Resources & Useful Links

ATProto and Bluesky

• Blue skies ahead. Social media's quiet user revolution

  Insightful analysis of the new social media landscape, mainly about the ATProto ecosystem, but also mentioning Mastodon and the Fediverse. A very good first read to understand the situation

• Bluesky's CEO on the future of social media

  SXSW talk with Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky PBC

• A world without Caesars: How the ATProto community is rebuilding the web to return power to the people

  An analysis of the the first ATProto community gathering

• At SXSW, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber pokes fun at Mark Zuckerberg with Latin phrase T-shirt

  The 'gossip' article about how Jay Graber sends a message to Zuckerberg with her t-shirt choice

• Bluesky's quest to build nontoxic social media

  Long read by The New Yorker about Jay Graber and Bluesky

• An internet of many autonomous communities

  The blog post of Rudy Fraser's Atmosphere Conference talk. Rudy Fraser is the creator of Blacksky, building ATProto infrastructure and community for Black people.

• Web Without Walls

  Dan Abramov explains the technical philosophy and building blocks of ATProto at a developer conference. It is also understandable for a non-technical audience and Dan is a great storyteller.

• A conceptual model of ATProto and ActivityPub

  A comparison between ATProto and ActivityPub and their basic assumptions. This website is also a great resource to keep up with both ATProto and Activitypub, especially if you subscribe to the newsletter

• My top Bluesky feature requests for 2024

  Interesting comparison between Bluesky and Mastodon from one of the most prolific LGBTQ voices in this ecosystem

• ATProto Ethos

  Basic principles and philosophy of the ATProtocol

• How to use Bluesky to grow your brand

  Some tips how to use Bluesky more from a marketing perspective

• The technical philosophy of ATProto explained easily

  Dan Abromov explains how the basic philosophy of the internet is open, but how the social layer we added to it became much more closed. With ATProto we try to shape a new technical base to open up the social web. Dan is very good at explaining more complex ideas in an understandable way

• Leaflet, Blogging, and How to Fix Social Media

  A longer text about how short posts on Bluesky can be combined with more long form blog texts on Leaflet and how all of this fits well together in the ATProto ecosystem.

Fediverse and Mastodon

• Resources for choosing instances

  Some tips on how to get started on the Fediverse and which server/instance to choose

• Starter Packs

  Starter packs for the Fediverse

• A New HOPE (2022): ActivityPub Four Years Later: The Good, the Bad, and the Fedi

  Talk on the basic principles of ActivityPub and the Fediverse

• Fork it! It's time for a Mastodon hard fork

  Jon voices their discontent about Mastodon's safety and proposes a split

• Why a hard-fork of Mastodon isn’t the way

  Emily disagrees with Jon and points out what kind of balance act it is to run an open source project

• Mastodon Exit Interview

  A critical article about Mastodon

Open Web and Internet Philosophy

• Free our Feeds

  A fundraising project to build a more democratic social media ecosystem

• The “De” In “Decentralization” Stands For “Democracy”

  Mike Masnick, one of the most interesting internet thinkers, talks about the decentralisation of technology as a democratic prerequisite

• A New Social

  An organisation that wants to liberate people's networks from their platforms. They build Bridgyfed, a tool to post on both Bluesky and the Fediverse

• Let's fund the open web

  Some ideas on how to fund social web projects

• Web5: The Next Generation of Decentralized Web

  Some theory about the decentralised web

• Rudy Fraser on community building, Blacksky, Mutual Aid & Reclaiming Social Media

  Rudy is the founder of Blacksky, a social media community of Black people, that was created on the ATProto protocol initiated by Bluesky. He talks about how he builds social media technology for his community to thrive and how a mutual aid philosophy and community building makes this work, also on a financial level.

• Social Media is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It.

  An article for non-technical people how social media evolved over the last 15 years and how ATProto is a promising new area to fix the things that feel broken.

• Social platforms are not neutral

  So they need to be interchangeable