Feature: Consider and add new social media URL fields (bluesky, threads, mastodon) to database

[fancyham]

Context

A lot of organizations and people are leaving x.com (née twitter.com) for other social media platforms: bluesky, threads, mastodon

We should monitor this or start supporting these social media URLs on our website and in our database

How is it now?

Proposed new feature

• First, research and consider which, if any, social networks we should add. Organizations may not be using BlueSky, Threads, etc. yet. If no changes need now, revisit this again periodically (suggest every 6 months).
  • This would be a good question to ask validation volunteers to look for and make notes or notify us somehow when they find new social media platforms in use.
• Add social media platform fields to our database as needed
• Expose URLs, with their icons, on the organization’s listing on the public site.

(Note: for URL validation purposes, Mastodon does not have a single domain name)

Discussion

At this very moment, BlueSky is getting a lot of migration from people shutting down their X.com accounts, but that may be individuals, not organizations.

I am unsure of how many, if any, have moved to Threads or Mastodon.

Service providers will typically go where their clients and audience are, so BSky, Mastodon and Threads may not be popular enough yet.

Social media networks will rise and fall. Do any organizations actually use Pinterest, for example?

Long term: Think about how we might store these. Maybe there should be a stack of arbitrary URL fields rather than individual slots for a specific set of social media platforms.

References: