Is the grass greener on the other side? We’re not sure, but the sky is definitely bluer. More than a year has passed since then Elon Musk bought Twitternow Xleading people to create markets on alternative platforms. Mastodon, Position, Gravel (which it already has closed functions) and Leakage have been presented as possible replacementsbut few except Meta’s Threads have achieved the speed of growth that Bluesky has achieved.
Bluesky remains invite-only in its beta, but as more people join the site, the hype surrounding it is growing — however as we know from apps like Clubhouse, the hype may not last forever. Meanwhile, Bluesky has now reached more than two million users, up from the one million they reported in September. The application saw for 8,300 first installations per day in July 2023, on average, although no major download data updates have been released since then. And when Musk makes less-than-favorable changes to the X, Bluesky often does sees usage records. Although many people were desperate for an invite code when the site launched (even to the point buying them on eBay) have become much more accessible as more people get on board.
Here we answer the most common questions about Bluesky social:
What is Bluesky?
Bluesky is a decentralized social networking application designed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and developed alongside Twitter. The social network features a Twitter-like user interface with algorithmic selection, federated design, and community-specific moderation.
Bluesky uses an open source framework built in, the AT protocolmeaning people outside the company have transparency about how it’s built and what’s being developed.
Dorsey introduced the Bluesky project in 2019 while 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 standard for social media, with the initial goal of Twitter adopting that standard . . But that was before Elon Musk bought the platform, so as of late 2022, Bluesky has completely separated from Twitter. Dorsey has even used Bluesky to express his frustration with Musk’s leadership.
Twitter is funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media. The goal is for Twitter to eventually be a client of this standard. 🧵
— jack (@jack) December 11, 2019
How do you use Bluesky?
Once invited, users create a handle which is then represented as @username.bsky.social as well as a display name that appears more prominently in bold. If you’re so inclined, you can turn a domain name you own into your username — so, for example, TechCrunch’s Darrell Etherington is known on Bluesky as @etherington.com.
The app itself works like a bare-bones Twitter, where you can click a plus button to create a 256-character post, which can also include photos. The posts themselves can be replied to, retweeted, liked and, from a three-dot menu, mentioned, shared via the iOS Share Sheet in other apps, or copied as text.
You can search for and follow other people, then see their updates on your Home timeline. Previously, the Bluesky app would feature popular posts in a “What’s Hot” feed. This feed has since been replaced with an algorithmic and personalized “Discover” stream. with more than modern content.
There’s also a Discover tab in the bottom center of the app’s navigation, which offers more “who to follow” suggestions and a feed of recently published Bluesky updates.
Image Credits: Natalie Christman
How do I get invited to Bluesky?
New users receive an invitation code every two weeks they are in the Bluesky app. The company monitors the social graph, giving users who invite trusted participants more invite codes to share.
Long term, says Bluesky sees the invite code system as one piece of open source tooling it’s building to help server admins curate and moderate their communities.
Who’s on Bluesky?
Until early July 2023, when Instagram threads launched, Bluesky has surpassed one million downloads on iOS and Android. In September 2023, the app was officially launched one million users. Notables like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Neil Gaiman, and Chelsea Manning have migrated to Bluesky. It is also home to organizations and journalists such as X exile NPR, Taylor Lorenz and Jake Tapper.
Does Bluesky work just like Twitter?
In many ways, yes. However, Bluesky does not yet have DM or any advanced tools like adding accounts to lists. Additionally, Twitter does not use a decentralized protocol like ActivityPub or IN THE.
Bluesky originally started as a project convened by Jack Dorsey in 2019 when he was the CEO of Twitter. But the social networking app has been an independent company since its inception in 2021.
Is Bluesky free?
Yes, but right now access is by invitation only.
How does Bluesky make money?
Bluesky’s goal is to find another means to keep its network free of advertising with paid services so that it can remain free to end users. On July 5, Bluesky announced additional seed funding and a paid service that provides custom domains for end users who want to have a unique domain as an operator on the service.
Is Bluesky decentralized?
Yes. The Bluesky team develops the decentralized AT Protocol, upon which Bluesky was built. In its beta phase, users can only join the bsky.social network, but Bluesky plans to merge, which means there can be endless communities running individually within the open source network. So if a developer outside of Bluesky were to build their own new social app using the AT protocol, Bluesky users could switch to the new app and transfer their existing followers, handle and data. In November, Bluesky announced its intention to launch its federation “early next year”.
“You will always have the freedom to opt in (and out) instead of being stuck at the whims of private companies or black box algorithms. And wherever you go, your friends and relations will also be there.” explained a Bluesky blog post.
Is Bluesky safe?
In October 2023, Bluesky added email verification as part of a broader effort to improve security and account authentication on the network. The addition is a major step forward in making Bluesky more competitive with larger networks like X, which have stronger security controls.
Is Bluesky customizable?
Yes. In May Bluesky released custom algorithms, or what it calls “custom flows.” Custom feeds allow users to subscribe to several different algorithms that present different kinds of posts that a user might want to see. You can pin custom streams that will appear at the top of your timeline as different tabs to choose from. Streams that you pin or save can be found in the “My Streams” menu in the sidebar of the app.
Is Bluesky on iOS and Android?
Yes. Bluesky was released on Android users on April 20 and initially released for iOS users in late February. Users can access Bluesky on the web here. Bluesky also recently released a third-party app called GraySky which is about to be released on iOS and Android.
Are Bluesky’s posts really called “sketches?”
There isn’t technically a name for the posts, but netizens have adopted the name “skeets,” a portmanteau of “tweet” and “sky.” Users still widely refer to the posts as “naked,” despite protests from Bluesky CEO Jay Graber and others who don’t find the sperm slang amusing.
How does Bluesky deal with misinformation?
After an October update, the app will now warn users about misleading links by flagging them. If the links shared in users’ posts don’t match their text, the app will offer a “potentially misleading” warning to the user to alert them that the link may be taking them somewhere they don’t want to go.
Image Credits: Bluesky on Github
Did Bluesky have any disagreements?
Bluesky has had moderation issues since its first release. The app has been accused of not protecting its marginalized users and not mitigating racist content. NEXT a controversy about the app allowing racial slurs in account controls, frustrated users launched a “posting strike,” where they refused to engage with the platform until it created guardrails to flag slurs and other offensive terms in usernames.
What was the “hell thread”?
Basically, too many people replied to a thread, everyone in the thread broke, the post became unmuteable, and the thread broke in a bunch of different sub-threads… It was chaos. You had to be there.
What is the difference between Bluesky and Mastodon?
Although Bluesky’s architecture is similar to Mastodon’s, many users have found Bluesky more intuitive, while Mastodon can be seen as inaccessible: Choosing which instance to join seems impossible in Mastodon, and long-time users are very defensive about their established posting rules , which can make participating in the discussion intimidating. To stay competitive, Mastodon recently simplified the signup flow, making mastodon.social the default server for new users.
Who owns Bluesky?
Although Jack Dorsey funded Bluesky and sits on the company’s board of directors, 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 then founded an event planning site called It happens.
If you have more FAQs about Bluesky that aren’t covered here, leave us a comment below.
