Working full time on the Social Web

In January 2026, I will begin working full time in my role as Director at the Social Web Foundation. I am looking forward to the challenge of growing this young non-profit and fulfilling our mission to make a bigger, better Fediverse.

As a refresher: I have been working in the area of federated social networks since starting Identi.ca in 2008. Federated social networks are social platforms that let users on one platform connect to and interact with users on another platform. Linked up with open standard protocols, these platforms together form a Social Web that puts people first.

In 2018, I was a co-author of the ActivityPub standard for social network interoperability. I currently maintain the spec for the W3C and develop extensions for it. In 2024, I wrote ActivityPub: Programming for the Social Web for O’Reilly Media. And I co-founded the Social Web Foundation to further encourage the use of ActivityPub in social networks.

For the last year, I’ve been working nights, lunchtimes and weekends on SWF while holding down my full-time role as Director of Open Technology at the Open Earth Foundation. I love working at OEF; the organization build Open Source software to help cities fight climate change. I have felt very fulfilled in my work there, and I’ve made really strong friendships with the team. It’s been a very special place to work that has changed how I think teams can be.

But over the last year, SWF has had some really amazing opportunities, and in 2026 we’ll be making some big steps forward for the Social Web. I can’t keep doing both jobs, and I feel like, after 4 years at OEF, I’ve done what I can to build up that organization, and I am ready to start on this next one.

It will feel good to have my full attention focused on the Social Web. I’m looking forward to seeing my Open Source friends at FOSDEM 2026 in Brussels at the end of January where I’m helping to organize the Social Web track. I’m speaking at Princeton mid-February, and I’ll be in the Bay Area at the beginning of March. All this time, I’ll be working hard to get the next version of ActivityPub released and to push out several software projects to make the Social Web more fun and interesting.

Thanks to everyone who’s put time, effort and help into the SWF. Thanks to my coworkers at OEF for encouraging me on my next steps in my career. Thanks to my wife and family for tolerating yet another leap into the void.

I hope you have as exciting a New Year as I will.

#activitypub #career #job #socialweb #swf

Working full time on the Social Web

In January 2026, I will begin working full time in my role as Director at the Social Web Foundation. I am looking forward to the challenge of growing this young non-profit and fulfilling our mission to make a bigger, better Fediverse.

As a refresher: I have been working in the area of federated social networks since starting Identi.ca in 2008. Federated social networks are social platforms that let users on one platform connect to and interact with users on another platform. Linked up with open standard protocols, these platforms together form a Social Web that puts people first.

In 2018, I was a co-author of the ActivityPub standard for social network interoperability. I currently maintain the spec for the W3C and develop extensions for it. In 2024, I wrote ActivityPub: Programming for the Social Web for O’Reilly Media. And I co-founded the Social Web Foundation to further encourage the use of ActivityPub in social networks.

For the last year, I’ve been working nights, lunchtimes and weekends on SWF while holding down my full-time role as Director of Open Technology at the Open Earth Foundation. I love working at OEF; the organization build Open Source software to help cities fight climate change. I have felt very fulfilled in my work there, and I’ve made really strong friendships with the team. It’s been a very special place to work that has changed how I think teams can be.

But over the last year, SWF has had some really amazing opportunities, and in 2026 we’ll be making some big steps forward for the Social Web. I can’t keep doing both jobs, and I feel like, after 4 years at OEF, I’ve done what I can to build up that organization, and I am ready to start on this next one.

It will feel good to have my full attention focused on the Social Web. I’m looking forward to seeing my Open Source friends at FOSDEM 2026 in Brussels at the end of January where I’m helping to organize the Social Web track. I’m speaking at Princeton mid-February, and I’ll be in the Bay Area at the beginning of March. All this time, I’ll be working hard to get the next version of ActivityPub released and to push out several software projects to make the Social Web more fun and interesting.

Thanks to everyone who’s put time, effort and help into the SWF. Thanks to my coworkers at OEF for encouraging me on my next steps in my career. Thanks to my wife and family for tolerating yet another leap into the void.

I hope you have as exciting a New Year as I will.

#activitypub #career #job #socialweb #swf

@cbase

https://hamishcampbell.com/live-at-c-base-a-fluffy-fediverse-conference/ You likely need a shovel to work on composting. Or if you want to continue with this then clearer naming the events for the minority they invite and host would help to make less mess, a few #NGO groups have started to do this like #FediForum and the #SWF now have less imperialistic language, which is at least is a little less blinded.

https://hamishcampbell.com/live-at-c-base-a-fluffy-fediverse-conference/ You likely need a shovel to work on composting. Or if you want to continue with this kind of mess making then clearer naming the events for the minority they invite and host would help to make less mess, a few #NGO groups have started to do this like #FediForum and the #SWF now have less imperialistic language, which is at least is a little less blinded.

Social Web Foundation talking about privacy and interoperability. Who do they partner with? Meta.

Nothing to see here. https://techpolicy.social/@mallory/114737793476373409

#igf2025 #UN #UnitedNations #whitewashing #surveillance #capitalism #peopleFarming #meta #facebook #instagram #whatsapp #socialWebFoundation #swf

@josemurilo There's certainly a lot to critique about #FreeOurFeeds but reducing it to "we're going to build another Relay so that Bluesky's 'fire exits' are real" is just silly. The overall approach they're taking is similar to #SWF: there's a lot of money potentially floating around the ecosystem but investment is currently low,; and, there's a lot of concern about one big player dominating (Meta for ActivityPub and Bluesky in the ATmosphere).

So there's a win/win opportunity for an independent multipolar non-profit entity to complement the dominant corporation. Bluesky benefits just as much from FoF as the AI-focused companies (including Mozilla) who are the majority of the FoF 'custodians'. The need for an alternate Relay is just a convenient artifact that many people have (for whatever reason) focused on.

BTW this from the article was hysterical:

"The "Fediverse" has been around for a while and though it has never been more popular than it is now,..."

No, actually, the Fediverse had more than twice as many active users two years ago than it does today. Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of interesting stuff happening here, but let's be realistic!