We’re creating a shared space for conversation, connection, and community, designed for and with Chicago. The full chicago.com experience is coming soon. Explore what we’re building now — and let us know what you want to see in the future by joining our email list.
Notable links: August 14, 2026
Chicago Public Media is building a social network for America's third largest city. Forget AI - this is the thing I'm most excited about in news technology.
Digital Spaces Directory | New_ Public
As the social media landscape changes and a new wave of digital spaces emerges, this Directory is meant to be a resource for our field — a jumping-off-point for further exploration and research for anyone who’s interested in studying, building, stewarding, or simply using digital social platforms. We hope this will inspire creative exploration, spark new collaborations, and highlight important progress.
Building Games That Can Be Understood at a Glance
Join the New Design Congress Community Discord Server!
Check out the New Design Congress Community community on Discord - hang out with 608 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
Join the New Design Congress Community Discord Server!
Check out the New Design Congress Community community on Discord - hang out with 608 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
Notes on our recent Brooklyn meetup — and the next one (June 1; RSVP & reach out w/ talk ideas!) — and a bunch more things we're excited to explore like a website, community outreach, other events… New blog + newsletter enabled, drop your email (or just sub w/ atmosphere acct) for updates!
New York, new meetup, newsletter!
blog.atproto.nycExcited to announce that I will be giving the opening keynote for @newpublic.org + @publicspaces.net Open Social Award Show in Amsterdam next month! My keynote will discuss how we do community governance at @blackskyweb.xyz Best of luck to all applicants and hope to see you there!
Designing Technology for All #11: Open Socials Award Show
dezwijger.nlThrilled to share that our project @roundabout.town (give them a follow!) will be powering new, healthy digital public spaces in Chicago! This is part of chicago.com, a partnership with Chicago Public Media, which is the @chicago.suntimes.com and @wbez.org. niemanlab.org/2026/08/can-public-media-buil…
Can public media build its own social network? Chicago Public Media teams up with New_ Public to try
www.niemanlab.orgGood news we are adding @semble.so support to @infoenon.com! I've been lacking with connections and community outreach lately but that ends today. We will also be adding at least 3 others in the coming months to be natively surfaced and shown on our platform!
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. 🧵
Open Social Awards | New_ Public
newpublic.orgIt's official! We'll be having our very first meetup on April 23rd at @internetstudio.bsky.social 🙏🏼 Come join us for an Atmosphere of good vibes and energy, so we can build a more human-centered internet 🌐 RSVP and details here:
at://seattle #1 - Meet & Greet!
atmo.rsvpAt @cascadiajs.com this year I gave a talk about #atproto and the Atmosphere: the open social ecosystem Bluesky and many other apps are built on, and what it means to actually own your data. I made a bunch of silly drawings for it, and I'm sharing them in this 🧵!
Making good progress on hosting an AT Proto PDS for new micro.blog users. It’ll launch soon. Important note: it is not for people who already use Bluesky, at least not yet. The goal is to give new users an account on the atmosphere. Existing users will be happier sticking with the Bluesky PDS.
Bluesky CTO @pfrazee.com will be livestreaming with @renderatl.com tomorrow to talk about his work building the open social web. luma.com/renderatl-gqym
RenderATL Live with CTO of Bluesky, Paul Frazee · Luma
luma.comHey on this note we’ve (@mysilio.com) been thinking about this stuff since 2019 now and have been a coop since 2020 and are suckers for a good cause, if anyone out there ever wants to chat open social and coops hmu.
dietrich
the Atmosphere needs a LOT of care to be a functioning space for us all to have nice things. there are many people here with experience in tradbiz, both sides of grant and philanthropic funding there was even an expert in co-op structures at #atmosphereconf! ask for help! offer to help! dms open!
