--- title: Scattered thoughts on social geolocation | daily.dev description: A developer shares thoughts on adding geolocation support to decentralized social media protocols like ActivityPub (Mastodon) and AT Protocol (Bluesky). The... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/scattered-thoughts-on-social-geolocation-muenrn3xg twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Scattered thoughts on social geolocation | daily.dev og:description: A developer shares thoughts on adding geolocation support to decentralized social media protocols like ActivityPub (Mastodon) and AT Protocol (Bluesky). The... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/scattered-thoughts-on-social-geolocation-muenrn3xg og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/MuEnRn3Xg.png og:image:alt: Scattered thoughts on social geolocation og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Scattered thoughts on social geolocation **[Terence Eden](https://daily.dev/sources/shkspr)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A developer shares thoughts on adding geolocation support to decentralized social media protocols like ActivityPub (Mastodon) and AT Protocol (Bluesky). The post critiques the current Geographical Microsyntax proposals, arguing against inline text-based location syntax in favor of GeoJSON embedded as post metadata. Key concerns include lack of user research, ambiguity of place names, and the risks of relying on centralized place ID services (Google Maps, Foursquare). The author advocates for WGS 84 lat/long coordinates wrapped in GeoJSON as the primary location standard, with optional enrichment via Wikidata, OSM, or other identifiers. Next steps proposed include user research, privacy safeguards, and encouraging clients to start embedding GeoJSON metadata even before display support exists. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why I'm betting on ATProto \(and why you should, too\)](https://daily.dev/posts/why-i-m-betting-on-atproto-and-why-you-should-too--lm4awkw56) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Passkeys: An Overview](https://daily.dev/posts/passkeys-an-overview-yrt1mu6uv) · Security Boulevard · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#social-media](https://daily.dev/tags/social-media), [#activitypub](https://daily.dev/tags/activitypub) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/scattered-thoughts-on-social-geolocation-muenrn3xg) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Scattered thoughts on social geolocation","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/scattered-thoughts-on-social-geolocation-muenrn3xg","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/scattered-thoughts-on-social-geolocation-muenrn3xg"},"datePublished":"2026-07-22T11:37:55.062Z","dateModified":"2026-07-22T11:38:20.861Z","description":"A developer shares thoughts on adding geolocation support to decentralized social media protocols like ActivityPub (Mastodon) and AT Protocol (Bluesky). The...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a6ec93d70db54d11d5b9e11e30384439?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a6ec93d70db54d11d5b9e11e30384439?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Terence Eden","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Terence Eden","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--nhylgPuf--/f_auto,q_auto/v1774964413/logos/shkspr?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/shkspr"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/scattered-thoughts-on-social-geolocation-muenrn3xg","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"social-media,activitypub","timeRequired":"PT6M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Terence Eden","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/shkspr"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Scattered thoughts on social geolocation"}]} ```