Jim Ray works in developer relations at Bluesky, where he helps developers build on the AT Protocol (atproto) and co-hosts the Off Protocol podcast. Brittany and Bethany talk with him about what developers can build on the open social web today and what’s coming next.

Jim explains Spaces, the upcoming permissioned data layer that will let developers build private groups and communities on atproto, and how builders might choose between public and private data. He shares his path from journalism school at UNC through newsrooms, a design agency, and almost a decade of developer relations at Slack before joining Bluesky. The conversation also covers:

• why lexicons make atproto easy for AI coding agents to build on
• how the independent PLC directory helps keep the protocol “locked open”
• how competing blogging apps Leaflet, Offprint, and pckt worked together on the standard.site lexicon for long-form publishing

The episode wraps with AtmosphereConf 2027, which has its call for presentations open now. Then a round of predictions: when Spaces ships, and whether any app in the Atmosphere will ever outgrow Bluesky.

Links

• Jim Ray on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jimray.bsky.team
• Off protocol: https://atproto.com/off-protocol
• PLC Directory: https://web.plc.directory/
• Standard.site: https://standard.site/
• Leaflet: https://leaflet.pub/
• Offprint: https://offprint.app/
• Pckt: https://pckt.blog/
• Wordpress standard.site plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/atmosphere/
• Em-dash from Cloudflare: https://emdashcms.com/
• Atmosphereconf 2027: atmosphereconf.org
• Atmosphereconf 2027 CFP: https://atmosphereconf.org/speak
• Attie: https://attie.ai/
• delve.town: https://delve.town/
  

• Overcommitted: https://overcommitted.dev

• Bethany Janos: https://trustyduck.dev
• Brittany Ellich: https://brittanyellich.com