Twitter publicly launched exactly 20 years ago today! ⏪ What was that moment really like? New_ Public’s @blaine.bsky.social was working frantically to keep it up and running as demand exploded during SXSW 😅

About 30 articles and counting on @eli.bsky.social & @angelquicksey.bsky.social’s crowd-sourced reading list on how AI is changing the way we interact with information & each other. If something you’ve read, listened to, or engaged with has helped you decipher this topic — it belongs on this list!

L. M. Sacasas is not letting us blindly stumble into this AI era without really learning hard lessons from the social media era. theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/your-ai-is...

New_ Public’s @blaine.bsky.social reveals to @rabble.nz how Twitter was almost decentralized — like Bluesky or Mastodon — way back in 2008. Nearly 20 years later, Blaine is now the Head Engineer of Roundabout, our local community app, where he's helping us create a better social media.

What if the hashtag never came to be? @blaine.bsky.social, one of the earliest architects of Twitter, explains why he told @chrismessina.me to stop pursuing hashtags. Full episode out now.

🌌 We’re excited to show you another great addition to the "growing constellation of interconnected apps" on the open web: Bonfire🔥 Bonfire helps build spaces for communities, outside of the Big Tech social platforms, that are shaped by the people who will use them, for exactly what they want.

oh hey it's me! wearing my most atmospheric shirt! talking about @leaflet.pub! thanks again to @newpublic.org for the honorable mention :)

“We need more spaces — physical, digital, institutional — where genuine deep listening can happen. Not consultations. Not focus groups. Not audience metrics. Real connection.” Shirish Kulkarni conducted in-depth community research in Wales exploring what people actually need from journalism.

“We're trying to make publishing more fun and more social!” 🎉🥬 Thank you, @schlage.town! One of our Honorable Mentions at the Open Social Awards, @leaflet.pub embodies the spirit of the open social web in the publishing space by allowing independent writers to really own and control their writing.

RESEARCH: Access to local news plays an important role in reducing loneliness. Whether it’s an community spotlight or an obituary, local news helps locals know what’s happening (and therefore, where to gather) and encourages a sense of community identity. From @washingtonmonthly.bsky.social

Not all communities are the same, and neither are their rules. Linguist and New_ Public’s Staff Researcher for Public Spaces Incubator Abby Bajuniemi shares her thoughts on Substack’s latest community moderation feature: Reply Rules newpublic.substack.com/i/203756028/...

“Never before in human history has power over the flow of information been so concentrated in the hands of a few American billionaires.” Hear from @iame.li, Founder and CEO of @stream.place. Streamplace is one of the Open Social Award’s Honorable Mentions open web projects 🏆 newpublic.org/OSA

Just in time for the 4th, New_ Public’s @joshpkramer.bsky.social reflects on how Roundabout, our local community app, fits into the proud American tradition of local clubs and groups.

A healthy democracy thrives on debate. We don’t want toxic and chaotic spaces, but sanitized, hyper-civil spaces aren’t the goal either. As @angelquicksey.bsky.social, Managing Director at New_ Public, says here, we benefit from respectful conversations with lots of friction, even arguments.

@dandelion.events is a fee-free AT Proto-powered ticketing platform run by a worker cooperative. They help community organizers and small organizations run events without locking that information in a single closed app. Dandelion is one of our Open Social Award Honorable Mentions!🏆newpublic.org/OSA

someone rescue the nice, safe nuclear family trapped in the video phone

As new media reshapes how we talk and where we gather, what should philanthropy organizations be prioritizing? Friend of New_ Public and social impact strategist Maxwell Zorick encourages us to “go where the grass is growing” even if it’s less familiar. mediainmotion.substack.com/p/media-in-m...

“We believe the heart of social networks are people — not platforms or protocols.” This is @quillmatiq.com from @anew.social, the non-profit behind Bounce. Bounce makes it easy for users to shift between the two biggest open social web protocols: AT Protocol and ActivityPub.

CEO of @theatlantic.com @nxthompson.bsky.social had our own @eli.bsky.social on his podcast “The Most Interesting Thing in AI” to talk about our “After The Feeds” deck. (Timestamped links below!) They covered a lot of ground, including but not limited to:

@angelquicksey.bsky.social, Managing Director at New_ Public, puts forward a vision for the future of social media where we don’t just have TikTok and X, but also bespoke, cultivated social apps tied to community needs and with higher “nutritional value”.

“AI can be engineered to be parasitic — or prosocial.” Watch New_ Public Co-Director @eli.bsky.social's speech at the Vatican about AI’s impact on human relationships. The panel includes Marijana Grbesa from @coe.int, Vineet Khosla @washingtonpost.com, and @kashhill.bsky.social @nytimes.com.

A great report from the Trust for Civic Life on how the best tech solutions are community-first, straight forward, and designed to bring people offline. trustforciviclife.org/wp-content/u...

There’s so much momentum in the open social web and ways to gather with the builders and dreamers actively pursuing alternatives to Big Tech social media. If you can, check out DWeb Camp in Berlin (July 8-12)!

This is Tyler Fischer, the solo builder behind Sill, Excellence Award Winner of the #OpenSocialAwards 🏆 We really do use Sill everyday for finding widely-shared links from Bluesky and Mastodon. It’s an incredibly useful tool that defies the algorithms, ads, and feeds of traditional social media.

It’s Tiny Award season! ⭐🏆 Celebrate the spirit of the Indie Web by nominating hand-crafted websites to this year’s awards and perusing some of the previous winners. tinyawards.net

Media thinker @werd.io is right on the money: you can’t just build tech tools solely off of ideals — they have to be actually useful! “We need to build tools that are practically better for people today, based on people’s actual needs.”

@masnick.com, considers the AI age and the future of the internet, finding solutions in the burgeoning open social web: “Do we let the next generation of tools get built around chokepoints, or do we insist on architecture that distributes power instead of concentrating it?”

Social media platforms tend to ban and severely punish rule breakers. But research shows that oftentimes people don’t know the rules or need a reminder that a real person is reading their words. We’re trying something different on Roundabout, our local community app: prosocial pre-moderation tools.

Here’s @rude1.blacksky.team, Founder and CEO of @blackskyweb.xyz and Excellence Award Winner of the #OpenSocialAwards. Blacksky is a beacon of choice, community, and agency in a bleak social media landscape. They’re building the tools they need and sharing them with everyone.

@angelquicksey.bsky.social, Managing Director at New_ Public, explores how to build a technological future where people and communities thrive on @charleyjohnson.bsky.social's podcast Untangled — here are our favorite time stamps:

Loved this!!!! ✨✨✨✨

@angelquicksey.bsky.social, Managing Director at New_ Public, on why the useful, alternative social apps and websites on the open web need to be celebrated 🎉

AI is changing the internet. Not soon. Now. @maxtani.bsky.social: When do you think my morning routine will look substantially different? @eli.bsky.social: Even in a year there will be substantial parts of this that we will be starting to rely on.

hard to be too pissed off that your team choked in the finals when you spot your @newpublic.org teammate playing drums in an impromptu party in the streets

@angelquicksey.bsky.social, Managing Director at New_ Public, finds inspiration in @ericries.bsky.social's new book Incorruptible: can we push these AI companies in a more public-spirited, prosocial direction and away from the gravitational pull of extractive business models?

New_ Public Co-Director @eli.bsky.social: "I wanna see people holding that vision of what a good future can be like, and moving towards it" www.instagram.com/p/DZdIguNO9pS/

We had so many amazing applicants to the #OpenSocialAwards that the jury asked that we acknowledge some of the amazing honorable mentions. First up: @stream.place brings a familiar Twitch/YouTube-style video experience to the open social web.

Last week was crazy! We travelled to Amsterdam for the @publicspaces.net conference. There, we met with an amazing group of people and, if you didn't hear, we won the Grand Prize at the inaugural Open Social Awards 🏆️ ✨️

Google’s AI integration, combined with a growing desire to get off of US-based Big Tech platforms, might be the final straw for folks who have used Google Search for decades.

This is Saskia Welch, Head of Community for @newsmastfoundation.org, Grand Prize Winner of the #OpenSocialAwards! 🏆 Newsmast proves the open social web is for everyone. They make it easy for mission-driven groups throughout the world to build and maintain bespoke online spaces on their own terms.

I need to write more about this, but one of the core benefits of atproto is that it (dramatically) lowers the cost of coordination, both in divergence and convergence.

The open social web is vibrant, dynamic, and full of amazing apps and websites! At the PublicSpaces Conference in Amsterdam, we just gave out the #OpenSocialAwards. We’re excited to introduce you to these impressive, inventive winners. 🧵

Such a big deal. I was excited to be in the room - and what @newsmastfoundation.org, @blackskyweb.xyz, and @sill.social are doing really matters. These are all projects that solve real problems for real communities, aligned to the values of the open social web. Congratulations to all.

It is 1:15 am here in the Netherlands, and I am tired but grateful. Plenty more to say in the coming days, but I’m so honored by the Excellence Award from the #OpenSocialAwards by @newpublic.org and @publicspaces.net

Honored to be recognized with an Honorable Mention at the New_ Public Open Social Awards! #OpenSocialAwards Huge congrats to the winners & other honorees!

Newsmast is doing incredible work! Learn more here: newsmastfoundation.org We'll have more about them and all of the Open Social Awards winners next week.

We're the Grand Prize Winners at the inaugural #OpenSocialAwards 🥳🍾🥂 @newpublic.org @publicspaces.net

🏆 Congratulations to @newsmastfoundation.org, @sill.social, and @blackskyweb.xyz, the winners of the first ever Open Social Awards! 👏👏👏 New_ Public, @publicspaces.net, and @waag.org are proud to award them in recognition of their excellence and innovation on the open social web. newpublic.org/OSA

#OpenSocialAwards are starting now! conference.publicspaces.net/live/1