[systemvoltage]

Part of the genius of Twitter is the name and its brand. Twitter, tweet, tweeting, tweeted, etc. Even if Twitter had no goodwill, it's an excellent name for such a service.

None of the options presented here have that.

"Hey dude, did you see that mastodon post?"

"I'll add you on GNU Social"

"Fediverse is getting popular, wanna fediverse?"

"Nmd'ed you!"

"Totally Aaether that!"

"Breaking News: The Prime Minister of Australia just diaspored"

[darksaints]

Speaking of GNU social, I have always thought that GNU was quite possibly the worst name to use for the project, simply because nobody knows how to pronounce it, and maybe if you do know how to pronounce it, someone else might pronounce it completely differently, so it you end up pronouncing it in two (or more!) ways until the person you're talking to knows what you're talking about. Is it 'new'? Or 'nyew'? I've also heard 'geh-new' and 'G-new'. 'new' is probably the easiest to say and is technically correct, but it is also an extremely ubiquitous adjective which can be placed next to literally any noun, and therefore a terrible way to brand something.

And I think that is the primary reason why GNU/Linux never caught on and everybody just called it Linux. "What OS do you use?" "GNU/Linux" "Wait, I didn't know there was a New Linux!".

[chrismorgan]

On the topic of unclear pronunciations, “new” is a poor choice for description of pronunciation, because accents are split on whether to pronounce that /njuː/ (“nyew”, which I think I’ve heard called “liquid u”, though I’m not sure how that gets spelled) or /nu/ (“noo”). Broadly speaking, the general American and Canadian accents omit the /j/, and the rest of the world includes it. But a particularly fun fact is that certain singing styles can alter adopted accent also: the classical singing style uses the /j/, so that even Americans who would say “noo” will sign “nyew” when operating in the classical/opera style.

[qpiox]

Visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU Click on the listen link in the first paragraph and you'll understand how to pronounce it.

[rakoo]

Pronunciation issues have never stopped us from posting GIFs even though too many people still mispronounce it

[rishav_sharan]

New? I have always pronounced it as Ginu. -_-

[aldanor]

Gnoo

[blisterpeanuts]

I always say: guh-NOO

Rhymes with kazoo.

[hyperpallium2]

or expand it.

[jonas21]

While Mastodon and Diaspora may be distinctly bad names, perhaps you don't need a great name either. Take Facebook, for example.

Even with Twitter, I think there are probably thousands of words that would sound as natural as "tweet" if people were constantly saying it (and shouldn't it be "twit" anyway?).

[Swenrekcah]

The person with a twitter account could then be a ‘twat’

[DennisP]

In the early days of Twitter, a guest asked Colbert if he'd used it and Colbert replied "I have twatted."

[krallja]

Mastodon posts are toots

[systemvoltage]

+1, I really like it. It's cute, short and playful.

[salamanderman]

Definitely cute, short and playful. It has the downside that "toot" is also used as a more polite, kid-friendly word for fart. Though I do love the thought of hearing a newscaster saying something like "Breaking news: President Trump has just tooted, and critics are calling it inappropriate and disgusting."

[benhurmarcel]

"Tweet" sounded ridiculous at the beginning too. Everyone has just gotten used to it.

[derwiki]

"iPad" as well

[shawnz]

And the more trivial derivation "Twit" would have been even worse. Meanwhile "Tweeter" sounds terrible

[optimalsolver]

Ease of adoption is also being overlooked here.

The average person doesn't want the hassle of self-hosting their own social media server. Not when they can join Twitter and be tweeting at the world within seconds without ever worrying about the technicals.

That means the kind of people you'll be talking to on these platforms will most be techno-libertarian types. A plus for some, a strong negative for others.

[nine_k]

You don't need to run your own Mastodon server. It's like email: you can run your own, but it's easier to join some of the numerous existing servers.

Also, I don't see how decentralized service can live without decentralization of control and ownership of nodes. Without the latter, you just get a multi-DC centralized service. So there's no alternative to a certain degree of self-hosting. Either you yield control to a central authority, or you care enough to maintain a node under your control.

OTOH self-hosting should be made as simple as possible for an average user. Much like running a Skype node, or a torrent node did not feel like hosting, and felt like just running an app. This is ruined by the need to run on mobile clients (can't be reasonable servers) and exacerbated by the widespread NATting of home networks, so your desktop can't easily be a server, too.