Songwriter of I Will Always Love You, Jolene and 9 to 5 also invested millions in child literacy, Covid-19 vaccine development and other causes

Atproto Spaces, formerly known as “the permissioned data protocol,” is a new extension to atproto that enables non-public data. The alpha is now officially open. Here’s how to develop with it and what to expect as we work towards the full release.

Like Pinterest, but enshittification-proof

I've been playing around with AT Protocol. The posts on this site are now published to standard.site, and I've written a (very basic) WordPress plugin to display posts from my PDS on the Now page of this site. As a developer, I've spent a good chunk of my working life building apps that stored things...

An explainer for everyone in 4 minutes or less.

I'm four months into my interim CEO role at Bluesky, and it's time for an update. Most importantly, as of today, the interim part of the title is gone. I'm loving the mission and the job, and I'm all in as Bluesky’s official CEO. This job has been energizing from day one, and the Bluesky...

Bluesky proposal discussions. Contribute to bluesky-social/proposals development by creating an account on GitHub.

Yesterday, my best friend and brother from another mother, Om Malik, passed away. They say that blood is thicker than water, and what we had was way thicker than blood. — Bob Weir Om's request was for a small family prayer ceremony. In mourning, that will be all there is. In celebration and tribute, I love that everyone is…

This is an early draft of the proposal for permissioned data. Please do not over-index on this. Details, terminology, and behaviors are all likely to change. For a friendly introduction to the prot...

It’s not about whether technology is inherently good or bad, liberating or oppressive. Architecture shapes incentives; incentives shape outcomes.

This week, the Catholic Church wrote one of the better diagnoses of why decentralised social networks keep struggling.

2d semantic map of atproto publishing platforms

I’m back from ATmosphereConf in Vancouver, and I'm processing what I saw and heard. The atproto developer community could not have been nicer and more welcoming. Here are some takeaways.  The Atmosphere is bigger than social media I've been to a lot of developer conferences over the years, and what struck me most about this...

Social media was supposed to connect us, but most of it has turned into ads, division, and loneliness. I'm betting on ATProto as a way to fix that, and not just for developers. Whether you're a scient...

I’m writing this from the beautiful UBC campus in Vancouver where ATmosphereConf 2026 is taking place. It’s a gathering of developers, researchers, and entrepreneurs who are passionate about keeping the web and our online conversations free and open. The mood here is excited and very collaborative, and I’ve been meeting many of the people who...

Updates to the AT Protocol roadmap, including Permissioned Data and Account Experience.

Happy to report that week 2 has been just as energizing as week 1. I’m still meeting lots of new people and learning the ropes. In addition to spending time with the Bluesky team, I met with several Atmosphere folks: Boris who is working on organizing the ATmosphereConf (more on that below), Jared from Leaflet,...

John Sands explains our bet on a social web that protects speech, creates opportunity for publishers and creators, and enables research on the information ecosystem.