Social Feed Gadget

You may be familiar with the social network alternative to Twitter / X, called Bluesky; the social feed gadget can be configured to display posts made to the platform as well as most social networking platforms that make up what's known as the Fediverse. The Fediverse is a group of social networking services built with a focus on free and open design, such as software like Mastodon amongst many others. Non-native services are eligible to join the Fediverse, as Meta recently announced the addition of their social app Threads to the Fediverse, thereby making it compatible with the new social feed gadget as well.

 

Getting Started

Find the new gadget in the Gadget Library listed as 'Social Feed'. For quick results, filter the list of gadgets using the keywords 'Social' or 'Feed' on the left, and choose 'Select'.

Once selected, choose the correct platform type from the 'Social Network' dropdown field that's right for you. Choose Fediverse for monitoring posts made via Mastodon, Threads, or any other network that's part of the Fediverse. The Bluesky platform can be connected in two configurations. Choosing 'Account' configures the gadget to display content posted/reposted by one account. Choosing 'Feed' configures the gadget to display posts from multiple accounts by monitoring a 'Feed' consisting of a set of posts, usually curated around a common content theme.

The next field below is used to identify a specific account profile or particular feed from which the gadget should retrieve posts.

A valid user ID, feed link, or social address should be entered respective to the 'Social Network' option selected above. Please see setup instructions below detailing each option:

 

Bluesky account config

For posts made via Bluesky account, the user ID should be provided as it appears online. It should start with the @ character; not to be confused with the account name.

 

Bluesky feed config

A Bluesky feed can be specified by entering its 'feed URI' which can be copied from the feed page. Choose the extended menu button via the 'three dot' icon and choose 'Share Feed'. Doing this will automatically copy the correct feed URI to your clipboard which should be pasted into the 'feed URI' field.

 

Fediverse (Mastodon, Threads, & more) config

In order to correctly configure the social gadget to display posts from social networks compatible with the Fediverse, you'll need to provide what's commonly referred to as a 'Social Address'. The social address for a given profile in the Fediverse can be thought of much like an email address and is composed of two parts; the username (who), followed by the server domain name, (where), each formatted with a leading @ character. (IE: @user_name@server.domain.name).

Let's take Mastodon for example; one of the most popular social networking platforms that make up the Fediverse. There exist many instances of Mastodon each with a unique server name. The most popular server name is mastodon.social. In order to for the gadget to display posts from say the official Mastodon profile @Mastodon, the fully composed social address should be: @Mastodon@mastodon.social

The next example will cover how to display posts made to Threads. The social gadget doesn't support post retrieval directly from Threads, however, Threads users have the option of turning on 'Fediverse Sharing'. Once enabled, future posts from that Threads account will be accessible to the social feed gadget. In this example to retrieve posts from the MIT Technology Review Threads profile, the fully complete social address should read @technologyreview@threads.net. It can also be copied from the Threads profile page by navigating to the appropriate page and clicking the 'threads.net' button to display the full address.

 

Considerations

Keep in mind that Threads profiles must first turn on Fediverse sharing only after which future posts will be shared to the Fediverse and thereby be accessible to the gadget.

 

The gadget is designed to support a portion of the various types of Fediverse software, focusing primarily on support for micro and macro blogging along with some link aggregation and image sharing platforms. Beyond that results may vary depending on the target platform.

 

When exploring the many options within the Fediverse, keep in mind that different platforms may have different rules and moderation policies. Even a single platform may permit differing policies for each instance on a server by server basis. Please be careful to vet the feed quality prior to gadget configuration. Revel Digital takes no responsibility for the content contained in a feed other than the official Revel digital social profiles.

 

To further ensure feed quality the gadget includes a profanity filter that can be enabled to remove any unwanted profanity included in text. When enabled, the profane text will be obfuscated with special characters.