Relevant Overviews
Overview: Bluesky and the ATmosphere
The ATmosphere is the information ecosystem based on ATproto, the protocol developed by and for Bluesky. More interconnected apps are emerging. The potential for better online conversations is profound... if adequate revenue streams can be confirmed.
(last edit: February 2025)
Just as Mastodon is on the Fediverse, an information ecosystem where it and other apps can interact using the ActivityPub protocol, the Bluesky protocol (ATproto) underpins the ATmosphere ecosystem. In 2025, I'm betting that this is the most promising ground for #AI4communities.
Origins: Bluesky
ATproto was originally going to underpin Twitter before Elon Musk bought it. Moreover, when the Bluesky team then spun off from Twitter, they decided to keep many things unchanged, making the transition easier for people fleeing X.
The result looked and felt so similar that many people didn't spot how the open, permissionless nature of this new environment set Bluesky apart. Some key Bluesky features include:
- Custom feeds, each a subset of the Bluesky firehose, tuned to a particular community's interests and moderation preferences, created by anyone using a variety of 3rd party tools (see Bluesky custom feeds) and usable by anyone by simply pinning the feed to their interface
- Labellers apply labels to accounts - like custom feeds, anyone can create one, using a variety of tools, and anyone can subscribe to them if they want to see the label
- Block/mute lists are a sort of labeller: subscribe to one and you'll never see content from anyone on the list in your timeline
- Starter packs package a list of up to 150 people and (optionally) custom feeds relevant to a particular topic, and provide a feed of the people's posts.
- 3rd party apps: you don't need to use the official Bluesky app - there are many others, and because the ATmosphere is permissionless they won't go the way of Tweetdeck.
Enter the ATmosphere
The ATmophere is a permissionless ecosystem - anyone can build anything they like, and can access the Bluesky feed, without having to get Bluesky Social PBC's permission.
So, like Mastodon, Bluesky is not the only kid on its protocol block: in mid-2024 the Whitewind blogging platform launched, and within a few months a plethora of other apps were in beta, including Instagram- & TikTok lookalikes (all tools tagged #atproto and #tool).
Is it decentralised?
Yes, but not as decentralised as Fediverse. The key arguments in this once-fractious debate were both articulated and calmed by two protocol engineers: Christine Lemmer-Webber (ActivityPub co-author) and Bryan Newbold of Bluesky, who exchanged three enormous blog posts. After reading, annotating and generally struggling through all three (and more), I came out with a few conclusions (paraphrased from my newsletter from December 2024 and January 2025):
- There are different degrees of decentralisation, and different ways to get there. A comparison between the relatively mature Fediverse and Bluesky, with its brand-new protocol, is therefore tricky, particularly as Bluesky is focusing first and foremost on providing an X-like experience as possible for everyone fleeing X, which required certain choices to be made.
- There are too many blog posts, not enough wikis - someone should lock these two in a room somewhere until they come up with a text they both agree on
- I hope this protocol competition will evolve until the two spaces complement each other, as:
- ATProto's shared-heap model structurally favours few servers, "and thus has a natural centralizing force"
- ActivityPub has an incentive to keep the average followers/user low.
- the Fediverse will therefore probably remain a good place for cozyweb spaces, and co-exist with more global conversations on the more centralised and business-like ATmosphere.
- The world needs both.
What does the ATmosphere represent?
I first saw this when I published my December newsletter, and an extract from it as a stand-alone post, on Whitewind (see everything I Do or Think tagged #Whitewind).
When you sign up to blog on Whitewind, you use your Bluesky ID, and your blog posts live in your Bluesky Personal Data Store. So it's your content, and if Whitewind disappears, you can take it with you to another provider (or build your own), and all of your links keep working. Whitewind doesn't own you. You own you.
Moreover, there's "seamless comments integration with BlueSky: a comment posted to the blog is shared on the commenter's Bluesky account, and whenever someone shares the post on Bluesky it also appears under the post" - Thinking transparently in the ATmosphere.
The code for that integration is freely available, so this has massive implications for website-based communities, among other things.
One of those other things is #ai4communities, which was originally more Fediverse-oriented when I first started articulating it in January 2023. In 2024 I began revisiting it on my experimental wiki with a "technology-agnostic" post accompanied by sub-pages exploring how it would look on the Fediverse, the ATmosphere and (tbd) Nostr. The exercise convinced me that the ATmosphere is most promising, which is why it's been the focus of recent newsletters.
Relevant resources
acorn.blacksky.community
The feeds you want, the moderation your community needs, and the people you trust — all under your brand.
oxa.dev
The Continuous/Modular science pioneers have "taken the first step toward bringing scientific documents onto" the Atmosphere: "OXA now defines an AT Protocol lexicon ... This post introduces the lexicon, explains the design decisions behind it, and describes where we’re headed"It starts by pointing out that although atproto was developed for socia…
blog.stream.place
"ATmosphereConf 2026 was recorded live on Streamplace. All talks are now available as VODs ... But there's no frontend yet. That's where you come in." - and the competition is on!The basic idea here is specific to video but can be applied anywhere: "Solving video for everybody forever means: many apps, many websites, thousands of unique experience…
www.jamesrball.com
The author posted something that led to some controversy... "The subject that had proved so contentious? Bluesky’s user numbers." So here he provides "an attempt to get some more concrete numbers to look at", as well as some nuance. Some key points:"In the first few days of April 2026, average daily posters had fallen to the level of September 202…
atmosphereaccount.com
"One account for all your apps. Yours to keep, wherever you go." - a 1page explainer of what an atprotocol DID* is.* we seem to have settled on "Atmosphere account"
jasonbutterfield.ca
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 …
mathewlowry.leaflet.pub
If you had asked me a year ago, I would have told you that the ATProtocol was the future of social media. If you'd asked me at the end of last year, I would have told you that it was the future of the web, as well. Today I think it could be bigger even than that.
experiments.myhub.ai
"My personal path through AtmosphereConf 2026 was all about making the web social; streams, gardens and communities; and science, AI & news. Welcome to the linkfest"
experiments.myhub.ai
As my ATScience workshop in Vancouver wasn't streamed, I thought I'd throw together a quick video and publish some first thoughts and supporting notes, just to get a record of the content online before I turn to the rest of what was probably the best conference I've ever attended.
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social media,
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masnick.com
Echoing (unconsciously!) my thoughts of a year ago, Mike Masnick's recap opens with "It really does feel like the early days of the web... “we can just build things” is real... opening up a wonderful level of creativity... SO MUCH NEW STUFF".Apart from the general celebration;while the Atmosphere is not just Bluesky, the ecosystem is unbalanced: …
toni.org
According to Bluesky Social's new CEO, "what struck me most about this one was the wide range of projects" - not just social apps, but also "wildfire coordination tools for the US fire service, decentralized AI and biomedical knowledge networks, and creating shared infrastructure to connect astronomy observatories".He was also a youandme.at enjoy…
tynanistyping.offprint.app
Tynan Purdy's Atmosphereconf recap is also a quite moving account of someone finding his people: "In less than a year, I went from some rando ... to a community organizer, founding contributor at @ecosystemaction.com, and speaker at the ATmosphere Conference. I have relationships with not just the biggest names in the atproto space, but in interne…
protocolized.summerofprotocols.com
Instead of depending on "large proprietary vendors" or building your own, "Open protocols offer a third path. Infrastructure that no single actor owns, that evolves through distributed processes... can be implemented by anyone with the technical capacity... allow governments to reduce dependency on individual vendors without cutting themselves of…
knightfoundation.org
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 "…
atscience.leaflet.pub
My atproto.science workshop in Vancouver, end March, will involve founders of three of the most important apps on the Atmosphere (Leaflet for longform publishing, Semble for curation, Sill for knowledge discovery via social graph), as well as some newcomers to be unveiled on the day (Skysquare).We'll meet to unpack, discuss, tear apart and rebuild…
dholms.leaflet.pub
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…
habitat.leaflet.pub
One of a series from Habitat Network, who are "building a privacy-first platform, we're thinking about permissioned data... building pear: a permission-enforcing ATProtocol repository, tied to your ATProtocol identity through a service".Their first toy-demo is Greensky. Building it raised a lot of interesting questions around UX/design, , elucida…
eurosky.leaflet.pub
Eurosky sets out their vision (not before time).A Eurosky account is "a personal account for the web. Most people use it today as an entry point to Bluesky, but it's much bigger ... it could become people's main online identity... because the AT Protocol... has the potential to reshape the whole web", particularly with the upcoming appearance of …
baldemoto.leaflet.pub
"We guarantee that users aren’t subject to platforms. Yet communities are still subject to their stewards. Can we fix this?" asks this brilliant 4-part series, which I'm Hubbing in one post as I await part 4.Part 1 basically sets out the problem: today's online communities resemble platforms, in that the community's stewards (OCMs) determine every…
whtwnd.com
I first met "Agora — a platform for public deliberation using Polis-style clustering" a year or so ago. Now they're moving to ATprotocol and "proposing the Decentralized Deliberation Standard (DDS) as an open protocol for deliberation, built on AT Protocol". This post goes through their history, which started by investigating how to "use zero-know…
experiments.myhub.ai
Integrating ATProtocol with your website:lets you build powerful, interactive online communities with very simple code; while giving you in-built reach to 40+m users across the Atmosphere; and allowing your members to own and manage their own data.
experiments.myhub.ai
Integrating your event co-creation community with the Atmosphere brings you increased engagement and improved reach with a substantially simpler website.
greengale.app
"GreenGale is a blogging platform built on AT Protocol:uses Markdown formatting ... WhiteWind compatible... read and write WhiteWind content from GreenGale, and WhiteWind and GreenGale posts are both featured in the feeds and on user profiles...Standard Site is optional ... for cross-platform discoverability... per-account as well as per-post... c…
www.pfrazee.com
Paul Frazee clearing up confusion surrounding Atproto, ActivityPub and Nostr. The latter two "are good examples of "federated hosts" and "magical meshes," ... Atproto draws inspiration ... but it works like neither".Firstly, though, let's not put the cart before the horse: "The point of decentralization is to guarantee the rights of individuals an…
ngerakines.leaflet.pub
"ATProtocol already supports... Permissioned data ... a love triangle between the user, the identities they grant permissions to, and the applications [which] view controlled data".Nick Gerakines first briefly summarises a previous post setting out how to build permissioned data into atprotocol: adding an optional service field pointing to "a serv…
www.pfrazee.com
Good explanation from one of Bluesky's engineers about one of the choices they made - to use markdown or to use something called richtext facets?He first sets out the problems with markdown before explaining how rich text facets work:{ text: "Hello @bob.com", facets: [ {feature: "mention", index: {start: 6, end: 14}} ] } "If there's a facet-ty…
isaaccorbrey.com
Another developer reflects on integrating his site with standard.site, finding that Sequoia "handles the core use case reasonably well, but it doesn’t ... support ... multiple publications on a single site", whereas he wants publications for notes (articles and writing), projects (long-lived project writeups) & ramblings.Another issue is that "sit…
experiments.myhub.ai
In case you're not following the development of the Atmosphere yet, I thought I'd share the snowballing energy I see every morning when I open Bluesky’s For You feed.
mosh.leaflet.pub
"the most enduring social networks ... [are] the ones that empower organizers... coaches, teachers, volunteer coordinators, union stewards, event planners, health workers, running club hosts, activist organizers, and owners of community-based businesses ... making decisions on behalf of a group ... turn a collection of individuals into a functi…
blog.joebasser.com
Joe Basser, Spark founder, is also one of the best explainers on the Atmosphere.Building on his previous post, which explains that "When users can leave without losing [everything]... platforms lose the ability to quietly tighten the screws forever", Basser explores what happens as a result: "What does social media look like when anti-enshittifica…
Like
algorithm,
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bluesky custom feeds,
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joe basser,
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