Is the grass greener next door? I'm not sure, but I'm sure the sky is bluer. It's been more than a year since Elon Musk bought Twitter (now known as X) and people started setting up shop on alternative platforms. Mastodon, Post, Pebble (now defunct), and Spill have been mentioned as possible replacements, but apart from Meta's Threads, few companies have achieved the speed of growth that Bluesky achieved.
Bluesky has been invite-only for almost a year, but is now open to anyone who wants to join. Bluesky expects to gain about 800,000 new users within one day, and the total number of subscribers will exceed her 4 million. While the numbers are promising, the network has a lot of catching up to do before it can match Threads' 130 million monthly active users, or even Mastodon's 1.8 million. And while every time Mr. Musk makes an unwelcome change, his X users flock to Bluesky, the platform is still able to claw its way to the top of the US App Store.
Here we answer the most common questions about Bluesky Social.
What is Blue Sky?
Bluesky is a decentralized social app conceptualized by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and developed in parallel with Twitter. This social network features a Twitter-like user interface with algorithmic selection, federated design, and community-specific moderation.
Bluesky uses the AT protocol, an open source framework built in-house. This means that people outside the company are transparent about how the framework is built and what is being developed.
Dorsey introduced the Bluesky project in 2019, when he was still Twitter CEO. At the time, he said Twitter would fund “a small, independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers” responsible for building decentralized standards for social media, adding that He said the goal is for Twitter itself to adopt this standard. . But that was before Elon Musk acquired the platform, and as of late 2022, Bluesky is completely divorced from Twitter. Mr. Dorsey even used Mr. Bluesky to express his dismay with Mr. Musk's leadership.
Twitter is funding a small, independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop open, decentralized standards for social media. The goal is for Twitter to eventually become a client of this standard. 🧵
— Jack (@jack) December 11, 2019
How do I use Blue Sky?
When signing up, users can create a handle, represented as @username.bsky.social, and a display name, which is displayed prominently in bold. If you feel like it, you can turn your domain name into your username. So, for example, I'm known as @amanda.omg.lol on his Bluesky.
The app itself functions a lot like basic Twitter, with the plus button allowing you to create 256-character posts. Posts can also include photos. The post itself can be replied to, retweeted, liked, reported from the Miscellaneous menu, shared to other apps via the iOS share sheet, or copied as text.
Search for and follow others to see their latest updates on your Home timeline. Previously, the Bluesky app featured popular posts in the “What's Hot” feed. This feed has since been replaced with the algorithmically personalized Discover feed, which does more than just trending content.
There's also a Discover tab at the bottom center of the app's navigation, offering more Who to Follow suggestions and a running feed of recently posted Bluesky updates.
Image credit: Natalie Christman
Who is in Blue Sky?
By early July 2023, when Instagram Threads launched, Bluesky had surpassed 1 million downloads across iOS and Android. Notable names such as Neil Gaiman, Drill, and Chelsea Manning have moved to Blue Sky. It is also home to news organizations and journalists such as Bloomberg, Washington Post, and Engadget. Bluesky is currently available to the public, so others may be making the transition soon.
Does Bluesky work like Twitter?
In many ways, yes. However, Bluesky still lacks advanced tools such as DM and adding accounts to lists. Additionally, Twitter does not use decentralized protocols like ActivityPub or AT.
Bluesky originally began as a project convened in 2019 when Jack Dorsey was CEO of Twitter. However, the social app has been an independent company since its founding in 2021.
Is Blue Sky free?
Yes, it is currently open to the public.
How does Blue Sky make money?
Bluesky's goal is to find other means to sustain the network outside of advertising through paid services, and to remain free for end users. On July 5, Bluesky announced an additional seed round of funding and a paid service that provides custom domains to end users who want to have their own domain as a handle for the service.
Is Bluesky decentralized?
yes. Bluesky's team is developing a decentralized AT protocol that Bluesky is built on top of. In the beta stage, users can only join his bsky.social network, but Bluesky is planned to be federated. This means that an infinite number of independently operated communities can exist within an open source network. So if a developer other than Bluesky builds their own new social app using his AT protocol, Bluesky users can jump to the new app and port over their existing followers, handles, and data.
“Rather than being bound to the whims and black-box algorithms of a private company, you have the freedom to choose (and back out) at any time. And wherever you go, your friends and relationships will be there, too,” Bluesky's blog post said. explained.
Is Blue Sky safe?
In October 2023, Bluesky added email authentication as part of a larger effort to improve the security and authentication of accounts on its network. This addition is an important step forward in making Bluesky more competitive against larger networks like X with more robust security controls. Following backlash from users, Bluesky made his December 2023 change allowing users to opt out of publishing their posts to the public web.
Is Bluesky customizable?
yes. In May 2023, Bluesky released a custom algorithm it calls “Custom Feed.” Custom feeds allow users to subscribe to multiple different algorithms that showcase different types of posts that users want to see. You can pin custom feeds that appear at the top of your timeline as different tabs to choose from. Pinned or saved feeds can be found in the app's sidebar under the “My Feeds” menu.
In March 2024, the company announced AT Protocol Grants, a new program that provides small grants to developers to encourage growth and customization. One of his recipients, SkyFeed, is a custom tool that allows anyone to create their own feed using a graphical user interface.
Is Bluesky available on iOS and Android?
yes. Bluesky was released for Android users on April 20th, and initially for iOS users in late February. Users can access Bluesky on the web here.
Are Bluesky's posts really called “skeet”?
Technically, the post doesn't have a name, but Internet users have adopted the name “Skeets,” a combination of “tweet” and “sky.” Despite protests from Blue Sky CEO Jay Graeber and others who don't find the slang for semen funny, users still widely refer to the posts as “skeet.”
How does Blue Sky deal with misinformation?
After the October 2023 update, the app will now flag misleading links and warn users. If a link shared in a user's post doesn't match its text, the app will show the user a “potentially misleading” warning that the link may be leading the user somewhere they don't want to go. Warn you that there is.
Image credit: Bluesky on GitHub
Has Blue Sky had any controversy?
Bluesky has been plagued by moderation issues since its initial launch. The app has been criticized for failing to protect marginalized users and moderating racist content. Following controversy over app allowing racial slurs on account handles, disgruntled users launch 'posting strike' to flag slurs and other offensive terms in usernames refused to engage with the platform until guardrails were established.
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 sophisticated automated tools” designed to flag content that violates its community guidelines, which will be reviewed by the app's moderation team.
Bluesky has launched moderation features similar to those in X, including user lists and moderation lists. The latter can be used to mute or block many users at once. The app is also working on a feature that will allow users to limit who can reply to their posts.
Some Bluesky users still insist on the ability to set their accounts private. The need for this feature has increased since Bluesky announced the launch of a public web interface.
In March 2024, the company launched Ozone, a tool that allows users to create and run their own independent moderation services that give them “unprecedented control” over their social media experiences.
What is the difference between Blue Sky and Mastodon?
Bluesky's architecture is similar to that of Mastodon, but many users find Bluesky more intuitive, while Mastodon may seem less accessible. Mastodon makes choosing which instances to participate feel like an impossible task, and long-time users are very defensive about established posting standards. , it can be scary to participate in the conversation. To stay competitive, Mastodon recently simplified the sign-up flow and made mastodon.social the default his server for new users.
However, starting a federation makes it behave more like Mastodon in that users can choose which servers to join and move their accounts around freely.
Who owns Blue Sky?
Jack Dorsey has provided funding to Bluesky and is on the company's board, but he is not involved in day-to-day development. Bluesky's CEO is Jay Graber, who previously worked as a software engineer for the cryptocurrency Zcash and later founded an event planning site called Happening.
If you have any FAQs about Bluesky that aren't covered here, please leave a comment below.