.
This tag looks like this: ''. And it can be added to a site with a simple line of code, making it fairly easy to implement.
The tag handle can also refer to any Fediverse account, not just Mastodon. This means it can target accounts on Flipboard, Threads, WordPress (with the ActivityPub plugin installed), PeerTube, Pixelfed, and others. Plus, it will work without the leading at sign (@) for the handle, Mastodon says.
There is one caveat, though: multiple authors are not yet supported in co-signing situations; only the first author will be displayed. But this may be fixed in a future release.
Mastodon says it will propose draft specifications for other ActivityPub platforms in the coming weeks.
The addition of the tag could encourage more journalists to increase their use of the federated social network, as it will help them gain exposure. The fediverse has More than 10 million usersnot counting Threads (which has 170 million monthly users but is not fully federated). Mastodon, specifically, has around 804,000 monthly active users.
