Off Protocol

John Gruber has been writing Daring Fireball for nearly a quarter of a century, analyzing and cataloging a distinct array of internet ephemera, designer nerdery, and, of course, the meteoric rise of Apple. He joins Jim to talk about what the pre-platform internet felt like, the oppressive sameness of contemporary web publishing, the creation of Markdown, and covering Apple for half of the company’s life.

Paul Frazee and Daniel Holmgren return to the livestream to discuss their recent posts that got them thinking a bit more deeply about work on the protocol and just what atproto is building towards.

Bluesky CEO Toni Schneider sits down to answer your questions about composable moderation, how Bluesky (and the Atmosphere) plans to make money, what makes atproto spaces a true differentiator, and where AI fits on the protocol.

Jim Calabro, Head of Platform at Bluesky, joins to answer your questions about running what is, for now, the biggest node on the atproto network

Eve Osman on building Northsky, creating a love letter to the web with Twinkl, approaches to private data on the protocol, and why a Nubian waterwheel is a model for building sustainable technology.

News from the Atmosphere, including Bluesky CEO Toni Schneider’s interview with Nilay Patel at The Verge, three big referece PDS improvements shipping very soon, an atlas of Atmospheric apps, and more. (Livestream, recorded August 5, 2026)

Ethan Marcotte, who first coined the phrase Responsive Design, joins to discuss how to operate in a world defined by uncertainty.

News from around the Atmosphere, including a proposal to fix localhost, more webdevs getting into atproto, Mu Social’s opinionated news feed, and more.

Writer, speaker, and researcher Erin Kissane joins Jim to trace how the social internet got here, what’s worth salvaging, and how we can do better by listening to people.

Jim and Alex are back on the livestream. The permissioned data proposal has shipped, updates from Tangled, Roomy, and Anisota, and a look ahead at Jetstream v2.

Daniel Holmgren joins the livestream for an AMA on permissioned data.

Juliet Shen from ROOST joins the show to talk through the Coop 1.0 release, what open-source trust and safety unlocks for new builders, and where AI actually belongs in moderation

Jim and Alex are back on the livestream at a new time to discuss personal websites, Coop 1.0, exciting announcements from Eurosky, a new OAuth scope builder, and more news from the Atmosphere.

Paul and Daniel are on the livestream this week with a look at the new Standard.site integration, updates from permissioned data, and news from around the Atmosphere

Jim sits down with members of the core team building and governing Standard.site, the shared Lexicon for publishing longform writing on atproto. Brooke from pckt.blog, Jared from Leaflet, and Miguel from Offprint cover the design tradeoffs in creating a new shared format, tales of data migrations, strategies for shared governance, and why you shouldn’t buy a premium domain name.

Jim and Alex are live with the first live episode under the new Off Protocol name. Protocol meetups are happening everywhere, Alex and Jim were both in Portland, the Ozone moderation tool has some new features, and Bluesky is considering an edit button. Plus a few of your questions.

Bluesky CTO Paul Frazee and Head of Protocol Daniel Holmgren join for a wide-ranging conversation about what atproto is, why it exists, how it got built, and where it’s going next. From a Twitter consultancy to an IETF working group, this is where to get started.

Rishi Balakrishnan joins to talk about the work that went into building Acorn, Blacksky’s new platform for creating moderated communities on atproto — and why the landing page never mentions a PDS.

With AtmosphereConf 2026 wrapped, Boris Mann and Ted Han join to talk about what the gathering surfaced in the ecosystem. From the IETF working group, the move beyond a single foundation, to a growing layer of co-ops, regional meetups, and independent stewards.

Daniel Roe, Matias Capeletto, and Zeu join to discuss how their frustration with JavaScript packaging went from a Bluesky post to one of the most successful new community-led projects on the protocol.