December 2025: hooo boy!
Wagoneers, thank you. For me, 2025 has been a 365-day, full-court-press. Thanks to you, Bandwagon has grown in so many amazing and unexpected ways. I am so excited by this community, and the technology that all of you are helping to design.
Below, I’ll recap some of the big things we’ve done this year, but this isn’t just a retrospective.. because I still owe you all one more big roadmap item for 2025.
Data Migration Is Live
I’m so very proud to announce that your Bandwagon profiles are now 100% portable to any other Bandwagon server. So, musicians can sign up on Bandwagon.fm to kick the tires then move their profiles anywhere they want, once they’ve gotten the hang of things. I’ve worked hard to make the migration process is really straightforward. The user migration guide walks you through the process.
- Did you join a co-op that has their own server? Move your profile
- Does your record label want to consolidate their marketing into one place? Move your profile
- Do you love tinkering with tech, and want to control your own detsiny? Move your profile
- Did Ben get a haircut so bad that you no longer trust his judgment? Move your profile
You get the idea…
Get Help Launching Your Own Server
So this means it’s time to fire up your own Bandwagon servers. I’ve done my best to make it as smooth as possible, but I’m sure the first few server mods will need some extra help getting things going. I’m happy to assist, so please reach out and I’ll help you get started.
Some Nerdy Tech Details
For the super-tech-savvy among you, the import/export tools are built using the nascent “LOLA” Data Portability standard from the W3C – meaning that other Fediverse servers should some day support a common import/export protocol. So your data won’t be locked into Bandwagon, Emissary, or any other server.
The details of this standard are still being ironed out, so I’ve also written a developer guide that documents all of the places where Emissary add or deviates from the spec.
If you’re a platform developer, and are interested in building data portability into your Fediverse app, I’d love to work you as well. Please reach out and let me know what you need.
2025 Highlights
In the past year, I’ve posted over 2,000 updates to Emissary, Bandwagon, and Atlas, spanning nearly 200 tasks, enhancements, bugfixes, and requests.
January - TheIndieBeat.fm
Early this year, we connected your Bandwagon albums to TheIndieBeat.fm, a streaming radio station from Kirsten Lambertsen of Patron Hunt. The IndieBeat has continued to grow and evolve, in large part because of your support.
March - Audio Search Engine
I can’t believe it’s only been a year. Bandwagon’s distributed search engine was one of the first big tech projects to release in 2025. It’s now working in Atlas Maps, too.
May - New Band Profile Pages
In the spring, we collected your ideas into a refreshed profile design, with improved navigation, stronger layouts on desktop and mobile devices, and more room to highlight your work everywhere you go. With these new pages, you’ve given us some of the most beautiful, crazy, wacky, and inspiring band pages anywhere on the Internet.
July - Online Album Sales
Connecting Bandwagon to credit card processors (like Stripe) was a huge project, and a huge win for Emissary and the Fediverse. We’ll continue pushing this technology forward in 2026.
August - Fedicon
In August I was invited to talk at Fedicon. It was amazing to meet so many other Fedizens, and make a fool of myself on stage.
September - Deeper Fediverse Connections
We’ve continuing to improve Emissary’s connections with the rest of the Fediverse ecosystem, and September saw a number of behind-the-scenes improvements that have made your content more available, and more discoverable.
October - Geographic Search
In October, an 80mph brainstorm down US-I70 led to a 6-week diversion that brought Atlas Maps into our ecosystem. New geographic services and search tools will, in turn, benefit Wagoneers as we supercharge our event management tools in 2026.
December - Account Portability
So here we are, caught up to the last days of 2025. True, standards-based, 100% fidelity data portability is real and it’s here on the Fediverse.
So what’s next?
2026 Roadmap
I’ll be updating the roadmap for 2026 in a future post. But here’s what I’m looking at right now
End to End Encryption
As annouced by the Social Web Foundation Emissary is a part of a project to bring End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) to the Fediverse. This is a huge project that we’re projecting will take 6 months to complete. While it’s not specifically a “Bandwagon” project, E2EE will have ripple effects through the entire ecosystem.
FOSDEM 2026
In January, I’ll be attending FOSDEM in Brussels, and will be presenting all the work we’ve been doing on Emissary, Bandwagon, and Atlas Maps, along with some ideas about where this crazy train is headed.
Better Communication Tools
Along with encrypted messaging, I’m working on an overhaul to Emissary’s inbox. Very few Wagoneers are actually using this now, and my goal is to make some substantial improvements here, that will let you connect better with fans – and each other – on the Fediverse.
New Payment Processors
Stripe is great, but for all of our sakes, I’m committed to supporting several other payment processors in 2026. I’m putting together a list on our GitHub page and I’d love to get your feedback on what will (or won’t) work best for you. I’m hoping to roll out at least one additional processor in the spring time.
Bandwagon Premier
With the launch of account migration, this paid service can finally become a reality. And, the specifics are coming into clearer focus, too. For this, we’ll be adding a number of enhanced features for Bandwagon Premier, such as: higher quality streaming, album sales, along with custom domain names, and more. I’m aiming at this mid-year, and will keep you all in the loop as we get closer to launch.
1.0
One more goal for 2026 is to stamp “version 1.0” on everything in this software suite. I’ve described Emsisary and Bandwagon “beta” software, meaning that we’re effectively testing large parts of it with live users in production. While this will not affect the amount of effort and innovation going into Emissary, reaching the “1.0” milestone will mean greater predictability and stability in the core applications, which should make it easier for other developers to join our community.
What, Is All That Not Enough?
If you’re still reading, maybe you’re looking for more. That’s cool. There’s still plenty of time this coming year for things not-yet-imagined. I’d love to hear what you think we should do next. So please reach out and let’s talk about moving the Fediverse forward, together.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://bandwagon.fm/6951be932e9f77313ac66038