New_ Public

@newpublic.org

New_ Public is a nonprofit product studio focused on reimagining community, connection, and conversation online. newpublic.org

@newpublic.org

We created @roundabout.town, our local community app, with a similar vision: to make high-quality local information as easy to access as possible.

See what’s new with Roundabout and other prosocial tech innovations in our latest Bulletin Board newsletter:

@newpublic.org

“There are no public pipes for the flow of civic news and information. The Jersey Bee exists to be exactly that: local public infrastructure for the people who need it most.” Simon Galperin, Founder of The Jersey Bee, writes about why the news closest to us is often is the least accessible:

@newpublic.org

Thank you to everyone who applied to our Entrepreneur in Residence pilot! We received over 600 applications from solo founders with a hunch about how to make the Internet a little more human and a lot more informative. We’ll have an update on our first residents soon! 🌐💭

@roundabout.townReposted by @newpublic.org

How do you allow people to connect one-on-one, for things like coordinating coffee chats and free item pickups, without creating a vector for spam and abuse?: In response to community member requests, our team came up with an elegant solution: Direct Replies

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Information designer and author Giorgia Lupi believes that we’re using AI for the wrong part of the creative process.

It can’t replace the “slow part” of discovery, listening, and thinking — but it can support the iterative process afterwards.

(gift link)
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

A hand-drawn diagram with pink arrows spiraling outward from a center point, with black dots marking five positions around the spiral. Each dot is labeled with handwritten text: "Sit with people" (left), "Immerse yourself in their world" (top), "Listen to their needs," "Hear what they don't say," "What they have tried that didn't work," and "Find what makes them light up" (bottom right).
@newpublic.org

A mother fighting for justice.
A Gen-Z innovator rebuilding technology.
Teens everywhere reclaiming their attention.

OUT TODAY: “Your Attention Please” investigates how social media is designed to hijack our attention & introduces the people building it differently.

www.yourattentionplz.com/watch

@newpublic.org

Did you know the Luddites, English textile worker activists in the early 1800s, weren’t actually anti-technology? Yes, they smashed machines “Office Space”-style, but primarily, they were pro-community, pro-worker, and concerned about how technology was negatively impacting their communities.

An aged parchment-style graphic with blackletter text reading: "We will never lay down our Arms [until] the House of Commons passes an Act to put down all Machinery hurtful to Commonality. Signed, General Army of the Redressers, Ned Ludd, Clerk."Two men in dress shirts and ties stand in an open field of wildflowers. One holds a baseball bat, the other has his foot raised over a dismantled desktop computer and printer on the ground.
@roundabout.townReposted by @newpublic.org

In developing Roundabout, a local community app for your town or neighborhood, we’re taking inspiration from, among other things, your household teapot. We want this new platform to be as useful, helpful, and reliable as possible. More soon! 🫖

@roundabout.townReposted by @newpublic.org

Have you ever heard of “calm technology”? Think about how a teapot never competes for your attention until the exact moment you need it — when the water is boiling. Unlike social media apps, your teapot isn’t sending push notifications to your teenager at 3AM, trying to coax them back online. 🙄

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Our latest newsletter takes on one of the most persistent myths in social media: that everything could be fixed w/ a reverse chronological feed. 🔄⌛https://newpublic.substack.com/p/meet-the-algorithm-you-can-actually

Engagement is a key signal for every recommender system used by a Big Tech company today. Systems that relentlessly optimize for engagement can amplify outrage, clickbait, and falsehoods. Yet purely chronological feeds are not an ideal solution either: whoever posts most often gets to be the loudest, it’s difficult to discover interesting people outside of your network, and experiments with Facebook and Instagram actually found that chronological feeds increased the amount of untrustworthy content.
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New_ Public’s @joshpkramer.bsky.social shows what it looks like to manually control your social media algorithm with @mysky.social, a new experimental feed project.

Just like the 🍔👑 says… Have it your way!

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