New_ Public📢 Announcing the Open Social Awards🏆
Alongside @publicspaces and @waag, we aim to honor the work of independent builders around the world, creating innovative products for the open web!
More details below…
@blaine
- 10.1K Followers
- 700 Following
- 2.2K Posts
Technologist and podcaster @rabble calls Roundabout, our new local community app in closed beta, “the Good Place version of Nextdoor.”
In an revolution.social interview with Bluesky’s Jay Graber, they talk about how New_ Public is moving from research and critique towards building new flourishing digital public spaces.
Trei Brundrett, @blaine, and the rest of the team are currently working with local stewards to pilot Roundabout in communities around the country!
Decentralized Social Media for 40 Million+ Users (with Bluesky’s Jay Graber)
RE: https://mastodon.social/@wearenew_public/115729800203396909
We've been working hard over the past six months to ship Roundabout to our pilot communities. It's amazing to see them come to life, and I'm so excited to keep building & learning to support healthy online spaces for local communities. 💖
Canadians: am I out of line for thinking that an NDP (union-left, for those outside of Canada) politician probably shouldn't re-post Theresa May talking about the lack of civil discourse being the result of digital platforms, and positing that what we need is more gatekeeping of who gets to speak? 🫣
RE: https://mastodon.social/@wearenew_public/115645917115143165
Six months ago, I joined New_ Public to help build a new social platform for local communities. Today, I could't be more excited and proud to share what our amazing little team has cooked up, and is launching in closed beta this week.
This isn’t another toxic, chaotic space — Roundabout is designed to be useful, fun, and helpful and it isn’t motivated by stealing your data and selling you stuff.
Learn more at https://joinroundabout.com
I love @bonfire's slow and determined approach to building this important piece of the social web.
As we at New_ Public work towards our early Local lab launch, I'm really looking forward to participating in wider conversations about how communities can thrive in federated social environments. Bonfire's work is so inspiring towards that goal.
Congrats on the 1.0, y'all! 🎉❤️
RE: https://indieweb.social/@bonfire/115507615653471686
What @bonfire are working on is impressive and important and y'all should consider supporting their crowdfunder!
Bonfire was absolutely the top contender for my work building New_ Public's Local project (https://newpublic.org/local); in the end, I'm building mostly from scratch not because Bonfire isn't great, but because I wanted our team's 2+ years of research, planning, and design to lead the conversation, not the technology.
BUT we're in a unique spot. Most communities could use Bonfire.
As part of our mission, we’re committed to building new online infrastructure to foster community and civic health. But what does that actually look like?
Our Co-Directors, @elipariser and Deepti Doshi, often turn to IRL public infrastructure for inspiration.
In this case, BRIDGES 🌉
A decade ago, I was an invited expert at a meeting to review the technical architecture of a £330m fraud detection system for Universal Credit at the UK Treasury.
My conclusion was that the proposal was not only massively over-priced (basically fraud-levels of overcharging), but that the system as designed would obviously have issues where automated decisions would leave vulnerable people in dire straits, against the legal requirements.
And so it goes: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/30/uk-woman-who-booked-oslo-flight-but-did-not-fly-loses-child-benefit-because-she-emigrated