Thank you to Capital Factory for sponsoring EFF-Austin. Capital Factory is the center of gravity for entrepreneurs in Texas. They meet the best entrepreneurs in Texas and introduce them to their first investors, employees, mentors and customers. To sign up for a Capital Factory coworking membership, click here.

BIO:
Our speaker this month is Manton Reece. Manton Reece is the founder of Micro.blog, a blogging platform and social network based on IndieWeb and fediverse standards. Micro.blog launched in 2017 and has grown into a full blogging platform with support for social web protocols like ActivityPub and AT Protocol.

TALK SUMMARY:
Manton Reece will talk through his background as a blogger and developer, how the problems of massive closed platforms like Twitter / X led to the founding of Micro.blog, how we can better control our content and identity on the web, and the emerging open social web with platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky.

HOW TO ATTEND:
Capital Factory is located at 701 Brazos Street, on the 1st floor of the Omni Hotel. We are in the Voltron meeting room. To locate Voltron, locate Capital Factory's main event room off the Omni lobby, Suite 150. Once inside, there should be someone at the desk to direct you to our meetup, but, if no one is there, the large room behind the desk is Voltron. You may also message us on this event or message us at @effaustin.bsky.social on Bluesky or @effaustin on Mastodon if you are having trouble finding us. Please note that the room will be locked and EFF-Austin will not have access until 10-15 minutes before 7:00pm CST. We will try to have someone in the Omni lobby earlier than that in front of the Voltron doors to greet you if you arrive early, but otherwise just wait in the lobby until you are let in.

Talk will be livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/user/austintechlive and will later be archived at https://www.youtube.com/user/effaustin. Questions for the speaker from virtual attendees may be submitted via the Youtube livestream chat, our Twitter account, @EFFaustin, our Mastodon account, @effaustin, or our Bluesky account, @effaustin.bsky.social.

Parking for the Omni Garage can be validated at the Capital Factory front desk inside room Voltron, Suite 150, reducing the cost to $8. If no one is at the desk, check with EFF-Austin meetup organizers, we can provide you with one. Attendees must park after 5pm and leave before 10pm to receive the discount, otherwise they will be charged full price, which is $3.25 for every 30 minutes. Affordable street park is also available nearby. Details: https://capitalfactory.com/parking/

AFTER PARTY:
Join us for the discussion from 7:00PM-9:00PM, followed by drinks and camaraderie from 9:00PM-10:00PM in the Omni Hotel lobby.