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Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter and took it over in October of 2022, many Twitter-alternatives have been popping up. Right after Musk’s takeover of Twitter, Mastodon grew pretty substantially. And now, Bluesky is starting to grow quite a bit too.
Bluesky is an interesting one, because it was started by one of Twitter’s co-founders, Jack Dorsey, even before Musk bought Twitter. Dorsey is on the board of directors, so he’s involved but not really. He’s more involved in Square and Cash app.
So what is this new decentralized social media platform? Well, here’s everything you need to know.
What is Bluesky?
Bluesky, or sometimes called Bluesky Social, is a decentralized social network. This means that it runs on its own open-source Authenticated Transfer Protocol. This protocol, in theory, will make it easier for you to take your profile data and move it to another social network that runs on the AT protocol.
Unsurprisingly, Bluesky does look almost exactly like Twitter, minus quite a few features like ads, right now.
Bluesky is not fully available just yet. You do need an invite code to get onto the platform, which can be somewhat tough to get. But Bluesky has managed to get some big time Twitter users onto the platform, which is great to see.
How can I sign up for Bluesky?
As mentioned, you do need an invite code to sign up for Bluesky, at least for now. You can check out this article for more on how to get an invite.
Those that have been let onto the platform, they will receive one invite every two weeks. So it’s still a slow growing platform at this rate, and only has a little over 100,000 users. That’s not active users, that’s all users.
Are there apps for iOS and Android?
So the big question here is, how can you use Bluesky? Well, there is a web app, which isn’t the best, to be quite honest. But you can access it by going to bsky.app.
Bluesky does also have apps for iOS and Android, which do work a lot better than the web app. But it can be a bit slow. It definitely does have less resources than something like Twitter. But that should change as Bluesky grows, in fact it will need to change.
When you search for Bluesky on the App Store or Google Play Store, it will look like a Blue Sky with some clouds. This is not their official logo, it’s more of a placeholder until they launch fully. Which, who knows when that will be.
What features does Bluesky have?
Bluesky works a lot like Twitter. And considering it’s founded by a Twitter co-founder, that should not surprise anyone. But there are some features here that Bluesky does better than Twitter. And there are some things Twitter has that are missing (for now) from Bluesky.
Customized feeds
While Twitter has lists that you can create, Bluesky has customized, algorithmic feeds. These do require a bit of coding to get up and running, but you can create an algorithmic feed for just about anything. From a feed of tech news, to a feed of anything NSFW, and everything in between. And we do mean everything.
As the platform grows, this will likely grow as well, and perhaps get easier to create. Though, I think the purpose of these feeds isn’t to get everyone making feeds, but a small group of people making them.
Lack of moderation
As of right now, there’s a lack of moderation tools available for Bluesky. For instance, you can’t mute any keywords. And up until May 2023, there was no way to block anyone. So it’s quite clearly a very young startup social network. That does definitely need some work.
Who owns Bluesky?
Technically, Jack Dorsey does fund Bluesky, and he sits on the board of directors for the company. However, he is not involved in the day-to-day operation of the platform. Bluesky has a CEO, Jay Graber, who was previously a software engineer for the cryptocurrency Zcash. Then he founded an event-planning site called Happening.
Initially, in 2019, Twitter was funding Bluesky. But since Dorsey stepped down, he became the funder for the company. And of course, after Musk took over Twitter, they are definitely not involved with Bluesky.
Will it take over Twitter?
Right now, it’s tough to say if Bluesky will become a true alternative to Twitter. But it does look like it’ll have a better chance than Mastodon or any of the other services out there. The hardest part for Bluesky is going to be getting users onto its platform, as it is with any platform. But not only getting them onto the platform, keeping them on the platform, and actively using the platform.
If Bluesky can’t take over Twitter, Meta’s Twitter alternative would have the best chance. Since they have the money and users to make a viable alternative, but many won’t want to use another Facebook app.