I still believe that getting access to sports news and commentary would be one of the sure-fire ways to get more people in the Fediverse. But even after all these years, Reddit, Twitter and Instagram obviously completely dominate the space.

In the US, the NFL is starting in a couple of weeks and the NBA will come back in October. There is also the European Football (Soccer) leagues which started this month, so the thought came to mind again: what could we have that could make the conversation around professional sports more interesting...

Specific apps or sites that act as a multi-platform client, to let you follow short clips from Loops, or posts from specific communities or athletes?
Real time scores and match threader bots?
A (local, user-controlled) recommendation algorithm to manage different news sources?
Integration with fantasy leagues?

Maybe I am barking at the wrong tree and/or the majority of people here do not care about it enough, but I would like to hear some ideas to see if there is anything we could do.

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[–] beanburger@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I’m starting to think the Fediverse has the wrong focus. We keep talking about growing MAU and promoting "the Fediverse" as if it’s a product, but that’s backwards. Before Reddit and Twitter, niche communities grew around websites like fansites, blogs, and tools that happened to have a forum attached. People came for the content, and stayed for the conversation.

So instead of just telling people to join Lemmy or Mastodon or promoting sports on Lemmy, we should embed Fediverse features into purpose-built websites. That creates a feedback loop: the site promotes the community, and the community fuels the site. You can build out unique features like scoreboards, event calendars, or curated resources and then use Lemmy threads as the discussion layer. Some users will interact directly on the site, while others can subscribe via their own Fediverse client. Everyone wins.

That’s exactly what I’m trying to do with Vegan Home Cooks. I’m syncing Lemmy posts into the site, but I’m also building out original features beyond just the forum. The goal is for the site to be the thing people discover and remember, with federation as the invisible engine underneath. I’m still figuring out the recipe for success, but I think this model has more potential than evangelizing Lemmy.