
Newsmast × Bonfire
We’re excited to share that Newsmast and @bonfire.indieweb.social.ap.brid.gy
are working together!
Public Interest Social Networks
Bonfire is built by communities, for communities—rooted in autonomy, mutual care, and collective power. Co-create your tools, reclaim your data, and resist manipulation by shaping your own federated digital spaces.
Newsmast × Bonfire
We’re excited to share that Newsmast and @bonfire.indieweb.social.ap.brid.gy
are working together!
We’re collaborating across several key areas:
🔎 Enhancing discoverability for Channels on Bonfire
🧭 Improving interoperability between the Channels app and Bonfire
🌌 Partnering to offer services for organisations around Bonfire’s Mosaic initiative
Bonfire is one of the most exciting projects in the ActivityPub ecosystem, whilst Newsmast brings experience in community-building, advocacy, and outreach through projects like channel.org.
You can learn more about Bonfire's Mosaic project here: bonfirenetworks.org/mosaic/
Newsmast x Bonfire
We’re excited to share that Newsmast and @bonfire are working together!
We’re collaborating across several key areas:
🔎 Enhancing discoverability for Channels on Bonfire
🧭 Improving interoperability between the Channels app and Bonfire
🌌 Partnering to offer services for organisations around Bonfire’s Mosaic initiative
Newsmast is one of the most promising organisations pushing the fediverse forward with community-building, advocacy, and outreach.
And Channel.org is bringing innovations in collective publishing and content curation.
Together, we're creating pathways to support organizations discover the power of federated, community-owned social infrastructure.
Learn more about Mosaic: https://bonfirenetworks.org/mosaic
@newsmast
Bonfire x Newsmast
We’re excited to share that Bonfire and @newsmast are working together.
We’re collaborating across several key areas:
🔎 Enhancing discoverability for Channels on Bonfire
🧭 Improving interoperability between the Channels mobile app and Bonfire
🌌 Partnering to offer services for organisations around Bonfire’s Mosaic initiative
Bonfire is one of the most exciting projects in the ActivityPub ecosystem, whilst Newsmast brings experience in community-building, advocacy, and outreach through projects like https://Channel.org.
You can learn more about Bonfire's Mosaic project here: https://bonfirenetworks.org/mosaic/
Let’s see what we can achieve together!
⁂ Article
Exploring a Bonfire Geosocial Extension
This issue explores implementing a basic geosocial extension for Bonfire that enables location-based social interactions without the privacy concerns, gamification and corporate overhead of foursquare.
Currently, our composer only supports notes and articles. To enable check-ins/check-outs, we need:
Here our standard component, but with a dropdown element next the user avatar to select the activity to publish
The dropdown shows the activity type available, based on the active extensions
Once the user chooses the activity, the composer includes the needed extra field, in this case for check-in it only adds a autocomplete input for selecting the location.
(I added a dropdown next to checkin for switching between checkin - travel - checkout, maybe it's better to show all the 3 options inline?)
Places should be first-class AP actor.
This transforms places from simple geotags into active participants in the federated web, allowing physical spaces to build communities and curate their digital presence.
This means also that a place should be managed by one or more user.
In the following mockups we envisioned a very basic place page: on the right sidebar there is the About widget, with some extra fields that can be included in the place settings such as: name, address, phone number, email, opening hours, plus some aggregated data if needed, like the amount of check-in in last day/weel/month etc.
The page would have different tabs based on what's most relevant for the place and the extensions enabled, here the check-in feed
and the events feed
We already have most of the building block ready for implementing this, at least for this basic version (eg. focusing only on "public" spaces, not including the event extension, focus on check-in/check-out functionalities).
For locations from places.pub (or similar services) that aren't yet ActivityPub actors, we can create aggregation pages that function like more structured location-specific hashtag pages. Users can follow these locations and explore all related activities in one place.
Next steps
Fediverse Report #126 - This week's #fediverse news:
- Music sharing platform Bandwagon adds the ability for artists to sell albums, create paid channels for exclusive content, and announces upcoming premium subscription tier for artists
- @Bonfire Social is getting close to release, and team already working on other features as well
- some good articles on what its like to be a moderator, and the impact of LLMs on small communities on the fediverse
https://connectedplaces.online/reports/fediverse-report-126/
🌊 Exciting news! Crowdinblue - a mission-led initiative bridging water solutions with funding - has chosen #Bonfire to build their federated community space!
Together, we're designing custom extensions to connect water projects with impact investors and crowdfunding opportunities. All in a federated environment that puts communities and projects first.
Welcome to the Bonfire ecosystem, crowdinblue! 💚
Read more about the project: https://crowdinblue.org
#CommonsEconomy #WaterJustice #Fediverse
Are you a community, organization or project needing custom features while staying connected to the open web?
Our #Mosaic initiative makes this possible: build your specific tools (open knowledge management, coordination, governance, resource sharing, ...), or integrate your existing tools in your digital space while federating with the wider ecosystem.
Learn how at https://bonfirenetworks.org/mosaic
Your needs, your tools, your community, all connected. 🧩
We're experimenting with federated geosocial features in Bonfire, free from surveillance capitalism.
Check into your local community garden. Add location to mutual aid requests. Find tools nearby.
Imagine your local fablab or community center sharing check-ins, calendars, events, opening hours - all federated. A living hub for what's happening there.
🔧 https://github.com/bonfire-networks/bonfire-app/issues/1444
This unlocks new possibilities for local organizing, let's explore together 🔥
Happy to test check-out and travel activities too if you have examples to share.
We're tracking mockups and implementation progress here: https://github.com/bonfire-networks/bonfire-app/issues/1444
Looking at @bonfire I feel like it's time to setup a test instance?
@ankorage@fe.disroot.org @muppeth@fe.disroot.org sounds awesome!
⁂ Article
Connect your existing tools to the fediverse with Mosaic
Your organisation's favorite apps, now with superpowers.
We all navigate a constellation of specialized tools daily. Organisations depend on CRMs, project management platforms, and financial systems. Communities coordinate through forums, chat and event platforms, and resource-sharing databases. Individuals track their lives across fitness apps, reading lists, streaming services, knowledge management tools and more.
Each app serves its purpose, but they each create isolated silos where valuable activities, insights, and connections remain trapped behind separate logins and walled gardens.
What if you could keep using the tools built for your needs while opening them to your community or the broader fediverse according to your specific rules and boundaries?
Through our Mosaic initiative, leveraging the Bonfire modular framework, we offer like-minded organizations and communities the opportunity to build custom extensions that connect their homegrown or third-party applications to the fediverse. These bridges:
The result? Your isolated tools become part of a connected, collaborative ecosystem.
Imagine your team uses a kanban board to manage development sprints. With a custom Bonfire extension, we could connect the service's API and monitor specific triggers like completed tasks, cards tagged with #feedback, or comments added.
When triggered, the extension would create ActivityPub objects with rich metadata: task description, relevant links, and progress context. Your fediverse followers would receive these as native posts they can react to, boost, and comment on. Their feedback would flow back through the extension as comments on the original card.
You would control the boundaries granularly, e.g. public for open source projects, followers-only for beta features, restricted to your instance for internal work, or anything in between. The two-way sync would ensure your project management tool remains the single source of truth while your community becomes an active participant in the development process.
Your mutual aid network could maintain a resource spreadsheet or database tracking offers, needs, and availability. Our extension would poll for new entries or status changes (by connecting to an API, listening to webhooks, or even directly reading the database or spreadsheet itself), converting them into structured ActivityPub objects with standardised properties for location and resource type taxonomy tags, and custom properties for quantity and urgency.
When someone marks "10 wool blankets available" or "urgent: need baby formula," it would federate as a rich post that other instances can parse intelligently. Neighboring mutual aid groups would see these in dedicated feeds or maps, filtered by resource type or geographic proximity.
The extension could handle resource matching across networks, suggesting possible connections between needs and offers while respecting each network's autonomy.
Your organisation's calendar contains everything from public conferences to internal meetings. The extension would connect via calendar APIs (CalDAV, Google Calendar API, etc.) and intelligently parse event metadata: detecting whether events are public, extracting registration links, and identifying capacity limits.
Public events would become rich ActivityPub Event objects that federated platforms can display natively—Mobilizon and Bonfire instances would show them in event listings, Mastodon users would see them as interactive posts. RSVPs would flow back through via ActivityPub federation, updating your attendee count in real-time.
The extension could handle timezone conversions, recurring events, and last-minute changes. When you update event details, it would send an update to ensure all federated copies stay synchronised.
Imagine federating your collaborative playlists to spark music discovery across communities. Or sharing fitness milestones that inspire distributed workout challenges. Or creating transparent financial reporting that builds trust with your supporter network.
The examples above showcase just a glimpse of what's possible when we bridge isolated tools to the fediverse. While these specific integrations are just ideas, they represent the transformative potential of Bonfire, and we're ready to build them with you.
Mosaic is a unique service where the Bonfire team works with you to co-design and build custom extensions entirely shaped around your community's needs.
Mosaic is perfect for you if:
What we offer:
Let's start a conversation.
Whether you want to federate your project management, open up your resource database, or imagine entirely new possibilities, we're here to build it with you. Your use case could become the next example inspiring others to break down their digital silos.
Book a call with us or contact us at team@bonfire.cafe.
@stefan@gardenstate.social edited, thanks! the link is opencollective.com/bonfire-n...
Man, this is so exciting! I've been thinking about building with Bonfire for a while now, this might be the push I need!
@sean@deadsuperhero.com great, let's conspire together 🔥
⁂ Article
🔥 Bonfire Social 1.0 RC2
We’re pleased to announce Bonfire Social 1.0 Release Candidate 2! This update is all about refining and polishing the experience, fixing bugs, and making Bonfire more enjoyable and reliable for everyone. These improvements come directly from your feedback, bug reports, and real-world testing.
Of course, we couldn’t help ourselves and also snuck in some exciting new features—like long-form article publishing and more feeds customisations, plus plenty of interface refinements for both desktop and mobile.
A huge thank you to everyone who has set up a Bonfire instance, or joined the campground (our local-only testing space) to try out the app. Your suggestions and bug reports have been invaluable as we approach version 1.0. Please keep testing, sharing feedback, and helping us shape the future of federated social spaces!
Additional improvements include:
For a comprehensive list of changes, see the full changelog.
Bonfire Social is built to be diverse and welcoming, which means making it accessible in as many languages as possible. Thanks to our amazing translators, Bonfire is now available in several languages.
- Portuguese (Brazil): 100% translated & reviewed 🎉
- French: 98.9% translated, 69.4% reviewed
- Italian: 96.7% translated, 54% reviewed
- German: 98% translated
- Spanish: 57% translated
- Vietnamese: 20.9% translated, 11.1% reviewed
- ...and several more, including Catalan, Cantonese and Taiwanese.
Want to help Bonfire speak your language? Please join us and make a difference for communities worldwide!
As we push toward 1.0, we're facing some specific challenges where community support and contributions would make a real difference:
These are our most pressing needs as we approach 1.0. If you can help with any of these areas, please get in touch via the fediverse, Matrix chat, or GitHub. Every contribution, big or small, helps make Bonfire better for everyone.
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has contributed translations and reviews. You are lighting up Bonfire for people everywhere! Here are some of our awesome translators:
> Gilles Dutilh, Ahmad Dakhlallah, Lamparina Coletivo, alan ptm, Antonio Irre, Zulfikar A, CDN, cranio_is_thinking, Steven Bond, Diego KehrleSousa, Vrlo Vazno, Ed, Andrei Guliaikin, Hendra Wahyu T, Hippie Gschpängschtli, House of Olivier EU, Ivan Minutillo, Juan García, Lapineige, Pascal Schmid, Martin Frost, Duy, Mayel de Borniol, Sovversivo Anonimo, Peter Kvillegård, Poesty Li, Sergio Guidoux, Vaclovas lntas, Williams Melgar, and many more!
We really appreciate your work! 💜
And a massive thank you to everyone who contributed code, ideas, testing, translations, and support—including @spark464@spark.box464.social , @tommi@pan.rent, @lechindianer@sueden.social , @fishinthecalculator@bonfire.fishinthecalculator.me , @dumpsterqueer@gts.superseriousbusiness.org , @ozoned@social.ozoned.net.
Thanks to those that are taking time to test drive Bonfire on our demo instance and provide feedback, such as @LiquidParasyte, @Rincewind, @youronlyone, @coyote...
Thanks to @nlnet@social.nlnet.nl for supporting the Bonfire development, all our Open Collective donors and our amazing community as a whole.
Bonfire is a collaborative project, and we’re grateful to build it with you .
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Ready to try Bonfire 1.0 RC2?
- Chat with us on the fediverse: @Bonfire@bonfire.cafe
Let’s light up the fediverse together! 🚀
A space for Bonfire maintainers and contributors to communicate