Bluesky, a social networking startup and X competitor, is officially launching direct messaging (DM), the company announced Wednesday. Bluesky then went on to say that it plans to “fully support end-to-end encrypted messaging in the future.”
The announcement comes two weeks after the social network teased that it would soon introduce direct messaging features. Until now, all conversations on the platform were public, but with the launch of DM, users will be able to chat privately while remaining on their social networks.
To access this new feature, users can start a private conversation with someone within Bluesky's “Chat” tab. DM is available on Bluesky's mobile and desktop applications. However, at this time, this feature only supports his one-on-one messages and does not support group messages.
This new feature brings Bluesky's user experience more in line with X (formerly Twitter). The release also makes Bluesky more competitive with Meta's Threads, which doesn't currently offer native DMs (though you can share Threads posts to Instagram DMs).
By default, only people you follow can send you DMs. You can change your settings to allow DMs from no one, only people you follow, or all Bluesky users.
Bluesky has achieved notable success despite launching without some of the core functionality available in X. The company has been building its service over the past year and has the potential to expand its user base by introducing more features to its platform.
For example, the social network recently began allowing users to personalize their main Discover feed. Users can now personalize the content the platform shows them by clicking the “Show more like this” and “Show less like this” buttons. This feature is similar to the “I'm not interested in this post” option in X.
Bluesky, which has grown to around 5.6 million users, has more notable features planned, including video support and anti-harassment tools.