Since Elon Musk took over the helm of Twitter, a slow shift has been happening on the platform: users from all walks of life have leaked. And many of them have heard of Mastodon, and have already joined the mammoth, or are planning to do so.
Mastodon is an Open Source and free microblogging social network, a direct competitor of Twitter. Share information (or Pouets) with the whole world or just the people of your choice.
- Downloads: 1
- Release date : 04/12/2023
- Author : Mastodon
- Licence : Free License
- Categories:
Internet - Operating system : Android – Online service All Internet browsers – iOS iPhone / iPad
If you are one of these users, you will quickly find that Mastodon is a completely different application from Twitter. Sure, Mastodon looks like a social networking service (with messages, DMs, follows). But the big difference is that Mastodon is more focused on specific “topics”. There are also region-specific Mastodons.
For example, there is a Mastodon for free software. There are Mastodon servers for specific artistic fields, politics, sports, games, LBGTQ+, university, religion and technology. And, of course, there are also general servers that don’t have topic restrictions. In other words, the first thing to do is to decide on which Mastodon server(s) you want to open an account.
Once you have made your choice and created your account, you will have to wait to be accepted on the server (if it has particular account moderation rules). After connecting to this server for the first time, the next step is to find people to follow.
When I joined a particular Mastodon server, one of the first things I wanted to do was locate my friends and people who follow me on Twitter. Sure, it can be daunting to switch from Twitter to Mastodon and try to remember all your contacts and hope they kept the same profile name on Mastodon…
There must be a better solution.
Before we get to the automated method, let me show you how to track your followers manually.
Manually locate Mastodon accounts
What you will need
To do this, you will need an account on the Mastodon server of your choice. It doesn’t matter which server you use, as long as your account is valid.
1. Open Mastodon and log in
The first thing you need to do is open Mastodon and log in to your account. This can be done either with your default web browser or with one of the many Mastodon clients (I use Tuba on Linux). I will demonstrate with a web browser.
2. Search people
With Mastodon, people search is done in the same way as on Twitter. In the upper left corner of the window, you will find a search field. You can type in a person’s name, a company’s name, or even a nickname like @ubuntu, and press the key Entrance of your keyboard. The results appear in the search results column, where you can add these accounts by clicking the + button to the right of an entry.
Finding friends in Mastodon is not as difficult as it seems. Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET.
How do I locate Mastodon accounts using a “migration” tool?
If you’re migrating from Twitter, you’ll probably want to find the people you follow on that account, so you can also follow them on the Mastodon server you joined. This task could be tedious if you did not have a tool called Twitodon.
Here’s how Twitodon works.
1. Authorize Twitter
First, make sure you are using the same browser to connect to the Mastodon server and go to Twitodon. Next, go to the Twitodon page and click on the Twitter login link. You will be prompted to authorize Twitodon to access your Twitter account.
You must first log in to your Twitter account from Twitodon. Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET.
2. Log in with your Mastodon web address
Each Mastodon server has a unique URL. For example, Fosstodon (a dedicated open source Mastodon) is https://fosstodon.org/. Enter this address in the place reserved on Twitodon and click on the connection link. When prompted, allow the connection.
3. Wait for the scan to complete
Twitodon will scan your Twitter account to locate any users you follow on Twitter who are also on the Mastodon server of your choice. Depending on how many users you follow on Twitter, this may take some time.
4. Import the CSV file to your Mastodon account
Once the analysis is complete, download the CSV type file generated by Twitodon. Once you have saved the file, you need to go to your Mastodon server import page which will look like this: https://SERVER/settings/import. For my example, that would be https://fosstodon.org/settings/import. Click the file chooser button, navigate to the folder where the CSV file you downloaded is located, select the file, and click to send it.
Download your autogenerated CSV file from Twitodon. Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET.
At this point, you must wait for the Mastodon server to process the data. Once that’s done, you should automatically find the accounts you’ve followed on Twitter.
And that’s all there is to finding your friends on Mastodon. It might seem a bit heavy handed, but once you get used to the Mastodon way, you’ll find that you’ll miss Twitter less and less.
Finally, I would like to add this: make sure, after downloading the CSV file, to click on the Twitodon logout button. You certainly don’t want to let this service have access to your Twitter account, in case something goes wrong.
Source: ZDNet.com