ProtoPro

The only one working on this project is @ens0.me, who accepted a fairly demanding full time position about 2 months ago.

Still very interested in seeing this to its full potential, though!

as of now, @protopro.blue can read at work endorsements, and we'll add support for creating them on ProtoPro soon

screenshot showing @ens0.me's account growth over the past few months

We now have support for basic analytics. Track the growth of your account over time!

It will only start tracking this data if you're registered on ProtoPro, though!

Rolling out some new features like:
- notifications
- see someone's at.work endorsements on their profile
- edit JSON in the data browser (be careful!!)
- embed images in the post composer

bsky.app/profile/prot...

bsky.app/profile/prot...

Seems to be working now, will do some more prod testing in order to ensure things are rock solid.

There are some issues with the production server causing problems with logging in that we are investigating now.

tfw local and the dev server work fine but prod just won't do its thing 😮‍💨

bsky.app/profile/prot...

There's something wrong with the production environment that didn't affect local development & test servers. Looking into it now, apologies!

ProtoPro is no longer invite-only, and we've moved the app to the regular domain: www.protopro.blue

Just granted everyone on the beta list access!

We'll be moving towards open registrations early this year!

We're here to fix this

So far — and for the foreseeable future — we've been focused on replicating LinkedIn features, but the prospect of private PDS data has us excited.

We want to decentralize your professional experience in more ways that one and give you the tools to break free from Big Tech.

Anyone who applied to beta access before this post should be able to login now.

Everyone (including those people recently approved!) should have an extra invite too!

There was a spike in follows and people requesting beta access, so I wouldn't say nothing. But there are better uses of time for sure.

Serious question: what funding?

This project makes no money and has no investors.

This project is a lone trans woman pursuing a passion project using AI to the exact same degree Bluesky itself is.

Then you should not use Bluesky either, given they take the exact same approach.

LinkedIn is a massive corporation owned by Microsoft.

We're a tiny project without any funding owned by a trans woman.

If you want David to beat Goliath, we need our slingshot (LLMs).

We want to compete with LinkedIn in the same way that Bluesky competes with Twitter.

The point is to offer compelling decentralized alternatives so people aren't caught up in rent-seeking corporate walled gardens.

No to both of these questions!

That said, the nature of AT Proto is such that there's a high likelihood it will be scraped for data, even if we are doing nothing ourselves to facilitate or enable that.
bsky.app/profile/mosh...

We occasionally get questions about whether we use AI.

Yes. Just like Bluesky. Just like the majority of software projects these days.

It's especially unrealistic to expect projects without serious funding to not use AI and try to compete.

Not yet. They're somewhat of a walled garden, but we should try to see what we can pull off!

Anyone who requested beta access before this post should now be able to login.

We also just sent out another invite to every active account (including the ones just added!)

Screenshot showing a post with a "View on [deer icon]" button

We want to make ProtoPro work how you want with your broader AT Proto experience.

There is now a setting that replaces button links to Bluesky with Deer Social instead.

If you applied for beta access at any point using the form on our website, you should now have access!

(Though we see several of you already got in via invites 💜)

The PDS Data Browser inside of ProtoPro now has syntax highlighting on the JSON viewer and a tab for exploring blobs (e.g. pictures and videos — your non-text data)

Though many users may not need these tools, we want to empower power users to have control over their data!

AT Protocol, as opposed to AT-AT Protocol, the system the empire uses to coordinate walkers

Thanks to all the love and support shown to @protopro.blue so far!