While we can’t say if the grass is greener on the other side, the sky is certainly bluer after Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, now X, prompted a migration to alternative platforms. Alongside Mastodon, Post, and Pebble (which has unfortunately closed down), Spill and Bluesky have emerged as potential alternatives, with Bluesky notably achieving rapid growth comparable to Meta’s Threads.
After a year of being invite-only, Bluesky has opened its doors to the public and gained nearly 800,000 users in a day, on track to reach 4 million total signups. Despite its promising growth, Bluesky has some ground to cover to catch up to Threads’ 130 million monthly active users or even Mastodon’s 1.8 million. Nonetheless, with users flocking to Bluesky whenever Musk’s changes are less than favorable, the platform has climbed to the top of the U.S. App Store rankings.
Get answers to common questions about Bluesky social:
What is Bluesky?
Bluesky is a decentralized social app envisioned by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and developed in parallel to Twitter. The platform offers a Twitter-like interface with algorithmic choices, a federated structure, and community-specific moderation.
Bluesky utilizes an in-house open-source framework called the AT Protocol, providing transparency to external parties on its development.
Dorsey introduced the Bluesky project in 2019 while at Twitter, with the original intention that Twitter would adopt the decentralized standard. However, following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, Bluesky operates as an independent entity as of 2022.
How do you use Bluesky?
Upon registration, users create a handle (e.g. @username.bsky.social) and a display name. Additionally, users can use their domain name as their username on Bluesky, such as @amanda.omg.lol
The app functions similarly to Twitter, allowing users to create posts of 256 characters, along with images, replies, retweets, likes, and more. Bluesky also offers a personalized “Discover” feed.
The home timeline showcases updates from followed users, and the app presents suggestions under the “Discover” tab, making it easy to find new content and accounts.
Who’s on Bluesky?
By July 2023, Bluesky had over a million downloads across iOS and Android, attracting notable figures like Neil Gaiman, Dril, and Chelsea Manning, along with news organizations like Bloomberg and journalists. With Bluesky open to all, more users are expected to join soon.
