For any social network, not just a federated one.
My thoughts: The way it works in big tech social networks is like this:
- **The organic methods: **
- your followee shares something from a poster you don’t follow
- someone you don’t follow comments on a post from someone you follow
- you join a group or community and find others you currently don’t follow
- The recommendation engine methods: content you do not follow shows up, and you are likely to engage in it based on statistical models. Big tech is pushing this more and more.
- Search: you specifically attempt to find what you’re looking for through some search capability. Big tech is pushing against this more and more.
In my opinion, the fediverse covers #1 well already. But #1 has a bubble effect. Your followees are less likely to share something very drastically different from what you already have.
The fediverse is principally opposed to #2, at least the way it is done in big tech. But maybe some variation of it could be done well.
#3 is a big weakness for fediverse. But I am curious how it would ideally manifest. Would it be full text search? Semantic search? Or something with more machine learning?
(streams) and Forte have very nice user discovery: On your stream page which is always the landing page when you open your channel, there’s an area to the left which suggests two new contacts to you. The same thing is on your contacts page. Below the two suggestions, there is a button to a suggestions page which is basically a special, filtered version of the directory. There you get even more contact suggestions. The two suggestions are randomly picked from the two on your suggestions page.
If you fill out your profile, especially the keyword field, the suggestions will improve. Also, the suggestions may include not only users, but also whatever qualifies as a group, because the directory certainly does.
It’s basically like Facebook, but more convenient than Facebook has ever been AFAIR. Friendica has had this kind of suggestions since its inception in 2010, and (streams) is an indirect fork, so-to-speak. I don’t know if Friendica has a suggestion field up front nowadays, though; I know that Hubzilla doesn’t have one unless you add it using the PDL editor (and, please, which newbies dives into Hubzilla that deeply), and (streams) and Forte do have one.