9 million Mastodon accounts is extremely likely this month.
According to my math, an average of 1,115 new accounts per hour over the next 10 days would be needed to reach this milestone.
During the last hour, 1,780 new Mastodon accounts were made.
It was just a couple of weeks ago that the 8 millionth Mastodon account was made.
And already, we have 8,713,949 accounts.
This is incredibly fast growth.
It's also entirely feasible that by Dec 2023, there will be 20 million Mastodon accounts.
Consider this: you'd need 1,344 new account registrations per hour to achieve this milestone.
For the past 3 months, we've exceeded this average.
Mastodon doesn't actually represent the actual size of the Fediverse.
There's ~20,000 nodes on the Fediverse. Mastodon instances are about 12,000 nodes.
That means 8,000 nodes are NOT running Mastodon.
This means that it's entirely possible for the Fediverse to already exceed 10 million accounts.
One further food for thought: once Tumblr and Flickr join the Fediverse, the full network effect of the Fediverse will surpass Twitter.
Tumblr: 472 million accounts
Flickr: 65 million accounts
And wait -- the potential network effect gets spicier!
Are you sitting down? Here goes!
44% of all websites that exist right now run on WordPress.
Right now, connecting a WordPress site to the Fediverse is just a matter of installing this plug-in.
If just a fraction of WordPress sites connect to ActivityPub, then the network effect of the Fediverse will eclipse Big Social.
@atomicpoet Can you explain what the benefit of installing this plugin would be? I'm pretty new to Mastodon, but do a have a blog on my website. Would this plugin push my blog posts into followers' Mastodon timeline, for example?
@weheartgames @atomicpoet That’s exactly what the description says it does.
@davidmcooper @atomicpoet Oh sheesh I'm looking right at it. Sorry!
I think the most amazing thing is it's not just Mastodon instances and WordPress websites that can benefit from such reach, but the entirety of others as well.
@weheartgames
I think it also allows people to comment on your posts.
@atomicpoet
Thank you for asking, so I learn 
@weheartgames
Yup, that's exactly what it does!
For example, my blog is @admin. You can follow it like any other Fedi account, and people can read the posts and reply right in their usual Mastodon client.
(I play with the settings quite a lot so it might be slightly broken at any given time, but that's a me problem, not a WordPress or ActivityPub thing :p).
@silvermoon82 @weheartgames @admin
Is the fact that I can't see any of the posts because of the Mastodon client I'm using?
@weheartgames @atomicpoet yep! Any activitypub client, like Mastodon, can follow your Wordpress blog, and posts would appear in their feed just like any other activitypub post.
@weheartgames @atomicpoet I got around to installing it on one of my WP sites earlier this evening.
Firstly, your WP blog gets a separate account. It's a Fediverse micro-instance, not related to Mastodon.
So mine's not bidirectional as it's really not that kind of website (It's a recipe blog), but you can allow comments if you like.
What I get is someone could follow my WP and maybe turn on post notifications if they're really interested in that
@olavf Do you know if the WP site has to be a business level? Or is it available on personal? Not a huge deal. Just trying to think through some options.
@JulieNye I use it on a personal level ~ if you can install plugins, you can use it.
What you get is a Federated address @user@website (for example @olav )
and a profile link like [website]/author/[user]
Some notes: my config/theme doesn't seem to do profiles correctly, and I need to set up Gravatar to get a profile pic
@JulieNye I know that one lol.
@weheartgames @atomicpoet yes, Mastodon users could follow your blog.
Depends on the clients people use how it actually shows up I believe, Mastodon posts are `Note`s and blog posts should be `Article`s so they'll be differentiable
@weheartgames @atomicpoet I’d also be interested to get the answer to this.
And also to know what options there are for those of us on Wordpress.com hosted blogs, without the ability to use plugins.
@rabbigabriel There have been several answers; not sure if you can see the replies to my "question post"... I never know on here what people can and cannot see, based on who they are connected to, etc.
I think if you're on wp.com you'd have to wait until the core team added this functionality. But I am not any kind of authority on this stuff. 
@weheartgames @atomicpoet It works pretty well at pushing content out in to the Fediverse, but not so well (if at all) for pulling it FROM the Fediverse.
So, people can follow your blog, and comment on it, but you can't follow them, or even see their content.
You can respond to comments they make on your blog, but that is about it, unfortunately.
I'm hoping that after Tumblr becomes part of the Fediverse, they turn their attention to WP, which they also own.
@stuartb Ok thanks for the reply. I wonder how it works if I have comments turned off on my blog. If someone replies to a blog post on Mastodon, where does their reply go, for example.
@weheartgames
That I have no idea about, sorry - I would assume that if comments are turned off then they wouldn't be able to even try, but it's not something I've ever tried.
@weheartgames @atomicpoet the benefit Is that anybody else on the fediverse using a piece of software that also supports activitypub can follow your blog just as they follow your mastodon account. And your blog posts would show up in their feed. Almost like an interactive RSS feed I suppose?
@weheartgames
> Would this plugin push my blog posts into followers' Mastodon timeline
Yes. See:
@atomicpoet imagine that the folks at Wordpress.org made that a semi-default (splash screen “hey activate that —it’s fun!) for a given update.
@gabriel We can only hope.
Tumblr and WordPress are owned by the same folks, so... if they really are going all-in on the #fediverse then I actually don't think that's too crazy of a prediction? Hopefully? 
@atomicpoet Curious if there's an active #django project out there. I would definitely test it out.
@dan_lerch @atomicpoet there are several, most active is probably @takahe. bookwyrm is also Django based afaik.
There isn’t so much in the way of a reusable activitypub apps for Django though…it seems to be tricky as the implementation depends so much on the data model you’re publishing. Maybe it makes more sense as apps on top of wagtail/Django-cms/etc, I haven’t seen anything in that direction yet though.
@LucidDan @atomicpoet @takahe I use wagtail so I’ll see if there’s anything
@dan_lerch @atomicpoet You can check the Takahe project at @takahe. It's a new ActivityPub server designed for efficient use on small- to medium-sized installations and utilizing Django.
Ok. Installed it. I show up in a search. I only post 1 or 2 blog posts a day but it will be interesting to see how it flows out.
unfortunately I am on Wordpress dot com, otherwise I would definitely install that
@vogelbeere @atomicpoet
Yeah, the thing about wordpress dot com is that the ActivityPub plugin is in fact available, but only through the Business class tier of service, which is currently a $300 per year upsell.
@chiselerneil @vogelbeere Hmmm... I run a WordPress blog for $5/month, and I can use that plugin.
@atomicpoet @vogelbeere @chiselerneil WordPress.org is called self installs and you have full control. WordPress.com is the hosted version and the scale means it has tighter rules around security etc. for plugins. But wouldn’t be surprised to see some changes to become more flexible as demand ramps up.
@atomicpoet Hmm! I may give that a whirl, my blog is self-hosted. @three_star_dave - is your blog also?
I looked for an actual example of a Wordpress blog that can be followed via ActivityPub, and found https://notiz.blog/ , Matthias Pfefferle's blog.
He is the plugin's author.
It is indeed possible to find and follow his blog in the Fediverse (from a Pleroma instance in my case), by searching for @pfefferle
It is distinct from @pfefferle
@carlos @atomicpoet @pfefferle@mastodon.social @pfefferle@notiz.blog This stuff is so cool.
open-ended interoperability in this space is really cool.
even more so after 20 years of losing ground to walled gardens
@atomicpoet Unfortunately though it doesn't work very good for professional sites. I'd love to be able to make the accounts exposed to be content/blog-based instead of user-based. Even better, something like @category@blog.url or @posttype@blog.url would be great for multi-user blogs. (in addition to the author focused accounts) cc: @pfefferle
@beergeek @atomicpoet the feature is on my list!
@pfefferle Great to hear. Cheers!
@atomicpoet WOW! Mine is added. Thank you for this post! So cool.
@atomicpoet not at all clear what the benefits are, but I’ll give it a shot #fediverse #wordpress #mastodon
@benteh The benefits are that your blog posts will appear in the Fediverse, and people who use the Fediverse can subscribe to your posts.
@atomicpoet I get the concept – I just don’t understand how that looks in the wild, as I know close to nothing about other parts of the fediverse, how it’s used, what it contains, etc.
I write a blog post. Then what happens.
Assumption that it’s gotta be a bit more than an auto poster IFTTT…
@benteh This is how your blog will appear within Mastodon.
You can see for yourself at @pfefferle
@atomicpoet yep, and I have been learning it and am about to train a bunch of our customers on how to do it! Thanks again for sharing Chris, your rad
@atomicpoet @GeoffBeggs this sounds cool - I’m currently just using a really basic plugin for sharing so will check it out
@atomicpoet I ask cuz I really don't know but how does a website connect to the fediverse?