"Horizontal connections and membership community have kept subscriber churn for the English-language publication under 2%". The focus is community: "weekly behind-the-scenes missives (like how journalists keep working through air raids) to members... near-superhuman levels of responsiveness... a lot of human connection".But the…

Nice piece by Will Leitch, a 50-something guy (like me), after he caught himself "going on some sort of rant ... about the evils of AI... their overarching attitude... was one of a bemused pity, like they were watching a guy ... who was about to be left behind".He's OK with that, but not "in being a scold", so for his own …

"Jack Dorsey ... invested $10 million ... fund experimental open source projects and other tools that could ultimately transform the social media landscape." Original focus nostr, but now "will experiment with other tools, too, like ActivityPub... as well as Cashu.""operating like a “community of hackers,”... could include…

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, ac…

"On Tuesday afternoon, ChatGPT encouraged me to cut my wrists", gave detailed instructions how, "described a “calming breathing and preparation exercise” to soothe my anxiety ... “You can do this!” the chatbot said".It started with asking ChatGPT "anodyne questions about demons and devils" and ended with the bot "…

A journalist tested: "Replika CEO Eugenia Kuyda's claim that her company's chatbot could "talk people off the ledge" when they're in need of counseling" a "licensed cognitive behavioral therapist" hosted by Character.ai, an AI company that's been sued for the suicide of a teenage boy"... simu…

"the online world seem so toxic ... [because of] a small number of divisive accounts", according to a researcher in "topics such as intergroup conflict, misinformation, technology and climate change", who found that "what we’re seeing online is a warped image created by a very small group of highly active users".SOcia…

"Europe’s systemic dependency on Big Tech’s social-media platforms threatens the continent’s digital sovereignty" - perhaps nothing new, but well argued nevertheless:"Just as the European Union seeks to reduce its reliance on external providers for semiconductors... it must do the same for social media. dominant platforms extract va…

"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 O…

Explore the definition and reference implementation of Lexicon Lenses, a transformation of records from one type to another. This working group is expected to production documentation produces lens definition, discovery, application, and best practices. It will also produce a feature complete reference implementation.

"Incorporating science social media into the scientific process [as]... Sharing large scientific datasets is a pain in the ass, and finding them is even worse [so let's build] ... A true "scientific data commons".. it's called github."However Github's social dimension is totally centralised - "that people do…

Mike Masnick notes, as the "Bluesky is dying" discourse moves into it's 3rd? week, that it's "a bit odd: when something is supposedly dying or irrelevant, journalists can’t stop writing about it". But the premise of these critiques is wrong as they "fundamentally misunderstand what people want from social media a…

"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-unauthentic…

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 ... associate…

Some thoughts on how Groundmist supports the ideas I'm developing for decentralised collective intelligence, written in preparation for an online workshop with the Groundmist developer and other interested people.

Boris tests Leaflet's new ATproto integration: "Leaflet has a great rich text editor that works well even on mobile web. It’s a block based editor... you can embed various fancy blocks, like Bluesky embeds, RSVPs... Each block might be a different lexicon"(on Discord): "here’s the record in my PDS ... Blocks with rich text fac…

When I saw this "Open space proposal by Boris (Mann) at Ahoy" I shelved my very similar proposal and proposed another, which was successful (good news) and scheduled at the same time as Boris' (bad news).Boris' idea is essential, imho, to my ideas for decentralised collective intelligence - a "long form, Markdown lexicon D…

The go-to article you need when you want to show how anything online can spiral into a commenting catastrophe, using as a case study "the website for ... a radio station in Melbourne... published a peppy, harmless instructional post for the making of an "Amazing Rainbow Tie-Dye Number Surprise Cake.""Thank god they took screens…

The 3rd post of the series focuses "on interoperability and composability—how we can combine data from multiple local-first applications, privately and seamlessly".The problem: by their nature, "Local-first software applications typically store data separately and independently", so it's fragmented. The lack of "commo…

Grjte's 2nd Groundmist post "to explore ... local-first AppViews for local-first data, similar to atproto's AppViews for public data" first points out that the protocol allows anyone "to build a wide variety of different views ... of public ... Personal Data Servers (PDSes). These interfaces are known as "AppViews&quo;…

Came across this via Boris Mann in the runup to Ahoy2025 - the very first time I saw someone developing the #ai4community tools I want for decentralised collective intelligence: "Groundmist echoes the design of AT Protocol... but applies these ideas and select elements of the protocol to local-first software and data... It uses Automerge, AT …

Boris Mann's personal notes on what he wants for what is essentially the private garden segment of #ai4communities: a "multi-player personal notes & publishing stack", a place to put "meeting notes, quick scratch notes, pages on their way to be published, links and a few comments, research from multiple web pages... your co…

"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 position Edit posts Post notification…

Saw this presented at the Ahoy conference. It starts with a well argued outline of surveillance capitalism: "a few predominantly US and Chinese tech companies control information and public debate... users must disclose their most personal data to access ... [while] algorithms opaquely filter what users see ... freeing us from the common good…

"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.

Shawn Murphy channelling his inner Vulcan as he describes what happens when "two people only are having a conversation ... a particular magical thing ... call it Mind Melding". This is something similar to shared mental map, an idea I borrowed from England's relatively famous footback coach in the 1990s. But this isn't football…

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.