Really interesting things afoot in social media.

Really interesting things afoot in social media. It seems like "W", a newly announced "European alternative to X" is actually a fork of the Bluesky code, and is, at least for now, kind of part of the Bluesky AT Proto network. (Thanks to @quillmatiq for the explainer.)

And, apparently #Bluesky board member @mmasnick really doesn't like the idea.

It will be fascinating to see how this develops.

W for ATProto

W is a new platform recently announced, aspiring to be a European alternative to X. It may actually be powered by ATProto, based on leaked screenshots. This is a win for ATProto

ATProtocol Dev (atprotocol.dev)

@mastodonmigration @quillmatiq @mmasnick And there was I, hoping this was a half–joke that would go away.

RE: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren/115936504290083253

@mastodonmigration @quillmatiq @mmasnick “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

@mastodonmigration @quillmatiq @mmasnick Mike always talks about decentralized social media but BlueSky and AT protocol haven't really moved the needle. Meanwhile in the fediverse there's Mastodon, Loops, Pixelfed, Lemmy, Miskey, etc, etc, etc...

@mike This is untrue. There are a number of independent apps across various verticals. Blogging: leaflet, pckt, offprint; Streaming: stream.place; Short-form video: spark; Git: tangled; and so many more, and none of them are directly dependent on Bluesky whatsoever.

This doesn't even count the microblogging competitors coming up that are full-stack independent of Bsky as well (Blacksky, Northsky, Gander, Eurosky etc.)

@mastodonmigration @mmasnick

@quillmatiq @mike @mmasnick

Feel like whenever this discussion is joined people start talking past each other.

It may be the case that the ATmosphere can be decentralized. And there may be small scale projects which test this potentiality. But the fact remains that it remains highly centralized.

Rob Ricci @ricci has developed a metric to address this matter

Are We Decentralized Yet?

A site with statistics regarding how concentrated user data is on various web services

(arewedecentralizedyet.online)

The purpose is not to dump on #Bluesky, but rather to establish meaningful context for these discussions.

@quillmatiq @mastodonmigration @mmasnick Can they post to each other?

@mastodonmigration I was specifically calling out not moving the needle, which the community (and Bluesky for that matter) most definitely is. There are far more fully independent apps and infra in the ATmosphere than folks here give credit for.

I'm not getting into the normal "decentralization" conversation because, yes, we'll talk past each other, and it's difficult to have a meaningful discussion about it here.

@mike @mmasnick @ricci

@mike @mastodonmigration @mmasnick @quillmatiq this is partially true: yes, there are tons of cool atproto apps, and I'd say they span a wider range of things than are on the fediverse.

On the other hand, not all the things you mention as full stack are actually full stack, or even operational. They are also pretty small, so far. If you want to see how large some of these alternatives are, you can check out the "raw data" link under the Atmosphere on https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/

@mike Yes. There's standard.site that's being worked on across the blogging platforms I mentioned, and there's lexicon.community, which is an independent board that helps simpler interop happen.

Apps can also interop with the permission of the user by using the data in their PDS. For instance, blento.app uses a user's data across apps to build a webpage of all your ATProto content, and they didn't have to work with any of the apps directly to make that happen.

@mastodonmigration @mmasnick

@ricci the only one I mentioned that isn't fully operational is Offprint, but even that had it's first blog launch this week.

Why would you say they're not full stack?

@mike @mastodonmigration @mmasnick

@quillmatiq @mike @mmasnick @ricci

Understand that there are a lot of interesting and creative things going on with AT Proto.

The reason for referencing Rob's AWDY metric is to help with convos like the one between you and Mike. That is, he states it is not meaningfully decentralized and you reply with a list of apps and projects. He's talking about ground truth and you are addressing technological potential.

Perhaps decentralizable and decentralized, although that let's a lot of pushback.

@mike @mastodonmigration @mmasnick @quillmatiq eurosky isn't running anything at all so far, not even a PDS so far as I can tell. Northsky runs a PDS, but uses Bluesky's relay and appview. I don't know about the others, except to say that they don't show up in the largest PDS lists.

Blacksky is the only one that's credibly full stack, and they opened beta access to their appview literally days ago.

There is a lot of buzz, and there is real stuff behind it, but it's also important to look at actual status and track it over time

@ricci oh! I specifically said "coming up" for that reason. My bad for the misunderstanding of your earlier reply.

@mike @mastodonmigration @mmasnick

@quillmatiq @mike @mmasnick @ricci

So, while you are all here perhaps we should mention the issue of whether AT Proto is in fact really even "decentralizable".

The issue has been raised by @cwebber as to how the network scales geometrically as it goes wide. Have not seen anyone refute this.

Re: Re: Bluesky and Decentralization -- Dustycloud Brainstorms

(dustycloud.org)

This would render any real efforts to broadly decentralize effectively impossible. Have not seen anyone address this analysis.

Anyone?

@mike @quillmatiq @mmasnick hey Mike Fraser you were in the audience when I gave this talk at #Fedicon weren’t you?

Beyond Microblogging: AT Protocol for Building Unique Social Apps

I gave this presentation at [[Fedicon]] 2025 in Vancouver.My goal was not to do a protocol deep dive, but rather showcase all of the beyond microblogging app...

Boris Mann's Homepage (bmannconsulting.com)

It has a list of some of the many projects in the ATProto ecosystem

Please don’t erase the #ATProto community. We’re on the same side.

@mastodonmigration @quillmatiq @mmasnick Which raises questions.

If this network is profiling with photo verification etc for all users , will it allow people to connect with other parts of Bluesky, where there are bots or unverified accounts? If so, the purpose is lost. However, if it remains closed to other parts of bluesky, it will most likely be isolated. I don’t think this will take off either way .

@quillmatiq @mastodonmigration @mmasnick @ricci My original comment was more about moving the needle in terms federated decentralized applications. No one Denies there's activity in the Atmosphere but does it fulfill the promise of independent but federated social media. In my mind it hasn't reached that high water mark.

@quillmatiq @mike @mmasnick @mastodonmigration by the way, I posted the Atmosphere equivalent of this map over on Bluesky, or you can load the map and play around, it's interactive and lets you select between the social networks and apply other filters

Rob Ricci (@ricci.io)

Launching their new social network, W, the EU posted a map of where other social networks are hosted. It showed nothing in Europe. But their map is wrong. Here's what Bluesky and the broader Atmosphere actually look like arewedecentralizedyet.online/map/?source=at

Bluesky Social (bsky.app)

@quillmatiq @mastodonmigration @mmasnick So interop is being worked on through third parties? There's different interop for different applications?