Fact-checked by Grok 2 weeks ago

identi.ca

Identi.ca was a free and open-source and that allowed users to post short updates, similar to , but emphasized decentralization and user control through open protocols and software. Launched on July 2, 2008, by Canadian developer , it was developed as the flagship instance of the StatusNet software (initially called Laconica), licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) to enable self-hosting and federation with other services. The platform's core philosophy centered on openness and interoperability, using the OpenMicroblogging protocol to allow users to connect across different sites and export their data freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Key features included 140-character "notices" broadcast to followers, support for groups and multimedia sharing, and a federated model that positioned it as an alternative to services, attracting communities focused on . In 2013, Identi.ca migrated from StatusNet to the software, a more general-purpose decentralized social engine based on Activity Streams, becoming one node in a broader network of federated servers; new user registrations were halted that to focus on existing users and growth. Identi.ca played a pioneering role in the development of open social protocols, influencing later standards like and , which underpin the modern —a decentralized of platforms including . Founded by Prodromou, who later co-authored and contributed to (a fork), the service highlighted the potential for user-owned social infrastructure but faced challenges in scaling adoption compared to centralized competitors. As of 2025, the identi.ca domain appears inactive, though its software and ideas continue to inspire distributed social networking projects.

Overview

Description and Purpose

Identi.ca was a free and open-source microblogging service launched on July 2, 2008, designed for sharing short-form status updates and facilitating social interactions among users. The platform's core purpose was to enable distributed and federated microblogging through open standards, such as the OpenMicroBlogging protocol, thereby avoiding the single-point control and data silos associated with proprietary services. This approach emphasized user autonomy, allowing individuals to export their data and software to establish independent servers or migrate accounts seamlessly. By prioritizing transparency and interoperability, identi.ca sought to foster a more resilient and user-controlled social networking ecosystem. Upon launch, identi.ca experienced rapid initial adoption, attracting significant attention from developers and early adopters within the open-source community. In distinction from , identi.ca highlighted an open-source ethos, eschewing advertisements and focusing on enhanced privacy and to empower users over platform owners. The service migrated to the software in July 2013 for continued federated operations.

Ownership and Current Operation

Identi.ca was owned and operated by Control Yourself, Inc. (founded in 2007 by software developer ), which became part of E14N established in December 2012 and focused on open-source social networking technologies. E14N is listed as a deadpooled entity, meaning it no longer seeks active investment or expansion. New user registrations were disabled on March 26, 2013, to prepare for the site's migration to . Identi.ca ceased operations in July 2013 after completing the migration. As of 2025, the identi.ca domain is inactive. User-generated content was licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY 3.0), permitting free reuse with attribution. Users formerly accessed identi.ca through its web interface at https://identi.ca or via compatible third-party clients such as Dianara, a desktop application for networks, and AndStatus, an app supporting federated social protocols. This supported engagement during its active period, positioning identi.ca as a node in the open .

Technical Foundation

Software Platforms

Identi.ca initially ran on StatusNet, an open-source platform originally developed as Laconica and launched in 2008 under the Affero License (AGPL). This software emulated Twitter's core functionality, enforcing a 140-character limit on posts while supporting decentralized federation through the protocol, including features like hashtags for topic-based discussions and groups for community organization. In July 2013, identi.ca transitioned to pump.io, a Node.js-based server designed for decentralized social networking. This shift eliminated the 140-character restriction, allowing for richer content such as longer text, images, and multimedia, and prioritized a general-purpose architecture for handling social streams. Pump.io leverages the Activity Streams protocol—detailed further in the Protocols and Standards section—to enable broader interoperability across federated networks. Key technical differences between the platforms highlight their evolving focuses: StatusNet emphasized microblogging-specific tools like hashtag feeds and group interactions within an framework, whereas pump.io centers on flexible, JSON-based Activity Streams processing to support diverse social activities and federation without centralized public timelines. As of 2025, the repository remains hosted on under the pump-io organization, with the last commit occurring in 2022, indicating inactive development though ongoing availability for deployment.

Protocols and Standards

Identi.ca relies on the Activity Streams protocol as its primary standard for representing social activities in a JSON-based format, enabling the serialization of posts, shares, replies, and other interactions in a structured, machine-readable way that facilitates exchange across distributed nodes. This protocol, developed under the W3C , supports a vocabulary for common social objects and verbs, such as "" for creating notices or "like" for endorsements, ensuring compatibility with broader web standards for syndicating . In its early phase under the StatusNet software, identi.ca employed the federation model, a suite of open standards including syndication, PubSubHubbub for real-time updates, for private messaging, and for discovery, which allowed cross-server communication and interoperability among StatusNet instances. This model evolved with the transition to in 2013, adopting ActivityPump as the core federation protocol; ActivityPump builds directly on Activity Streams to handle inbound and outbound social interactions, such as following users or delivering activities to remote pods, while simplifying the architecture compared to by reducing reliance on multiple disparate protocols. The open-source licensing of identi.ca's underlying software further supports its standards-based approach to federation. StatusNet, the original platform, was released under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) version 3, a copyleft license that requires derivative works to be distributed under the same terms, including when accessed over a network, thereby encouraging community contributions and preventing proprietary lock-in. In contrast, pump.io adopted the Apache License 2.0, a permissive open-source license that allows greater flexibility for commercial use and integration without mandating source code disclosure of modifications, which promotes wider adoption and third-party hosting of compatible instances. These protocols enable practical , such as seamless between identi.ca and other pump.io-based servers, where users can follow accounts, receive updates, and export like profiles and posts in portable formats. This capability positioned identi.ca as an early precursor to the , influencing subsequent decentralized networks by demonstrating standards-driven user portability and cross-instance collaboration before the widespread adoption of .

Features

Core Microblogging Tools

Users on identi.ca create and share content through "notices," the platform's fundamental unit of , which transitioned to unlimited length following the 2013 adoption of software, eliminating the prior 140-character restriction and enabling support for rich text, images, and multimedia attachments. This shift allowed for more expressive, longer-form posts compared to earlier constraints, aligning with 's Activity Streams protocol for versatile content representation. Timeline views form the primary for consuming notices, including public timelines that aggregate open posts across and personal timelines displaying updates from followed users, all updated in via pump.io's mechanisms. The platform supports multiple clients for accessing these tools, including its native for direct posting and browsing, alongside third-party applications like the open-source AndStatus , which integrates with for users to manage notices across devices. An early built-in URL shortener, ur1.ca, was integrated to compact links within notices, enhancing shareability before the migration. Content moderation on identi.ca relies on user-controlled privacy settings, where individuals can designate notices as public, limited to followers, or fully private, without platform-wide centralized censorship due to its decentralized, open-source architecture. This approach empowers users to manage visibility and data flow at the personal level, consistent with pump.io's federated model.

Social and Interoperability Functions

Identi.ca facilitates decentralized social connections by allowing users to follow individuals and public entities hosted on any server, creating a federated network without reliance on a central authority. This enables cross-pod interactions, where followers on one server receive updates from users on others via the platform's federation mechanism. User discovery lacks a global directory but is supported through community-curated resources, such as language-based lists maintained on the project's wiki or dedicated search tools like the one at inventati.org. Social interactions on identi.ca revolve around activity-based sharing, including likes, reshares, and replies to posts, which are designed for portability across the network using the Activity Streams protocol. These features promote seamless engagement in a distributed environment, with authentication handled via for user registration and secure access. The protocol's structure ensures that such interactions remain interoperable within the pump.io ecosystem, though they do not natively extend to all external networks without additional tools. Following the migration from StatusNet to , native support for groups was removed, a feature present in the earlier implementation; hashtags could still be used in posts for categorization, though without the prior dedicated search or organizational features due to differences in the underlying software. Instead, users must rely on external third-party applications or services to approximate these functionalities, such as custom aggregation tools for topic-based discussions. Third-party integrations enhance identi.ca's interoperability, with compatibility for desktop, mobile, and web clients that support pump.io's API, including bridges to platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and RSS feeds for broader content sharing. The platform's adherence to Activity Streams as a precursor to ActivityPub also enables potential connections to the modern Fediverse, such as through custom bridges to Mastodon instances, facilitating limited cross-network federation.

History

Launch and Early Growth

Identi.ca was founded by , a Montreal-based developer and co-founder of , as an open-source alternative to , emphasizing and user control over data. Launched on July 2, 2008, the platform utilized the Laconica software to enable with short notices shared across federated servers, addressing Twitter's frequent outages and proprietary nature during that period. The service debuted with core features mirroring Twitter's simplicity while incorporating open standards for broader interoperability, including 140-character notices, hashtag support for topic-based conversations, user groups for community organization, and XMPP () integration for real-time notifications and chat-like interactions. These elements allowed users to subscribe across instances via the OpenMicroBlogging protocol, fostering a distributed network from the outset. In August 2009, the Laconica software powering identi.ca was rebranded to StatusNet to better reflect its expanded scope and professional applications. Early growth was driven by its appeal to the open-source community, where developers and advocates valued the customizable, privacy-oriented platform that avoided centralized data silos. Within months of launch, identi.ca attracted endorsements from tech influencers and saw rapid adoption, reaching approximately 70,000 user accounts by mid-2009. This expansion was supported by a investment of $150,000 from Start Up in January 2009, enabling further development amid emerging scaling challenges as traffic increased.

Transition to pump.io

In December 2012, , the founder of StatusNet, announced the planned migration of identi.ca from the StatusNet platform to the newly developed software, driven by scalability limitations in StatusNet that had turned identi.ca into an unintended central hub and strained resources. The shift aimed to enable a more decentralized architecture with richer federation capabilities based on the emerging Activity Streams standard in format, replacing the older protocol that relied on , PubSubHubbub, and . This change also involved adopting a more permissive Apache 2.0 license to broaden adoption and competition with proprietary platforms. To prepare for the transition and manage server load amid growing popularity, new user registrations on identi.ca were closed in December 2012. The actual switch took place on July 11, 2013, when active accounts—defined as those with activity in the prior year—were automatically migrated to , preserving user data and posts while redirecting the service to operate as a in the broader network. However, the migration resulted in the removal of certain StatusNet-specific features, including site-wide public timelines, global search functionality, and initial support for hashtags and groups, as prioritized a leaner, API-focused over a fully feature-matched . Among the immediate outcomes was the introduction of unlimited post lengths, allowing users to share rich text, images, and longer updates beyond the previous 140-character restriction, enhancing expressiveness in line with broader social networking trends. Technically, the adoption of enabled an asynchronous event model for improved performance and scalability, paired with flexible storage via the Databank library supporting and relational databases like or . This alignment with standards positioned identi.ca to better integrate with diverse content types and future federated networks, though users faced adaptation challenges due to the altered and reduced feature set.

Post-Migration Developments

Following the 2013 migration to , development on the platform saw limited updates from 2014 to 2020, with E14N, the company behind identi.ca, shifting focus to other projects such as standardization efforts for protocols like . Releases for during this period were infrequent, including a security-related bump in dependencies in January 2015 (v5.1.0) and bug fixes in 2018 addressing issues like non-public image access errors and denial-of-service vulnerabilities (v5.1.1), with v5.0.1 released earlier in 2015. The user base stabilized around existing accounts, as new registrations had been closed the previous year to manage resources amid operational constraints. From 2021 onward, identi.ca operated with minimal maintenance until it appears to have ceased operation by 2025, as the domain became inactive and inaccessible. The last updates to occurred in 2020. Activity had continued through compatible clients like Dianara, which received its last upstream update around 2016 but remained viable via distribution builds into the early 2020s. Limited integration with tools emerged via protocol bridges, allowing some interoperability with ActivityPub-based networks like , though pump.io's distinct architecture constrained broader adoption. Key challenges included a declining active user base, overshadowed by the rise of , which gained traction through its privacy-focused implementation and user migration waves starting in 2016. E14N effectively ceased operations around 2020, entering a deadpooled state after raising $2.43 million in funding since 2008, yet identi.ca persisted on legacy infrastructure maintained through minimal oversight until its eventual inactivity. This stagnation highlighted broader tensions in decentralized networks, where older protocols like struggled against newer standards emphasizing enhanced privacy and ease of use. Minor enhancements came primarily from the GitHub community, including pull requests for bug fixes such as session handling improvements in earlier releases, underscoring a reliance on volunteer contributions post-E14N's decline. Amid growing privacy concerns in social networking, pump.io's design emphasized through its Activity Streams-based , enabling users to and migrate content across compatible federated services without .

Impact and Legacy

Influence on Decentralized Networks

Identi.ca played a pivotal role in pioneering federation within social networking by early adoption of the protocol, which enabled interoperability between independent servers and laid foundational groundwork for subsequent standards. Developed in 2010, facilitated cross-platform interactions such as following users and sharing updates across decentralized instances, addressing limitations in centralized platforms like . This approach directly influenced the development of , the W3C-recommended standard ratified in 2018 that powers the modern , including platforms like , by providing a more robust framework for server-to-server communication and user portability. The platform's open-source codebase, initially under StatusNet and later , significantly contributed to the ecosystem of self-hosted decentralized networks. StatusNet, the software powering identi.ca from its 2008 launch, allowed users and organizations to deploy their own instances, promoting over and fostering a distributed architecture. In 2013, identi.ca migrated to , Evan Prodromou's successor protocol, which emphasized JSON-based activity streams and further enabled federation; this codebase inspired and was forked into projects like , a continuation that maintains compatibility for ongoing decentralized . These contributions encouraged widespread adoption of open-source tools for building resilient, user-controlled social environments. From 2008 to 2013, identi.ca promoted the concept of a "distributed Twitter," attracting (FOSS) advocates who sought alternatives to proprietary platforms dominated by advertising and data centralization. By emphasizing open protocols and community-driven development, it cultivated a culture of interoperability and privacy, bridging early FOSS experiments to contemporary decentralized platforms in the . Key figure , identi.ca's founder, drove much of this influence through his work on protocols that advanced web decentralization. As co-editor of and creator of and , Prodromou's efforts integrated activity streams into standardized formats, enabling seamless connections across diverse social tools and reinforcing the shift toward a federated .

User Base and Challenges

Identi.ca's user base has historically consisted primarily of open-source enthusiasts, software developers, and privacy advocates drawn to its decentralized, federated model as an alternative to proprietary platforms like . The platform experienced rapid early adoption following its launch, accumulating over one million notices by November of that year. By , it had grown to more than 120,000 registered users. However, active user numbers began to dwindle after , coinciding with the platform's migration to software; the main identi.ca service ceased operations in July , with new user registrations halted earlier that March. Following the shutdown, no active community persists on the identi.ca domain, which is inactive as of 2025; its legacy endures through the software, forks like , and inspired federated instances rather than ongoing operation of the original service. The platform faced several challenges leading to its closure, including intense competition from newer decentralized networks like , which launched in 2016 and rapidly gained traction through improved user interfaces and broader federation support via . Technical limitations in the backend, such as resource constraints and implementation complexities, contributed to stagnation and reduced adoption. Additionally, the absence of official mobile applications and poor discoverability for new users—exacerbated by closed registrations—hindered accessibility and engagement. Despite these hurdles, the community sustained the platform through grassroots efforts prior to shutdown, including user-maintained open-source clients and tools for data export and preservation during migrations. These initiatives, often hosted on platforms like , allowed dedicated users to interact with identi.ca and migrate content to other networks, mitigating some effects of the platform's decline.

References

  1. [1]
    Very open microblogging service launches - Creative Commons
    Jul 2, 2008 · Identi.ca, an open source/free software + open content = open service microblogging service launched today. From the FAQ: How is Identi.ca ...
  2. [2]
    StatusNet, Identi.ca, and transitioning to pump.io - LWN.net
    The January post indicated that Identi.ca would be migrated over to run on pump.io (which necessarily would involve some changes in the feature ...
  3. [3]
    pump.io: the decentralized social network that's really fun
    Jul 15, 2013 · Identi.ca is now just another node in what Prodromou hopes will become a growing network of pump.io sites. Read more in this interview with lead ...
  4. [4]
    From Identica to ActivityPub: How Open Social Protocols Are ...
    Oct 21, 2025 · The Roots: Identica and Open Microblogging. Evan Prodromou's journey began back in 2008 with Identica, an open-source microblogging service.
  5. [5]
    Team | Social Web Foundation
    Evan Prodromou Evan is the Research Director at SWF. He is the co-author of ... He founded the identi.ca website and GNU Social software, as well as coauthoring ...
  6. [6]
    Taking on Twitter with open-source software - CNET
    Oct 6, 2008 · I launched Identica in July, and of course, microblogging has been around for probably about two to three years right now with some leading ...
  7. [7]
    Federation in social networks - LWN.net
    Dec 12, 2017 · The first open-source for federated microblogging to gain traction was identi.ca, a microblogging platform launched in 2008 by Canadian startup ...
  8. [8]
    Interview: Evan Prodromou | fosdem.org
    I launched Identi.ca in July of 2008 and got a huge amount of attention, which I think is what gave me the incentive to keep going. In the last 18 months my ...Missing: statistics | Show results with:statistics
  9. [9]
    Differentiating from Twitter: Open Source and Identi.ca - RedMonk
    Jul 3, 2008 · Identi.ca, in case you haven't seen it yet, is essentially a feature-poor alternative to Twitter. But while it lacks features like SMS updates ...Missing: differences federated
  10. [10]
    E14n - 2025 Company Profile, Team, Funding & Competitors - Tracxn
    Jun 30, 2025 · E14n is a deadpooled company based in Montreal (Canada), founded in 2008 by Evan Prodromou. It operates as an Open source social media ...
  11. [11]
    StatusNet, the Free Software micro-blogging platform. - GitHub
    StatusNet is a Free and Open Source microblogging platform. It helps people in a community, company or group to exchange short (140 characters, by default) ...<|separator|>
  12. [12]
    pump.io - NPM
    Sep 20, 2020 · pump.io. This is pump.io. It's a stream server that does most of what people really want from a social network.
  13. [13]
    pump-io/pump.io: Social server with an ActivityStreams API - GitHub
    You can post almost anything that can be represented with activity streams -- short or long text, bookmarks, images, video, audio, events, geo checkins.
  14. [14]
    Activity Streams 2.0 - W3C
    May 23, 2017 · This specification details a model for representing potential and completed activities using the JSON format.Missing: identi. | Show results with:identi.
  15. [15]
    ActivityPump - GitHub Pages
    The ActivityPump protocol is a social networking protocol based upon the ActivityStreams 2.0 data format. It is based upon experience gained from implementing ...
  16. [16]
    pump.io
    License. Copyright 2011-2017, E14N https://e14n.com/ and contributors. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this ...
  17. [17]
    History of ActivityPub - Fediversity - SocialHub
    Jun 26, 2023 · OStatus, Activity Streams 1.0 and Pump API are all origins of ActivityPub. Quite so. ActivitySteams is a social data format, which was used as ...
  18. [18]
    andstatus/andstatus: Multiple accounts client for multiple ... - GitHub
    AndStatus is an Open Source multiple accounts client for multiple Social networks, including Mastodon, ActivityPub (Client to Server), GNU social and Pump.io.
  19. [19]
    Identi.ca: Microblogging meets Open Source - Pingdom
    Oct 14, 2009 · It's an open source specification that enables microblogging sites to talk with each other. Anyone can start their own service using software ...
  20. [20]
    Basic User Guide — Pump.io Documentation - Read the Docs
    If you used identi.ca in the past, take a look at this note about some of the big changes that identi.ca has undergone, now that it's part of the Pump.io ...
  21. [21]
    https://pumpio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/userguide.html
  22. [22]
    https://github.com/e14n/pump.io/wiki/Users-by-language
  23. [23]
    GNU/consensus/whistle/012013-07 - LibrePlanet
    The news of the month, after Prism, is undoubtedly the switch of Identi.ca from StatusNet to Pump.IO. After donating the StatusNet code to the Free Software ...Missing: absence | Show results with:absence
  24. [24]
    Blog Archive » Identi.ca is Throwing Away Everybody's Work That ...
    May 28, 2013 · Reading “Identi.ca conversion to pump.io” again, it seems clear all user data will be deleted (not left online, thrown away). As manual backup ...
  25. [25]
    Clients and Services — Pump.io Documentation
    ### Client Apps Supporting Pump.io and Identi.ca
  26. [26]
    ActivityPub: the new standard for decentralized networks - Nextcloud
    Jan 25, 2018 · Identi.ca has since migrated to pump.io, the successor to OStatus and the protocol it implements is essentially the base of ActivityPub. Evan ...Missing: Laconica | Show results with:Laconica
  27. [27]
    Identi.ca Launches, an Open Source Twitter - Ross Mayfield's Weblog
    Jul 2, 2008 · July 02, 2008. Identi.ca Launches, an Open Source Twitter. Evan Prodromou, one of the better citizens of the wiki community ...Missing: microblogging | Show results with:microblogging
  28. [28]
    The Problem With Identi.ca Is That It Is Not Twitter - TechCrunch
    Jul 4, 2008 · Identi.ca is the brainchild of Canadian developer Evan Prodromou (a Californian living in Montreal), who explains the thinking behind the ...Missing: statistics | Show results with:statistics
  29. [29]
    https://techcrunch.com/2008/07/04/the-problem-with-identica-is-that-it-is-not-twitter/
  30. [30]
    Identi.ca pushes forward - LWN.net
    Jul 8, 2009 · Identi.ca is run by Montreal-based Control Yourself. CEO Evan Prodromou chuckles at the term "Twitter clone," but that is how many outsiders ...
  31. [31]
    StatusNet (Of Identi.ca Fame) Raises $875,000 To ... - TechCrunch
    Oct 27, 2009 · StatusNet (Of Identi.ca Fame) Raises $875,000 To Become The WordPress Of Microblogging. Erick Schonfeld. 9:08 AM PDT · October 27, 2009.Missing: investment | Show results with:investment
  32. [32]
    Status.net service to phase out, replaced by pump.io
    Dec 18, 2012 · User accounts on the existing sites running from the status.net domain will continue to function, as will the Identi.ca site. Self-hosted ...
  33. [33]
    How Decentralized Social Platforms Grew from Identica to Modern ...
    Oct 7, 2025 · Join Matthias Pfefferle and Evan Prodromou as they explore the evolution of decentralized social networks and the future of the Fediverse.
  34. [34]
    Releases · pump-io/pump.io - GitHub
    Sep 18, 2020 · Improved. Backport Docker image infrastructure. Fixed. Backport fix for non-public images always returning 403 Forbidden (#1438).Missing: bug | Show results with:bug
  35. [35]
    Dianara v1.4.4 released | Jan+KDE
    Character picker now remembers up to 24 last used symbols, in usage order. Fixed a possible crash when filtering out activities from the minor feed. Fixed some ...
  36. [36]
    A Creator of ActivityPub on What's Next for the Fediverse
    Dec 7, 2022 · Evan Prodromou talks about ActivityPub's creation, his complicated feelings about Mastodon, and opportunities for developers in the fediverse.<|separator|>
  37. [37]
    GNU social — a free software social networking platform
    ### Summary of GNU Social: History, StatusNet, identi.ca, pump.io, and Decentralized Network Influence
  38. [38]
    #noemail: Are technology's early adopters abandoning their email ...
    Jun 1, 2011 · For almost every proprietary tool (Facebook), there is a open one (identi.ca, based on a free software package called StatusNet), but the crux ...
  39. [39]
    Open source social networks: what happens now? : r/opensource
    Nov 4, 2013 · It seems like status.net vis-à-vis identi.ca had a real toe-hold until the developer switched everyone over to the incompatible pump.io ...
  40. [40]
    Challenges of Creating a Decentralized, Open Source Twitter
    Apr 28, 2022 · We spoke with Open source software developer and advocate Evan Prodromou about setting up a decentralized open source Twitter killer.Missing: differences | Show results with:differences
  41. [41]
    Inside StatusNet: How Identi.ca Works - YouTube
    Feb 14, 2010 · ... identi.ca site has scaled, and forecast the future of Open Source and distributed microblogging on the Web. FOSDEM (Free and Open Source ...Missing: service | Show results with:service<|control11|><|separator|>
  42. [42]
    identi.ca - Wikipedia
    identi.ca is a free and open-source social networking and blogging service based on the pump.io software, using the Activity Streams protocol.
  43. [43]
    Welcome to the fediverse: Your guide to Mastodon, Threads ...
    Jun 25, 2024 · StatusNet's most notable instance, identi.ca, was an early example of a federated social network. However, these platforms struggled to gain ...
  44. [44]
    adbar/microblog-explorer: Perform crawls of social ... - GitHub
    The Microblog-Explorer project is about gathering URLs from social networks (FriendFeed, identi.ca, and Reddit) to use them as crawling seeds.