Sam Liebeskind

@atls.city !set NL-NH-Amsterdam

Ooo yes, I could totally see that!

Over the next couple of months, I'll share more about how things are going and what we're learning — both about the product itself, and our programs to support the local stewards who are at the heart of each space.

For something like this to work, the human side is just as important as the tech!

👋 Introducing Roundabout: built for neighbors, with neighbors New_ Public’s app for local communities enters closed beta in five pilot communities

More about the context and vision here, including info about the first cohort of communities and stewards, and how you can get involved in bringing this to your local area next

newpublic.substack.com/p/introducin...

Our team at @newpublic.org has spent the last couple of months co-designing & building Roundabout — a new platform to help local communities share information & support, without the chaos and toxicity common elsewhere.

This week, we’re moving into a closed beta in 5 towns/cities across the US 👀

revolution.social with @rabble Revolution.Social is a podcast about the future of social media and reclaiming our digital communities, hosted by technologist and community advocate Rabble, a.k.a. Evan Henshaw-Plath — who was Twitte...

@rabble.nz s podcast Revolution.Social has a bunch of great conversations with people who've been deep and early in some of the most impactful online social products of the last decade www.youtube.com/@rabble

GROUP HUG | Elise Granata | Substack A practical, loving exploration of all the joys + pains of community building. Click to read GROUP HUG, by Elise Granata, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

Elise Granata's Group Hug — a super down-to-earth exploration of the craft of community building, or what she describes as "the mysterious, magical, unpredictable human funk that makes being in community with other people a wonderful or awful thing!" grouphug.substack.com

Connective Tissue | Substack A newsletter on the connections, communities, and commitments that bind us together. Click to read Connective Tissue, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

Sam Pressler's Connective Tissue explores what it will take "to seed and cultivate our generational project of civic and communal renewal" Always well researched & well written, focused on real potential solutions, not just theoretical stuff. connectivetissue.substack.com

Home Connected places: understanding how the new social web works

@laurenshof.online is consistently putting out some of the best research and sensemaking around the ATmosphere, both on here and in the connectedplaces.online newsletters

Idk if follow friday is still a thing, but felt like doing a little thread to shoutout some of the people whose thinking & work around community and online spaces I've been appreciating recently...

New Public | Bring your town or neighborhood together online At New_ Public, we're creating a new social product and providing support to help you start a healthy online space for your local area. Want to learn more about connecting your local community online?...

We're also now actively looking for a small number of people & local communities who might be interested in experimenting with us.

If you think where you live might be a good fit and want to learn more about bringing something like this to your area, get in touch here...

🧭🏘️📲 Exploring a new social product for local communities We’re seeking local partners for collaboration as we pilot new concepts and designs

As our team at @newpublic.org explores the idea of building a new, sustainable social product for local communities (think: a healthier alternative to Nextdoor or town-wide FB groups), I wrote up some of our initial thinking about how it all might work...

Local Digital Spaces Are Essential Civic Infrastructure (SSIR) With traditional community spaces underfunded and neglected, investing in the health of our online gathering places has become essential.

New_ Public Co-Director @deeptidoshi.bsky.social writes in @ssireview.bsky.social about how flourishing local digital spaces could be the next major cornerstone of civic infrastructure.

Empowering local community stewards and finding new business models are important steps along the way.

The problem of social platforms isn’t algorithms. It’s algorithms that we don’t get to understand or control.

On a related note, been having fun playing around with @graze.social which puts some of these ideas into practice.

What are the other most interesting feed builder tools out there right now?

h/t @joshpkramer.bsky.social

Great exploration of different ways to design systems that give people more control over their algorithms

arxiv.org/pdf/2409.03247

by @leijiew.bsky.social, @cqz.bsky.social, @axz.bsky.social, and a couple of others

Into the Driver’s Seat With Social Media Content Feeds

A really great breakdown of how different types of social media algorithms work knightcolumbia.org/content/into...

I think the latter, but no idea where I picked it up - so maybe at one point it was a prompt in an app somewhere?

If you’re in maps and it’s a bit lost or facing the wrong direction, moving your phone in a figure eight to recalibrate the compass

Letterloop: The Newsletter for Friends, Families & Teams Letterloop is a fun and easy way to create private, group newsletters. Let everyone ask and answer interesting questions about their lives — all over email, no apps.

My friends and I have been using Letterloop for the last couple of years for this and are obsessed - its sort of like a monthly friend group newsletter w fun questions www.letterloop.co

Civic Sunlight - Get the inside scoop on local decisions. Stay informed, not overwhelmed. Civic Sunlight delivers local government meeting summaries to your inbox in a format that's easy to read.

Love the potential of this...

"Staying informed about your community shouldn’t be a chore. Civic Sunlight delivers concise summaries of local government meetings straight to your inbox, saving you time and keeping you civically engaged."

civicsunlight.ai

🚀 📒 Just launched: Your essential guide to local digital community building Best practices for creating and maintaining a public-spirited online space for your neighborhood, town, or city

Local Facebook groups and other online spaces for towns & neighborhoods can be amazing, or awful.

This new guide from our team at @newpublic.substack.com is full of advice for mods and admins who want to make their spaces more uplifting & inclusive

newpublic.substack.com/p/just-launc...

Neighborhood Steward Fellowship | New_ Public An eight-week program bringing together leaders of local-oriented online spaces to experiment with fun new practices and ideas

Are you the creator, admin, or moderator of an online space for people in your local community? Do you strive to make it inclusive, uplifting, and public-spirited? 

Introducing our Neighborhood Steward Fellowship! 

Deadline: May 20 🗓️

📣🚨📣🚨 If you help run a digital space for your local neighborhood, town, or city, we want to hear from you! Think: a Facebook group, Subreddit, email list, or forum.

We're are hoping to chat with a few people in the US, in exchange for a small stipend.

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

A beautiful zine for and by people thinking about the future of social spaces on the internet

Includes a fun little piece I wrote on what digital product designers can learn from the field of urban planning

sublime.app/zine

Shoot me a DM if you want a discount code :)

Are more people creating tools that make it easy for people to create their own @bsky.app feed using natural language (i.e. I could say "make me a feed for posts related to sports from anyone I follow")?

@skyfeed.app's "Feed Builder" and @skyline.gay by @louis02x.com are the best I've seen so far

⚠️Digital Community Researchers & Practitioners⚠️

What research/insights re:encouraging healthy digital communities do you wish more tech builders/designers were aware of?

I’m refreshing our lit review on digital communities/community stewardship at New_ Public & would love to include your work!

Have there been any social networks that limited the amount of times each person could post per day or week? BeReal (1x/day), Retro (1x/week), and I know Minus was an experiment where you had 100 posts for life (slightly different concept). Any others?

Good new resource for anyone looking for a job / looking to hire in the "impact-tech" space

https://www.tekalo.org/

Beautifully written! Thank you for sharing that