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Is the grass greener on the other side? We’re not sure, but the sky is definitely bluer. It’s been two years since Elon Musk bought Twitter, which is now X, prompting people to set up shop on alternative platforms. Mastodon, Post, Pebble (two of which have already closed Operations) and Spill as potential alternatives, but few of them except Meta’s Threads have achieved the growth speed that Bluesky has.
After being invite-only for about a year, Bluesky became open to everyone in February 2024 and gained nearly 800,000 new users in one day. As of November 2024, Bluesky has over 16 million users. Its growth stems from several policy changes in Bluesky also saw a big boost following the results of the 2024 US presidential election (which also contributed to the exodus of X by Taylor Swift fans). But while the number is promising, the network has a lot of catching up to do to compete with Threads’ 275 million monthly active users.
What is bluesky?
Bluesky is a decentralized social app designed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and developed in parallel with Twitter. The social network has a Twitter-like user interface with algorithmic selection, uniform design, and community-specific moderation.
Bluesky uses an open source framework created in-house AT protocolWhich means that people outside the company are transparent about how it is built and what is being developed.
Dorsey introduced Project Bluesky in 2019 while he was still CEO of Twitter. At the time, he said Twitter would fund “a small, independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers,” tasked with building a decentralized social media standard, with the original goal being for Twitter to adopt that standard itself. . But that was before Elon Musk bought the platform, so Bluesky completely separated from Twitter.
As of May 2024, Dorsey is no longer a member of BlueSky’s Board of Directors. Bluesky is now an independent public benefit corporation led by CEO Jay Graber.
How to use Bluesky?
When registering, users can create a handle that is then represented as @username.bsky.social as well as a display name that appears more clearly in bold text. If you wish, you can turn the domain name you own into your username – so, for example, I’m known on Bluesky as @amanda.omg.lol.
The app itself works much like basic Twitter, where you can tap the plus button to create a 256-character post, which can also include photos. The posts themselves can be replied to, retweeted, liked, reported, shared via the iOS Share Sheet to other apps, from a three-dot menu, or copied as text.
You can search for and follow other people, then view their updates in your “main” timeline. Previously, Bluesky displayed popular posts in the “Hot Posts” feed. This feed has since been replaced with an algorithmic and personalized “discovery” feed featuring more than just trending content.
For new users, Bluesky has introduced a “Starter Pack” feature, which creates a curated list of people and personalized feeds to follow in order to instantly find interesting content.
User profiles have the same kind of features you’d expect: profile photo, background, bio, metrics, and how many people they follow. Profile feeds are divided into two parts, like Twitter: Posts and Posts and Replies.
There’s also a Discover tab at the bottom center of the app’s navigation bar, which provides more Who to Follow suggestions and a running feed of recently posted Bluesky updates.
We’ve also put together a handy guide on how to use Bluesky here.
Who’s on Bluesky?
By the beginning of July 2023, when Instagram’s Threads launched, Bluesky had surpassed 1 million downloads across iOS and Android. Prominent personalities such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mark Cuban, Drill, Weird Al YankovicAnd even Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva They migrated to Ploski. It is also home to news organizations such as Bloomberg, The Washington PostAnd of course TechCrunch! Since August 2024, Bluesky is now also allowing heads of state to register and join the platform for the first time.
Does Bluesky work exactly like X?
In many ways, yes. Until recently, Bluesky didn’t have direct messaging like X, but that has since been implemented. However, Bluesky direct messaging is currently limited to individual messages, not group messages. Bluesky also said it’s interested in implementing something similar to X’s Community Notes feature. Additionally, X doesn’t use a decentralized protocol like ActivityPub or in.
In October 2024, Elon Musk announced that the X’s block feature would work differently than it did in the past. The new blocking functionality allows users you’ve blocked to see your posts and profile, but not the ability to interact with your posts. Some users believe this update is a safety concern, leading to an influx of Bluesky signups since its blocking feature is more traditional.
While Bluesky was initially launched as a project championed by Jack Dorsey in 2019 when he was CEO of Twitter, the social app has been an independent company since its inception in 2021.
Is Bluesky free?
Yes, it is now open to the public.
How does Bluesky make money?
Bluesky’s goal is to find another way to keep its network out of advertising through paid services, so it remains free for end users. On July 5, 2023, Bluesky announced additional seed funding and a paid service that provides custom domains to end users who want a unique domain to serve as their onboarding partner. Bluesky also confirmed that it does not want to be “asked to sell user data for ads.” In order to monetize its platform.
In November 2024, Bluesky announced that it had raised a $15 million Series A funding round and was developing a subscription service for premium features such as “high-quality video uploads or profile customizations.” However, Bluesky noted that its subscription model would not follow in X’s footsteps Premium “Pay to Win” offers.
Is Bluesky decentralized?
Yes. The Bluesky team is developing the decentralized AT protocol, on which Bluesky is built. In its beta phase, only users can join the bsky.social network, but Bluesky plans to be federated, meaning there could be countless individually managed communities within the open source network. So, if a developer outside of Bluesky builds their own new social app using the AT protocol, Bluesky users can jump into the new app and navigate through their existing followers, engagement, and data.
“You will always have the freedom to choose (and exit) instead of being subject to the whims of private companies or black box algorithms. And wherever you go, your friends and relationships will be there too. Bluesky’s blog post explained.
Is Bluesky safe?
In October 2023, Bluesky Added email verification As part of a larger effort to improve account security and authentication on the network. The addition is an important step forward in terms of making Bluesky more competitive with larger networks like X, which have more robust security controls. In December 2023, Bluesky allowed users to opt out of the change that might occur Expose their posts on the public internet After backlash from users.
Is Bluesky customizable?
Yes. In May 2023, Bluesky released custom algorithms, which it calls “Personalized Feeds.” Personalized feeds allow users to subscribe to multiple different algorithms that display different types of posts a user might want to see. You can pin custom feeds that will appear at the top of your timeline as different tabs to choose from. The feeds you pin or save are located under the My Feeds list in the app’s sidebar.
The company announced in March 2024 “Grant AT Protocol” A new program will distribute small grants to developers to promote growth and customization. One recipient, SkyFeed, is a custom tool that allows anyone to create their own feeds using a graphical user interface.
Is Bluesky available on iOS and Android?
Yes. Bluesky rolled for Android users on April 20 and initially launched for iOS users in late February. Users can access Bluesky on the web here.
How does Bluesky deal with misinformation?
After the October 2023 update, the app will now warn users about misleading links by reporting them. If the links shared in users’ posts don’t match their text, the app will present a “Possibly misleading” warning to the user alerting them that the link may direct them somewhere they don’t want to go.
Has Bluesky had any controversies?
Bluesky has had moderation issues since it was first released. The app has been accused of failing to protect its marginalized users and failing to moderate racist content. the next Controversy About the app allowing racial slurs in account handles, frustrated users began a “posting strike,” refusing to engage with the platform until it created guardrails for reporting slurs and other offensive terms in usernames.
What moderation features does Bluesky have?
A December 2023 post from the Bluesky Safety account announced a slew of Moderation updates.
Bluesky is rolling out “more advanced automated tools” designed to flag content that violates its community guidelines which will then be reviewed by the app’s moderation team.
Bluesky has launched moderation features similar to those found on the X, including user lists and moderation lists, the latter of which can be used to mute or block multiple users at once. The app is also developing a feature that will allow users to decide who can reply to posts.
Some Bluesky users are still championing the ability to set their accounts to private — a feature they’ve come to increasingly need after Bluesky announced it would launch Public web interface.
In March 2024, The company launched ozonea tool that allows users to create and run their own independent moderation services that will give users ‘Unprecedented control’ During their experience on social media.
What is the difference between a bluesky and a mastodon?
Although Bluesky’s architecture is similar to Mastodon’s, many users have found Bluesky to be more intuitive, while Mastodon is less accessible: Choosing an instance to join seems like an impossible task on Mastodon, and long-time users are very defensive about deployment standards Their own, which can make joining the conversation intimidating. In order to remain competitive, Mastodon recently simplified the signup process, making Mastodon.social the default server for new users.
However, launch Union It will make it work more similarly to Mastodon as users can pick and choose which servers they want to join and transfer their accounts at will.
Who owns Bluesky?
Although Jack Dorsey funded Bluesky, he is not involved in the day-to-day development and is no longer a member of the company’s board of directors. Bluesky’s CEO is Jay Graber, who previously worked as a software engineer for the cryptocurrency Zcash, then founded an event planning site called It is happening.
If you have more FAQs about Bluesky that aren’t covered here, leave us a comment below.
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