Apparently a lot of people who would like to appear on Techmeme still don't know about Techmeme's tip forms, or our embargo process, etc. so I wrote this up to spell everything out!

Weird to see left-wing/progressive people here posting in support of media using images of blocks of text lifted from news articles without any link or attribution. It's like they're content transplanting the media-hostile norms of Elon's Twitter to this site.

I’m launching Sources, a new publication about the tech industry’s inside conversation, and Access, a tech interview podcast with my friend @hamburger.bsky.social. The first issue of Sources drops tomorrow, featuring an interview with Mark Zuckerberg, which airs in full on Access this Thursday.

So I wrote a thing on the occasion of @techmeme.com's 20th birthday, and I couldn't help but drag Bluesky into it (don't dogpile me please). news.techmeme.com/250912/20-ye...

Lyra McKee RIP honoured in Washington for her Journalism LGBTQ + Journalists Hall of Fame www.nlgja.org/blog/2025/09...

Ok, mainly for fun, I added hidden text that only appears when you copy and paste from www.techmeme.com/jobs Try pasting question #3 into ChatGPT and see what happens! This should make it very easy to tell when people hastily use AI to complete the application. 🤭

Funny-but-sad situation involving AI and hiring: we revamped our application questions here techmeme.com/jobs to make them more "AI-proof". So if your answers came from ChatGPT, it's typically easy for us to tell. The sad part is over half the applicants get "no thanks" in part because of this and…

And BTW, it's fine to submit posts from yourself or colleagues. And it's also fine to submit posts from others. You'll even get an email if/when the post hits Techmeme!

As many of you know, Bluesky posts routinely appear on Techmeme. We source them a number of ways... Now there's a new way: *you* can add posts from our desktop homepage! Look for the button in the image below. Our editors need to approve your submission, but will for anything they deem value-add.

A little weird when a serious news pub uses a comically unflattering image of someone in a story. But no, not gonna say who, because on second thought, I believe all people are equally beautiful at all times, unlike you, jerk.

Fun read on the hidden role of these chats, even if the prevailing ideas emerging from them still ended up posted in public by the participants...and even though Trump's election mainly hinged on factors like inflation and not who rich tech guys publicly supported.

It's somehow been six years since the murder of Lyra McKee. She'd be in her mid-30s now--which seems impossibly old--and lapping the journalism field. newyorker.com/news/postscript/the-incredible-life-and-tragic-death-of-lyra-mckee

This account excerpts and links to tweets (i.e. X posts) linked to from Techmeme's homepage. ‣ Follow if that sounds useful to you ‣ Do not follow if that sounds awful to you 😀 ‣ For *Bluesky* posts on Techmeme, follow @chatter.techmeme.com ‣ For the main Techmeme headlines, follow @techmeme.com

Thinking of setting up an X-specific Techmeme Chatter account here. So every tweet linked to from Techmeme would get a Bluesky post. Obviously many people here don't wanna see those links, so it would be separate from @chatter.techmeme.com, (which quotes the Bluesky posts Techmeme links to.)

I am thrilled to announce the launch of my new tech media brand, Upstarts Media 🎉 Upstarts will focus on the startup ecosystem, from inception through IPO 📈 We launch a twice-weekly Upstarts newsletter next week. Video, podcast, and events to follow! Read more: open.substack.com/pub/upstarts...

There are still eyebrow-raising realignments to discover if you scroll around long enough... (link: x.com/nicknotned/s... )

Remembering Kevin Drum talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/remem...

Yesterday it became public that a bunch of my colleagues on the WSJ tech team were let go in a reorg. I want to emphasize that these are *fantastically* talented, smart, deeply sourced reporters. Anyone scooping up talent right now, I'm happy to make an intro: talkingbiznews.com/media-news/h...

🚨 We're hiring a fully-remote part-time editor, and the role is open to anyone anywhere with any level of job experience. Could that be you? techmeme.com/jobs

LOL, lotta notable people having their Twitter accounts hijacked trying to appear in TechCrunch....bullish sign for TechCrunch I guess. Context: x.com/search?q=cal... x.com/GaryMarcus/s...

📣Techmeme is hiring another part-time editor…for the first time in years: techmeme.com/jobs It's a small role for now, just a few hours per week, but may expand. Our immediate need is someone who can work around this time of day (~5pm Pacific), though we may soon need to staff for other hours too.

ok which venture firm will be ~based~ enough to commit to opening an office in Gaza City, USA?

30M users is nice but the brighter spot for Bluesky is that daily activity, even ignoring the spikes, has basically been climbing since last fall. This follows mostly flat activity for much of 2024. So there's finally a real growth flywheel, at least for now. (chart via bsky.jazco.dev/stats)

DeepSeek news take you by surprise? Here's a @techmeme.com post from last June which might have mitigated some of that surprise!

I suppose all reporters are political corruption reporters now

if planet earth could read today's news

A lotta people are unhappy with aspects of the TikTok situation, but at least we have a debate where a lot of folks coming to different conclusions still have reasoned positions, seem to believe what they say, and are taking stands contrary to others in their party.

Polish what now? Excuse me, Gemini?

Hire Matt!

So Techmeme Chatter is back and quoting Bluesky posts now. But... We could expand it to embed other kinds of posts, e.g. Mastodon or Threads. Thoughts? X posts don't embed nicely here so we might skip those for now (thus avoiding reminders about what some here refer to as the "bad place" 🙃 )

Yeah, we used to just retweet the tweet for Twitter's TechmemeChatter: x.com/TechmemeChat... There are some advantages to that. But the disadvantage is readers often want the full context (the original headline, and to see other reactions). So including the permalink above the post helps with that.

It's hard not to be cynical after Americans showed they're not very concerned about what happened four years today. 💔

Also 4. during big news moments (earthquake etc.), occasionally you want to see what the currently-posting subset of 8k people have to say. So.... probably fine to make huge following counts one of several signals in deciding spam-labelling, @why.bsky.team, but counter-signals outta be factored in!

Relentlessly posting half-truths and hyperbole (while avoiding outright lies) has long been a cheat code for a certain ilk of journalist to achieve fame... incommensurate with their reporting. Fortunately, we've been seeing the limits of this approach play out recently.

Bluesky appears to depend on Twitter-defection waves to grow, at least to date. What will trigger the next big wave? Nation-level bans? US deportations? Other Trump chaos? (chart via bsky.jazco.dev/stats )

[listening to a podcast guest casually spouting off a lot of interesting ideas] wow, this person might be a genius! [listening to clips of the same person on a different podcast a week later] wow, this person sure has their talking points memorized!

As a NYC resident, if I were a single issue voter, it would be how mumbly and inaudible the service announcements are on the subway. Somehow this makes more more angry than just about anything. (For my wife, the issue is rats.)

Feeling uneasy about Syria's future, but glad people there are hopeful. Nobody deserved Bashar al-Assad.

Alright comrades, add this wet blanket to The List

People really are mistaking trends in their For You feeds or group chats for a massive political shift, like we already forgot about what happened on November 5.

good news for bluesky: skeets are commonly shared on x now bad news(?) for bluesky: the skeets are shared for being rather unhinged

(it's not you, the posters really are are losing their mind, both here and there 🙃, just go watch tv or something)

if (profile pic identical to existing user AND name identical to same existing user) { automatically flag as potential imposter; } (not a general solution but maybe a nice band-aid?) (i am very intelligent)

Stats update: techmeme.com linked to 753 Bluesky posts in November, almost a 5X increase from October, when we linked to 152 Bluesky posts.

The Verge plans to launch a $7/month or $50/year sitewide paywall on Tuesday; some content and the publication's social feed-like homepage will remain free (Ben Smith/Semafor) Main Link | Mediagazer Permalink

Tip: to get your Bluesky posts to appear underneath news stories on Techmeme, quote post the corresponding @techmeme.com post with good commentary. If it's deemed a value-add, it will be added! And to add other kinds of posts (e.g. posts from your blog) use this form: techmeme.com/tip

I get why AI image generators need guardrails, but for providing joke fodder in my group chats, I would really love a simple way to produce high-quality offensive / defamatory / infringing images. Suggestions?

This network, for good reason, has a reputation for widespread mass-blocking in pursuit of ideological purity. But with so many new arrivals, I'm assuming that perception is kinda overblown? Blocks are public, right? Curious: what % of users who've followed > 20 people have also blocked > 1 person?