"My labeler uses data from Open Secrets to add labels to politicians on Bluesky... Democracy dies in darkness, so let's shine a light. This is just the start for what's possible on Bluesky."

SF author and IT specialist Jason Butterfield is a Gander beta-tester, and in his feed people ask “Why would I want to see Bluesky posts on my feed?". His answer, he believes, "requires moving beyond the concept of ‘apps’ and into the realm of digital sovereignty. We have to stop thinking like tenants and start thinking like citizens [as] For the …

Knight Foundation - "a private foundation with roots in local journalism and civic life" - on why they invested in Bluesky Social PBC "with venture capital firms like Bain Capital Crypto and Bloomberg Beta... [because] we saw a unique opportunity to invest in scaling ideas and values that are core to our mission".After all, they argue:It was the "…

Dainel, head of protocol at Bluesky, has published a series of leaflets on permissioned data for atproto.The first post introduces what permission data actually is - "a broad term, it covers many different social modalities & data flows. In its most basic sense, it means “not public”... data that lives on your PDS but isn't broadcasted... only acc…

Integrating your event co-creation community with the Atmosphere brings you increased engagement and improved reach with a substantially simpler website.

"I was in Berlin last November to present at a satellite event around the Summit on European Digital Sovereignty. The two posts which resulted are below, followed by the latest from the growing ATProto4Science movement."

"Large organisations need dedicated tools and processes to manage their Bluesky presence and get the most out of ATproto".A repost onto Medium of version 4 of a wiki page I've been developing for most of the year.

"What happens when you put politicians, media businesses and protocol engineers in the same room to discuss European sovereignty?" - my post following Eurosky.Live in Berlin, November 2025.

"A journalist gets blocked by Bluesky, but her Bluesky posts can still be seen via Blacksky. This apparent contradiction goes to the heart of resilient social media, where businesses must support their users to stay in business"

"Bluenotes is a fully-featured fork of the Bluesky social app, with the addition of a Community Notes feature that works just like Twitter/X's Community Notes."I logged in using a Bluesky app password for now (they're working on OAuth) and kicked the tyres. The interface is Bluesky with a twist: my accounts, custom feeds, etc., but with an additio…

The leaflet and Semble teams discuss cross-lexicon integrations, creating interoperability without falling down the "slippery slope to building an "everything" app". The approach: plugins a la Obsidin.As "Semble is all about collecting, curating, and sharing "micro-knowledge" -- insights, recommendations, reviews, hot-takes and so on -- ... [ie] c…

At last, a single page setting out the What and Why of Blacksky, which "builds infrastructure for social groups to control how they show up online: how their feeds work, how harm is addressed, and how costs are covered. Instead of one-size-fits-all rules set by a company with growth targets, Blacksky enables groups to govern themselves, and pool r…

When this was written there were 23m Bluesky users: "Some publishers report traffic and conversion rates three to four times higher compared with platforms like Threads and X, despite Bluesky’s smaller user base.... EUobserver received 3,800 unique visitors from Bluesky (with 3,300 followers) compared to 1,320 from X (with 203,000 followers)...Fo…

Very first post on the ATmosphere Health Index

A 2024 paper from the Bluesky team where they "introduce the architecture of Bluesky and the AT Protocol, and explain how the technical design of Bluesky is informed by our goals: enable decentralization by having multiple interoperable providers for every part of the system; make it easy for users to switch providers; give users agency over the c…

Some thoughts from a neuroscientist who's been kicking Bluesky's tyres: "The scientific community is once again shifting platforms... Between Mastodon’s ideals and Bluesky’s usability, we are faced with a complex landscape of compromises".Background: first he left X for Mastodon following Musk's purchase"over time, activity on Mastodon — at least …

"the next era of social media—built in Europe, run on our cloud, ruled by our laws... Social media is critical infrastructure, and a vital piece of the European tech sovereignty agenda... we need to build infrastructure ... on the AT Protocol... We have a plan for immediate action that can begin having an impact in 2025".Part of Free Our Feeds, …

"Deer.social is a soft fork of the official Bluesky client, offering enhanced features, customizable toggles, and a focus on high-impact improvements for power users" as options you can toggle on, like the ability to "see through quote blocks and detachment (nuclear block for quotes/reply chains)", ignore " !no-unauthenticated labels", which I thi…

In late April I was in Hamburg for Ahoy! 2025, the first European conference dedicated to the ATmosphere — the information ecosystem built atop of ATproto, the protocol underpinning Bluesky.

In late April I was in Hamburg for Ahoy! 2025, the first European conference dedicated to the ATmosphere - the information ecosystem built atop of ATproto, the protocol underpinning Bluesky. I proposed a couple of ideas for the unconference sessions, and came away with content for at least 5 posts, none of which I've found time to write.

A deep dive into the April 2025 "censorship" on Turkish Bluesky illustrates that government censorship on ATmosphere apps is limited and will become even less effective as more people exploit its decentralised nature.Context in brief:March 2025, the Turkish "government ordered X to restrict access to various X accounts ... associated with the prot…

"Skeets is a 3rd party iOS / iPad OS client for Bluesky" which I saw at the Ahoy conference. It's a good example of how Bluesky is more than a X alternative: it can be used by any (iOS-carrying) Bluesky user, but offers other features than Bluesky PBC's own app, including:"Keep reading positionEdit postsPost notificationsBookmarks DraftsPush Notif…

"How would MyHub.ai evolve to become part of the ATmosphere?" - One of my suggested conversation topics at the Ahoy conference, April, 2025.

"Let's build a tool to help large organisations coordinate their Bluesky footprint, helping them get the most out of the platform" - One of my suggested conversation topics at the Ahoy conference, April, 2025.

Last month I published a couple of posts on X and Bluesky. They make a nice pair, so I'm including both, below, and taking this opportunity to ask for your perspective. I'd really value getting you and your organisation's views on both platforms in 2025, and I'd be happy to answer any questions in return.

If, like many, you think Bluesky is "Twitter, but with less Nazis", this post is for you.

"a type-safe library to build automation at the top of ATProto/Bluesky API... to make automating actions on Bluesky both friendly and highly flexible... a domain-specific language (DSL) and builder pattern abstraction ... to streamline common sequences of actions (like searching posts, replying, following, liking, etc.) which typically require jug…

"Sill shows the most popular links being shared by accounts you follow on Bluesky and Mastodon", linking through to "the individual posts... with what people said about" them. You can sort (“newest” or “most popular”), "hide reposts, and limit posts to the last 3, 6, 12, or 24 hours".Built in response to the death of the link: “On Instagram and Ti…

I've been cleaning out a few rotten systems recently.

"some of the design and the principles behind this design, as I understand them... we’re going to start by exploring atproto, and then talk about how BlueSky is built on top of it"Basic infrastructural elementsIn atproto:users create records that are cryptographically signed to demonstrate authorship.Records have a schema called a Lexicon.Records …