I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse.
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I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from crazy on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me annotate any location on the globe and share it over #ActivityPub
There's still a lot to do. But there's enough here for me to ask for your help. I would love to hear what you think of this short video, and to start talking to everyone out there who's interested in making maps on the Fediverse.
Atlas Demo #1
I'm really pleased with my progress on #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from tooting an 85mph brainstorm on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me a...
clip.place (clip.place)
@benpate Sounds like it could be used for reporting ICE? Like those apps that were banned recently.
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I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from crazy on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me annotate any location on the globe and share it over #ActivityPub
There's still a lot to do. But there's enough here for me to ask for your help. I would love to hear what you think of this short video, and to start talking to everyone out there who's interested in making maps on the Fediverse.
Atlas Demo #1
I'm really pleased with my progress on #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from tooting an 85mph brainstorm on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me a...
clip.place (clip.place)
@benpate This is awesome. I've been toying with an idea like this for years and it will IMHO be a killer app for AR.
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I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from crazy on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me annotate any location on the globe and share it over #ActivityPub
There's still a lot to do. But there's enough here for me to ask for your help. I would love to hear what you think of this short video, and to start talking to everyone out there who's interested in making maps on the Fediverse.
Atlas Demo #1
I'm really pleased with my progress on #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from tooting an 85mph brainstorm on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me a...
clip.place (clip.place)
Sure, doing taxiteam for the german yellow cabs. Described some aspects in https://github.com/w3c/activitystreams/issues/582
Would be interested in finishing the federated geocoding part together.
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I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from crazy on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me annotate any location on the globe and share it over #ActivityPub
There's still a lot to do. But there's enough here for me to ask for your help. I would love to hear what you think of this short video, and to start talking to everyone out there who's interested in making maps on the Fediverse.
Atlas Demo #1
I'm really pleased with my progress on #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from tooting an 85mph brainstorm on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me a...
clip.place (clip.place)
benpate@mastodon.social this is super super cool. Are you integrating with places.pub as well?
cc evan
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I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from crazy on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me annotate any location on the globe and share it over #ActivityPub
There's still a lot to do. But there's enough here for me to ask for your help. I would love to hear what you think of this short video, and to start talking to everyone out there who's interested in making maps on the Fediverse.
Atlas Demo #1
I'm really pleased with my progress on #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from tooting an 85mph brainstorm on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me a...
clip.place (clip.place)
@benpate Ben this is so impressive!
I canβt come up with coherent comments or questions just now but Iβm definitely tuned in and pondering how this connects to all my Future Cities/civic tech tangles.
Cc @samnabi this is one of the βsomebody had an idea sometime around FediForum two weeks ago and now thereβs a whole new dimensionβ¦β things I was trying to explain. I will include Benβs FediCON talk in what I send you, as well.
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I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from crazy on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me annotate any location on the globe and share it over #ActivityPub
There's still a lot to do. But there's enough here for me to ask for your help. I would love to hear what you think of this short video, and to start talking to everyone out there who's interested in making maps on the Fediverse.
Atlas Demo #1
I'm really pleased with my progress on #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from tooting an 85mph brainstorm on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me a...
clip.place (clip.place)
@benpate this is pretty exciting! do you have any idea what safety features will look like? would you build something into it that, say, actively prevents others from doxing someone?
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I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from crazy on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me annotate any location on the globe and share it over #ActivityPub
There's still a lot to do. But there's enough here for me to ask for your help. I would love to hear what you think of this short video, and to start talking to everyone out there who's interested in making maps on the Fediverse.
Atlas Demo #1
I'm really pleased with my progress on #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from tooting an 85mph brainstorm on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me a...
clip.place (clip.place)
@benpate love what youβve done so far. Can see so many uses. Thereβs a definite need to have βprivateβ tags / entries as well as public ones.
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I'm expecting this kind of street-level annotation to have lots of uses, from groups of friends replicating #FourSquare, to communities organizing events, or citizen #Journalists recording what's going on in their neighborhood.
Please share this with anyone who might benefit from sharing location notes online. It's time for me to start collecting some needs from real-world users.
GitHub - EmissarySocial/atlas: Annotate real-world locations on the Fediverse
Annotate real-world locations on the Fediverse. Contribute to EmissarySocial/atlas development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub (github.com)
@benpate Super cool! I wish the README had instructions on how to run this

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I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from crazy on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me annotate any location on the globe and share it over #ActivityPub
There's still a lot to do. But there's enough here for me to ask for your help. I would love to hear what you think of this short video, and to start talking to everyone out there who's interested in making maps on the Fediverse.
Atlas Demo #1
I'm really pleased with my progress on #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from tooting an 85mph brainstorm on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me a...
clip.place (clip.place)
@benpate ooh!
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I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from crazy on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me annotate any location on the globe and share it over #ActivityPub
There's still a lot to do. But there's enough here for me to ask for your help. I would love to hear what you think of this short video, and to start talking to everyone out there who's interested in making maps on the Fediverse.
Atlas Demo #1
I'm really pleased with my progress on #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from tooting an 85mph brainstorm on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me a...
clip.place (clip.place)
Better Atlas than the other one. A couple of questions:
- are you envisioning this to be a federated Foursquare or Yelp?
- inserting location tags to people's posts increases their personal data exposure quite a lot. What privacy implications do you see here?
- I didn't catch in the video what is the identity model you're basing this on. New identity on Atlas, or a tie-in to an existing fedi identity?
@benpate -
I'm expecting this kind of street-level annotation to have lots of uses, from groups of friends replicating #FourSquare, to communities organizing events, or citizen #Journalists recording what's going on in their neighborhood.
Please share this with anyone who might benefit from sharing location notes online. It's time for me to start collecting some needs from real-world users.
GitHub - EmissarySocial/atlas: Annotate real-world locations on the Fediverse
Annotate real-world locations on the Fediverse. Contribute to EmissarySocial/atlas development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub (github.com)
@benpate This is really great! One project that could very well be a nail for this hammer is https://wanderer.to !
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Better Atlas than the other one. A couple of questions:
- are you envisioning this to be a federated Foursquare or Yelp?
- inserting location tags to people's posts increases their personal data exposure quite a lot. What privacy implications do you see here?
- I didn't catch in the video what is the identity model you're basing this on. New identity on Atlas, or a tie-in to an existing fedi identity?
@benpateosma@mas.to benpate@mastodon.social I'd assume that if you're using Atlas that you're explicitly aware that the location data is being broadcast out, yeah?
I'd imagine it to be akin to an opt-in mechanism.
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I think we have enough evidence by now to know that even people who should have training to know better, accidentally reveal too much on apps, and that location is a particularly sensitive item.
Strava users utilises the app segment functionality to spy on the Israeli military
Unidentified members have used the fitness app's segment feature to track military running routes around classified sites
Runner's World (www.runnersworld.com)
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@julian @osma @benpate Β I donβt think that an app should tie my physical location to posting about a location, and it is not necessarily true that you need to be there to talk about that location.
And that could be anything from trip advisor like blog posts and reviews to boosting and chatting about social activism or events happening at a location.
For example, I may want to location tag Yosemite when writing about the current lack of funding to protect the land from human aggression. Or I would want to do so when writing about my experience at the top of Half Β Dome decades ago as part of a shared human experience.
Β
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I'm expecting this kind of street-level annotation to have lots of uses, from groups of friends replicating #FourSquare, to communities organizing events, or citizen #Journalists recording what's going on in their neighborhood.
Please share this with anyone who might benefit from sharing location notes online. It's time for me to start collecting some needs from real-world users.
GitHub - EmissarySocial/atlas: Annotate real-world locations on the Fediverse
Annotate real-world locations on the Fediverse. Contribute to EmissarySocial/atlas development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub (github.com)
@benpate this could be fun for geocaching
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@benpate Sounds like it could be used for reporting ICE? Like those apps that were banned recently.
@rimu Hey Rimu

I'm running this in an iOS simulator just to show the mobile theme, but this is 100% a web app.
There are many uses for this kind of geotagging. I won't be hosting a public Atlas server, but others communities/organizations can launch their own for whatever purposes they need.
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@benpate This is awesome. I've been toying with an idea like this for years and it will IMHO be a killer app for AR.
@ben Yeah, I really wanted to post comments on some billboards I saw on the freeway. Augmented Reality is beyond my current skillset -- and to make it work, we'd probably need to build out an AR ecosystem on the Fediverse, too.
Hopefully tagging addresses/locations is enough of a step forward that we can find some good uses for this.
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@ben Yeah, I really wanted to post comments on some billboards I saw on the freeway. Augmented Reality is beyond my current skillset -- and to make it work, we'd probably need to build out an AR ecosystem on the Fediverse, too.
Hopefully tagging addresses/locations is enough of a step forward that we can find some good uses for this.
@benpate I think the federation is the hard part. I think writing the actual AR application is probably pretty straightforward, at least for developers who are already familiar with their AR platform. (I don't know visionOS or whatever Meta uses, but I know iOS and I doubt it's that much different.)
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Sure, doing taxiteam for the german yellow cabs. Described some aspects in https://github.com/w3c/activitystreams/issues/582
Would be interested in finishing the federated geocoding part together.
@sl007 Yes, I'd love to work together on geocoding, too.
Right now, there's not much to it..
I'm using commercial geocoders to translate addresses into Lat/Long, then including that in 1) the ActivityStream document, and 2) the search results.
I'd love to work with https://places.pub in some way, but I'm not sure (yet) what that integration would look like, or what we'd get out of it.
So yes: let's keep talking about how we make this seamless. There should be one standard, not six

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Hey Julian..
I would love to integrate with places.pub, and I have this on my list of bookmarks for research.
I'm not sure what that would look like, just yet. Right now, the `Place` isn't its own actor, but just an extra set of data on a `Note`.
Maybe I could use places.pub as a datasource to look up previous addresses? I'm still researching, and would love to get your suggestions
