If you haven't met me, I'm Tynan. I am a founding contributor at @ecosystemaction.com. I also run @atproto.boston. And if you've seen the lobster or heard me talk about my lobster children, that is them. They are a bunch of high schoolers who I mentor to build robots. And they're…
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I came into design through Georgia Tech's industrial design program. That's sort of how I got involved in this space and research. And I want to bring some more of that here to the atmosphere.
That's because an affordance represents specifically a relationship between the individual and the environment. You don't just have a capability, but in a relationship with the person in that space, you have an affordance.
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A capability without a signifier, the perceptible cue that an action exists, is not actionable by a user.
An affordance must be self evident of the environment, or be accompanied by a signifier.
So a capability without a signifier or without being self-evident of the environment itself is not actionable by the user, and therefore, not a real affordance that results in actions to be able to be taken.
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We atproto enthusiasts are familiar with the capabilities of the atmosphere
decoupling of data and apps
data is reusable because of public schemas
publishing to the web with a certain file format, like jpeg or docx. any app/website that reads that format may present it
you don't…
Now, we in atproto are familiar with lots of really great capabilities that we have in the atmosphere. You've got decoupling of data and apps. You can reuse that data across lots of different places. You sort of have this headless website that anyone can build an interface for. T…
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These capabilities are great but…
Unless you make those capabilities perceivable to the user, they are not affordances! They can't be done!
These are really cool capabilities, but if you don't manifest those into perceivable actions, there are not affordances. The user, the person, cannot do those things.
I, as an atproto user, can use my account in lots of different places, not just Bluesky. So this is the login screen for @pckt.blog. We've got a couple signifiers, like the little butterfly and user handle, to indicate that my Bluesky identity is usable in this place. Shout out t…
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Atmospheric affordances
I can use my atproto account for many kinds of activity.
[Bluesky post]
Tim Disney
@disnetdev.com
You can now save articles from @skyreader.app to your @semble.so and @magin.at collections!
[embedded screenshot of a menu in Skyreader with buttons to save …
I can use my atproto account for all different kinds of activity, not just skeeting. So this is @skyreader.app, which is an atmospheric RSS reader, and they added the ability to save articles to @semble.so or @margin.at, which is a bookmarking service on the atmosphere.
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Atmospheric affordances
The permissionless nature of atproto means that building on these capabilities is relatively cheap and accessible.
[Embedded Bluesky post]
Reply to post in above image
Ronen Tamari
@ronentk.me
This is awesome! Look forward to checking it out :)
And what's cool about that, we all know that the permissionless open access of the network means that you can kind of just build stuff. So @ronentk.me here, the CEO of Semble and @cosmik.network, had no idea they were building this, and required no intervention. So he found out a…
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Atmospheric affordances
I can interact with people on different services.
[Embedded Bluesky post]
Kay Coghill, PhD. [Blacksky icon]
@drkalyncoghill.blacksky.team
Let's go @kissane.myatproto.social !!!!
@atmosphereconf.org
[2 photos of Erin Kissane's talk]
I can interact with people on different services. So this is a clip from the Witchsky client, which is a Bluesky client fork of social-app. They add these helpful little badges next to people's names of what PDS service they're using. So I can see @drkalyncoghill.blacksky.team's …
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Atmospheric affordances
I can interact with people on different protocols.
[Embedded Bluesky(?) post]
Anuj Ahooja [Fediverse logo]
@quillmatiq.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
I'll be doing a short lil' update on the multi-protocol open social web at #AtmosphereConf this Sunday!
It's …
I can even interact with people across different protocols. We just heard from @quillmatiq.com all the great things Bridgy is doing. So I can see everything on his Mastodon account, get bridged all the way across, and interact in a perfectly native way.
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Atmospheric affordances
I can engage with the same activity in different places.
[3 screenshots of the ATmosphereConf 2026 schedule on smokesignal.events, atmo.rsvp, and atmosphereconf.org]
I can engage with the same activity in different places. You might have been assembling your conference schedule today using SmokeSignal, or Atmo.rsvp, or on the official conference website. All of that is pulling from the same activity, the same data on the atmosphere. And that'…
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Atmospheric affordances
I can move my account without losing anything.
[Embedded Bluesky post]
Birol Akkuş
@akkusb.eurosky.social
I have moved to Eurosky and it couldn't have been easier. Kudos @eurosky.social!
I can even move my account without losing anything in the process. So we've had a lot of successful migrations to @eurosky.social, which is very exciting. The EU Haul tool is really usable, and we have totally normal users happy and satisfied with their moving process. And again,…
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Atmospheric affordances
My stuff doesn't die with an app.
[Embedded Bluesky post]
Gregor Samosa
@watwa.re
I look back fondly on having built the first skylight(s) on atproto and the first letterboxd/goodreads. But tbh others have done more with those concepts, and I'm starting m…
This one I like a lot, too, because obviously, some projects end. Every product doesn't last forever. Some people might remember the original Skylight, not @buildwithtori.com, but Skylights*, which was a film reviewing app on the atmosphere. The maintainer decided was they were d…
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Atmospheric affordances
Social activity doesn't need an app.
[Screenshot of teal.fm landing page]
teal.fm
Your music, beautifully tracked.
All yours (soon).
This is a weird one. My social activity doesn't necessarily need an app. So some of you might be familiar with @teal.fm, but if you're not, it is a atmospheric alternative to Last.fm, which is a music scrobbling service where you can log your listening activity across Spotify, Ap…
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Atmospheric affordances
Social activity doesn't need an app.
[Screenshot of a complete teal.fm web app]
The teal app is no longer live at the time of writing so see instead Chad's launch post
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:bcgltzqazw5tb6k2g3ttenbj/post/3mgdbqunyas24
plaintext
Somebody made Teal! There it is! This is not at Teal.fm, but this is a full Teal experience where you can see genres and activity and trending, and I can see what people are listening to.*
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We have barely started manifesting the possible affordances.
How might we, as a community, overcome the hurdles preventing the mass adoption and, importantly, the execution of agency made possible by liberatory network technology?
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We need designers, researchers, ethnographers, systems thinkers, humanities
to help make these affordances legible,
to help establish new mental models,
to make the agency afforded by decentralized social accessible to the masses.
I think we need more designers, more researchers, ethnographers, system thinkers, humanities experts to help make all these affordances legible, to help people establish new mental models around all these affordances, and really to make the agency afforded by all this decentraliz…
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Ecosystem Action Research
@ecosystemaction.com
[Screenshot of many profile avatars of Ecosystem Action Research volunteers]
So that's what we're doing. Ecosystem Action Research, you might have heard of us in the last month or so, is a little band of volunteers. I think we're at 13 now, of those types of people. We're going to try to bring more research and design activity to this space and facilitate…
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We envision
AT (Authenticated Transfer) network ecosystem contributors and participants—including moderators, knowledge workers, community organizers, activists, artists, journalists, small businesses, and everyday end-users—feel empowered to exercise the agency afforded by a pu…
What we envision in the long term is that the atmosphere at network ecosystem contributors and participants are empowered to exercise the agency afforded by a public interest internet. And that includes all sorts of people like moderators and knowledge workers and organizers and …
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Our mission
Equip and support the people and organizations who build with and on AT network technology to empower the people who create on, organize with, and steward trust & safety for internet communities.
So our mission at EAR is to equip and support the people and organizations who build with and on top of the app network technology to empower people who create on and organize with and steward trust and safety for internet communities.
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h/t
@danhon.com for encouraging me to put together this talk during @hantohoncomb.at
@christian.bsky.social for kickstarting EAR
I want to thank @danhon.com for encouraging me to make this talk and @christian.bsky.social, you might know, helped sort of get started all of the EAR activities.
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Thanks for being here
Semble list of resources and examples ↗