Movetodon, which was only introduced five days ago, is quickly gaining popularity among Twitter emigrants. According to some records, more than 50,000 users have tried Movetodon in the last week alone.
Following Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, open source Twitter competitor Mastodon experienced rapid growth, surpassing the 1 million monthly active user mark in less than a week. However, one of the many difficulties for users joining Mastodon for the first time is re-establishing their Twitter network of friends and followers that they had amassed over the years. By making it simple for users to locate and follow their Twitter connections on the open source social network Mastodon, a new application called Movetodon attempts to ease the transfer from Twitter to Mastodon.
There are now a few tools, such as Debirdify, Twitodon, and Fedifinder, for finding Twitter pals on Mastodon. To import the data into Mastodon, some current applications require users to link their Twitter accounts, scan their networks, and export the results as a CSV file. This is helpful if you just want to integrate every Twitter user who also has a Mastodon account, but it makes it difficult to effectively curate your network if you want a new start.
Tibor Martini, a German software developer who founded Movetodon, claims that he personally used these technologies and agreed that they served his needs. But he felt that the overall impression was a touch underwhelming.
Martini stated that he wanted to create a solution that would make it easier for non-technical individuals to locate their friends on Mastodon, even if they were using a mobile device to access the site. He began developing the Movetodon concept at the end of October, and he started writing code around the middle of November.
You’ll be able to follow certain users by clicking a button after the list generation is finished, or you can decide to follow everyone at once. To make new accounts stand out at the top of the list, you can also order the list by the date that users joined Mastodon. The creator claims that his application analyses pertinent variables on Twitter, such as a person’s bio, user name, location, URL, or pinned post, where individuals frequently reveal information about their Mastodon accounts. Then, it extracted potential Mastodon handles and URLs using Regex. If the handle is not a Mastodon account, it is determined to be something else, such as an email address, using the Mastodon API.
Both app connections request only the minimal set of permissions, and Movetodon never stores the data it accesses on its server. For instance, Movetodon cannot publish or follow on Twitter; it can only consume information. Movetodon on Mastodon requests restricted writing access so that users can follow other users on the network.
Martini works as the project leader for social media at the German publisher Stern, but he claims that depending on user feedback, he may continue to develop Movetodon. For instance, in response to user demands, he created the “follow all” button. Users are now requesting the ability to find accounts from their Twitter Lists using the tool.
