[olah_1]

And the language of "toot" is extremely hokey and will never be taken seriously. It implies farting for most Americans.

"Tweet" reminds people of birds. As in "a little bird told me". Which is appropriate for a gossip style network.

[jamesrcole]

[Edit: people downvoting this, care to explain what you disagree with in it?]

Breaking news. In a series of explosive toots...

The foreign minister was forced to resign after a number of offensive toots...

OMG, your toots are so funny!...

Everyone's talking about what J K Rowling tooted today...

I can't believe you tooted that!...

...and so on

If you think I'm joking then that shows how bad a name "toot" is. Because these are all phrases that people would say about tweets, and which need to sound non-ridiculous for any such system.

[jclulow]

That honestly all sounded ridiculous a decade ago with "tweet", too. The success of the platform has normalised the nomenclature.

[jamesrcole]

I don't agree with that at all.

It's difficult to show evidence for the absence of something, though.

It'd be possible to show evidence of it, like that every time the word "tweet" was brought up the were people saying it sounded ridiculous and embarrassing.

[harpiaharpyja]

I dunno, it's not any more funny than if you substituted tweet in each of those.

[philwelch]

It’s less funny because of the implied association with flatulence.

[coldacid]

Perhaps I'm just too childish, but that actually makes it funnier for me.

[philwelch]

I meant the other way around, i.e. we agree.

[gsich]

Most stuff on Twitter is mental flatulence ...

[OJFord]

What?

[orblivion]

Interestingly "Mastodon" seems catchy because it feels inherently subversive. Maybe because I subconsciously think of the metal band.

But then with Toot, obviously that wasn't what they were going for. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[d76d6776yudsy]

subversive metal ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[sadris]

People called the past tense of tweet a "twat" many years ago.

[drusepth]

This always felt super awkward, personally, when I (briefly) used Mastodon. I thought "tooting" was a joke but couldn't see any setting to change it.

[jonnycomputer]

mastodon's tooting...

[echelon]

Exactly, it's really gross. This isn't going to catch on in the mainstream.

Mastodon seriously needs a rebrand.

[mikekchar]

Interestingly it is relatively popular in Japan (to the point where someone non-technical asked me if I used it the other day!) It's really only an issue for English speakers (though in the context of HN that seems like the whole world ;-) ).

I think it would be pretty darn easy to maintain a rebranded fork, though.

[WAHa_06x36]

It is also not an issue for "English speakers", just a subset of them.

[kermitismyhero]

Mastodon and similar projects like Pleroma are old school wild-west open source distributed endeavours, not "notice me, Facebook-senpai!" SV startups. Anyone who thinks that the developers and users involved in those projects give a damn about branding is deeply out of touch with that culture.

[gsich]

It works in german. "tröten", also the original developer is from germany.

[jamesrcole]

Social communications software is all about the number of users. It needs to able to catch on everywhere. A term that sounds embarassing to many of its potential users is a real problem.

[iamnothere]

As a modestly funded project, Mastodon is never going to achieve "hockey stick" growth, and it would probably be overwhelmed if this happened. It's better for them to pursue a strategy of gradual, steady growth. Mastodon is continuing to grow steadily, and it does so in the face of established players who can outspend and outrun them. 2 million users is pretty damn good for an open source project that doesn't have a marketing budget to speak of.

In addition, it's time to drop the notion that every platform has to serve every type of user. As demonstrated by the problems facing Twitter, it is probably better to have many different platforms serving different audiences. Mass media inevitably reaches for the lowest common denominator.

[jamesrcole]

The terminology is still going to seriously hinder uptake. All of what you said can be true and better terminology would still be better for them.

[jonnycomputer]

to be fair, tooting also means to blow one's horn. Which come to think of it, also sounds pretty funny.

More seriously, the American Heritage Dictionary gives the following definition:

     v.
    To sound a horn or whistle in short blasts.
    v.
    To make the sound of a horn or whistle blown in short blasts or a sound resembling it.
    v.
    Slang To snort cocaine.

None of which is to fart. I do wonder if that meaning is a regionalism?

[WAHa_06x36]

It very much is, and those who live in those regions have no idea that it is.

[jonnycomputer]

but which regions. i'm from california.