notes: Laurens Hof

Last Month in Bluesky – Februari 2024 Welcome to the overview of all the news that has happened in the ATmosphere for February 2024. For those who don’t know me; I’m Laurens, and I write weekly updates about what happened in the fediverse. Last year I also started writing monthly updates summarising the news for Bluesky (here, here and here). I had to skip a few months due to time restrictions, but now I’m back with regular updates on Bluesky and the ATmosphere. The main stories of this month is Bluesky dropping the invite code requirement, opening up the network for federation, and Bluesky’s appeal in Japan.Bluesky opens up the ATmosphere Bluesky has opened up the network for federation, allowing people to host their own data. This means that now anyone can set up their own Personal Data Server (PDS) and connect to the main network. Bluesky frames the opening of the network in the context of website hosting, making a direct comparison between how anyone can host a website on the internet. By hosting a website, you are in control of your data, and move to a different hosting provider without any noticeable change for the visitors. Bluesky says that they “think social media should work the same way”; by hosting your own PDS you are in control of your own data, able to move to a different host, without your followers noticing anything. The update Bluesky released this week is an early version, which changes coming later, with Bluesky saying: The version of federation that we’re releasing today is intended for self-hosters. There are some guardrails in place to ensure we can keep the network running smoothly for everyone in the ecosystem. After this initial phase, we’ll open up federation to people looking to run larger servers with many users. For a more technical overview of what we’re releasing today and how to participate, check out the developer blog. In the announcement post, Bluesky also makes a comparison with Mastodon, and explains how some of the differences in the approaches: Bluesky focuses on a global conversation and a global network, which can be fine-tuned to individual preferences with composable feeds and composable moderation. This is in contrast with most fediverse implementations, where network view and moderation are dependent on the instance or server you are on. Bluesky also has full account portability, where you can keep your data and identity when you move to a different server. Over 260 people have since set up their own Personal Data Server. Bluesky also crossed the 5 million account mark this week, gaining almost 2 million accounts in the last few weeks since the network dropped the invite code requirement. A significant part of this inflow comes from Japan, where Bluesky turns out to be hugely popular; Japanese is now the dominant language on the network. With this inflow the Bluesky network (colloquially also called the ATmosphere) has become more significantly active than the fediverse (~1.1M MAU); with close to double the amount of Monthly Active Users. A new website for reliable statistics on Bluesky recently started tracking data, but for the MAU to be a reliable number a few more weeks of datapoints are needed. The current Weekly Active Users for the Bluesky network is around 1M, and the MAU is around 1.9M.Potential bridge between fediverse and Bluesky Developer Ryan Barrett has been working on a bridging service between the fediverse (Mastodon and other platforms) and Bluesky. This month, he announced that the to-be-released project will be opt-out, meaning that people on either network that do not want to be able to be followed by people on the other network, will have to manually opt-out of the service. This lead to a backlash and drama on the fediverse, as there is a significant group of people that do not want their public posts to be visible on the Bluesky network. Some media covered it as drama between Mastodon and Bluesky, but it seems more accurate to say that Mastodon and the fediverse has been in conflict for a longer time with itself about network boundaries and consent, while the role of Bluesky in this all is more of a confused bystander.In the media As Bluesky opens up, the team has been more visible in the public. Bluesky CEO Jay Graber appeared on the Hard Fork podcast, as well as Chris Messina’s podcast. She also participated in a conversation with Mike Masnick and Yoel Roth, video replay here. In an interview with The Verge, Jay Graber also talked a bit more about how Bluesky plans to make money: While the AT Protocol is being opened up soon, the Bluesky company plans to make money via a variety of ways, including charging users for additional features in its app. It also plans to take a cut of purchases for things like custom feeds that developers will be able to charge for. Graber says work is also being done on a Cloudflare-like enterprise arm for helping others easily manage their own servers on the AT Protocol. In another interview with Wired, Graber says that Bluesky ‘won’t enshittify the network with ads’.In other news Bluesky engineer Bryan Newbald held a technical talk on the technology behind AT Protocol that makes account portability possible: the decentralised identifier DID PLC. Newbald also goes into more detail on how Bluesky is thinking about governance for this decentralised identifier. You can watch the replay here. Bluesky has hired a head of Trust & Safety, Aaron Rodericks. The community has voiced their demands for a head of Trust & Safety for a while. Rodericks has previously co-leading the Trust and Safety team at Twitter.Bluesky App updates Some major updates have launched on the official app for Bluesky: the latest update brought hashtags and the much-requested ability to mute certain words (or hashtags). Another update is that your Bluesky handle url is now a direct link to your profile as well.Other app updates deck.blue, a spiritual successor to TweetDeck, has added a Gallery mode. iOS app Skeets has added the ability to edit posts. It is still an experimental feature as it depends on a workaround, the ability to edit posts is not officially yet part of the protocol. Skeets also added the ability to register and log in to a third party PDS. Graysky added notifications, and feeds now respond to your content languages. People have created over 40k custom feeds, the large majority (34k+) coming from third party feed generator skyfeed.The links Comic-driven software development. A complete guide to Bluesky. A high-level explanation of how the AT Protocol works. Adding comments on your blog with ATProto. Bluesky handle directory. Bluesky has given the documentation website a major update. A list of the most influential scientists on Bluesky, based on their network centrality. A proposal for OAuth 2.0 for ATProto. That’s all, thanks for reading. You can follow me on Bluesky @laurenshof.online and @fediversereport.com, on the fediverse, or subscribe to my weekly newsletter: #bluesky https://fediversereport.com/last-month-in-bluesky-februari-2024/ https://fediversereport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/JAH_20230831_2508_schiermonnikoog_05.jpg

Notes by Laurens Hof | export

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Last Month in Bluesky – Februari 2024

Welcome to the overview of all the news that has happened in the ATmosphere for February 2024. For those who don’t know me; I’m Laurens, and I write weekly updates about what happened in the fediverse. Last year I also started writing monthly updates summarising the news for Bluesky (here, here and here). I had to skip a few months due to time restrictions, but now I’m back with regular updates on Bluesky and the ATmosphere.

The main stories of this month is Bluesky dropping the invite code requirement, opening up the network for federation, and Bluesky’s appeal in Japan.Bluesky opens up the ATmosphere

Bluesky has opened up the network for federation, allowing people to host their own data. This means that now anyone can set up their own Personal Data Server (PDS) and connect to the main network. Bluesky frames the opening of the network in the context of website hosting, making a direct comparison between how anyone can host a website on the internet. By hosting a website, you are in control of your data, and move to a different hosting provider without any noticeable change for the visitors. Bluesky says that they “think social media should work the same way”; by hosting your own PDS you are in control of your own data, able to move to a different host, without your followers noticing anything.

The update Bluesky released this week is an early version, which changes coming later, with Bluesky saying:
The version of federation that we’re releasing today is intended for self-hosters. There are some guardrails in place to ensure we can keep the network running smoothly for everyone in the ecosystem. After this initial phase, we’ll open up federation to people looking to run larger servers with many users. For a more technical overview of what we’re releasing today and how to participate, check out the developer blog.

In the announcement post, Bluesky also makes a comparison with Mastodon, and explains how some of the differences in the approaches: Bluesky focuses on a global conversation and a global network, which can be fine-tuned to individual preferences with composable feeds and composable moderation. This is in contrast with most fediverse implementations, where network view and moderation are dependent on the instance or server you are on. Bluesky also has full account portability, where you can keep your data and identity when you move to a different server. Over 260 people have since set up their own Personal Data Server.

Bluesky also crossed the 5 million account mark this week, gaining almost 2 million accounts in the last few weeks since the network dropped the invite code requirement. A significant part of this inflow comes from Japan, where Bluesky turns out to be hugely popular; Japanese is now the dominant language on the network. With this inflow the Bluesky network (colloquially also called the ATmosphere) has become more significantly active than the fediverse (~1.1M MAU); with close to double the amount of Monthly Active Users. A new website for reliable statistics on Bluesky recently started tracking data, but for the MAU to be a reliable number a few more weeks of datapoints are needed. The current Weekly Active Users for the Bluesky network is around 1M, and the MAU is around 1.9M.Potential bridge between fediverse and Bluesky

Developer Ryan Barrett has been working on a bridging service between the fediverse (Mastodon and other platforms) and Bluesky. This month, he announced that the to-be-released project will be opt-out, meaning that people on either network that do not want to be able to be followed by people on the other network, will have to manually opt-out of the service. This lead to a backlash and drama on the fediverse, as there is a significant group of people that do not want their public posts to be visible on the Bluesky network. Some media covered it as drama between Mastodon and Bluesky, but it seems more accurate to say that Mastodon and the fediverse has been in conflict for a longer time with itself about network boundaries and consent, while the role of Bluesky in this all is more of a confused bystander.In the media

As Bluesky opens up, the team has been more visible in the public. Bluesky CEO Jay Graber appeared on the Hard Fork podcast, as well as Chris Messina’s podcast. She also participated in a conversation with Mike Masnick and Yoel Roth, video replay here.

In an interview with The Verge, Jay Graber also talked a bit more about how Bluesky plans to make money:

While the AT Protocol is being opened up soon, the Bluesky company plans to make money via a variety of ways, including charging users for additional features in its app. It also plans to take a cut of purchases for things like custom feeds that developers will be able to charge for. Graber says work is also being done on a Cloudflare-like enterprise arm for helping others easily manage their own servers on the AT Protocol.

In another interview with Wired, Graber says that Bluesky ‘won’t enshittify the network with ads’.In other news

Bluesky engineer Bryan Newbald held a technical talk on the technology behind AT Protocol that makes account portability possible: the decentralised identifier DID PLC. Newbald also goes into more detail on how Bluesky is thinking about governance for this decentralised identifier. You can watch the replay here.

Bluesky has hired a head of Trust & Safety, Aaron Rodericks. The community has voiced their demands for a head of Trust & Safety for a while. Rodericks has previously co-leading the Trust and Safety team at Twitter.Bluesky App updates

Some major updates have launched on the official app for Bluesky: the latest update brought hashtags and the much-requested ability to mute certain words (or hashtags). Another update is that your Bluesky handle url is now a direct link to your profile as well.Other app updates

deck.blue, a spiritual successor to TweetDeck, has added a Gallery mode.
iOS app Skeets has added the ability to edit posts. It is still an experimental feature as it depends on a workaround, the ability to edit posts is not officially yet part of the protocol. Skeets also added the ability to register and log in to a third party PDS.
Graysky added notifications, and feeds now respond to your content languages.
People have created over 40k custom feeds, the large majority (34k+) coming from third party feed generator skyfeed.The links

Comic-driven software development.
A complete guide to Bluesky.
A high-level explanation of how the AT Protocol works.
Adding comments on your blog with ATProto.
Bluesky handle directory.
Bluesky has given the documentation website a major update.
A list of the most influential scientists on Bluesky, based on their network centrality.
A proposal for OAuth 2.0 for ATProto.

That’s all, thanks for reading. You can follow me on Bluesky @laurenshof.online and @fediversereport.com, on the fediverse, or subscribe to my weekly newsletter:

#bluesky

https://fediversereport.com/last-month-in-bluesky-februari-2024/

https://fediversereport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/JAH_20230831_2508_schiermonnikoog_05.jpg

NLNet has announced 55 new projects that are awarded a NGI Zero grant. NGI Zero is the Next Generation Internet program from the European Commision, that funds projects that work on what they call the next generation internet. For more info in NLnet and NGI Zero, check out this interview I did with NLnet this summer. The latest round of grants has quite a few projects that connect to the fediverse in some way. An overview:

NodeBB is a popular forum software platform. They got funding to add ActivityPub integration to NodeBB, allowing interoperability with both other NodeBB forums as well as the fediverse at large. NodeBB says that the “hardest part of starting a community is gaining a critical mass of adoption in order to sustain interest and content”, and integrating with the fediverse is seen as a way to overcome their biggest hurdle.

The loosely connected group of developers at fedidevs.org got a grant to build an automated test framework and test cases. It is currently hard for fediverse developers to build fediverse software that properly federates with the rest dof the network, as a consistent test suite for ActivityPub is lacking. This new test framework hopes to make it easier for developers to start building for the fediverse.

Bonfire is a federated social network that’s currently in development, with most of the work now on getting the platform ready for release. Their grant will go towards improving the performance, as well releasing their version of the ActivityPub library they are using as open-source.

GoToSocial is a lightweight, customisable, and safety-focused entryway into the fediverse, and is currently in Alpha development. With this grant, the team will add two factor authentication, and improve interoperability and scalability.

Mobilizon is a federated event planning tool, originally developed by Framasoft. Framasoft recently announced that they have completed their vision of Mobilizon. The project is not over however, as another group got funding to further improve the UX of Mobilizon.

PeerTube got funding for further improving the adoption, accessability and popularity of the platform, as well as to develop a mobile app. Framasoft has quite a few announcements in the pipeline, I’ll talk more about Framasoft, PeerTube and Mobilizon in the near future with more information.

Commune is social networking build on Matrix instead of ActivityPub, with a focus on creating communities. The project has interesting ideas about how to build social spaces, and is looking to add fediverse integration as well.

Overall there are a lot of cool and interesting projects that NLnet has funded, with a mix of supporting and scaling existing projects, as well as funding new ideas. For other projects that are interested, you can find more information about their grant process here. The deadline for the next round is December 1st 2023.

https://fediversereport.com/a-fediverse-look-at-nlnets-latest-grant-round/

#fediverse

https://fediversereport.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/20230720-Fediverse-report-The-polish-series-17.jpg