Bluesky is a new Twitter look-alike platform but more decentralized. The company has been backed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and it comes as no surprise that many of its services resemble Twitter’s. The app has been on the beta invite-only for iOS users.
There are several other Twitter alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky borrows the same concept from it and is also a federated social network, which, at its most basic level, means that users can participate through different providers instead of a huge central one. The easiest comparison is email: if you have Gmail, you can send an email to somebody on Apple’s iCloud, and they can reply back to you.
Bluesky lets you pick from different hosting providers including its own. There’s an option to join other providers, and users have to explore those other available options and learn how to set them up. When you set up a username, it will read more like a domain — say username.bsky.social.
Bluesky already has an extremely active user base that deals with an influx of newcomers. When you go through the “What’s hot” section, it’s a mishmash of simple internet delight.
The challenge for Bluesky will be maintaining its positive environment, and that’s just what things its federated system — the AT Protocol — is designed to do. The protocol is still in development, but Bluesky’s stated focuses are decentralized social networking, algorithmic choice, and portable accounts. That means that maybe someday, a user will theoretically be able to hang out in a domain that isn’t also used by everybody else in the Bluesky app, choose an algorithm that serves mellower posts, and if they want to leave, easily bring their account and followers with them to another app. (It’s worth noting that Twitter owner Elon Musk has expressed an interest in letting you choose your own Twitter algorithm, but we’ll see if that actually happens.)
Bluesky’s moderation tooling could also be key to the platform’s future. The organization wants to let you apply custom filters and labels and even rely on preferred third parties to do that work for you, which could let users better tailor their social feed for what they need.
The Bluesky domain system
The network’s domain name system also doubles as a handy verification service of sorts. The current setup could mean that one day, for example, one might be able to have @username.companyname.com to show that they are working for a particular firm. Or, a user could tie a domain to their own Bluesky account to prove that they are who they say they are. If this system takes off, it could solve a lot of the verification and moderation woes and subscription for verification ticks that we see on other platforms.
Several early adopters of Bluesky say that the platform currently feels like a simpler time on the internet. It’s a feeds-based social network with a community of at least 20,000 people, meaning there’s a lot of activity and conversation, but with less toxicity or people racing to slam dunk people in quote tweets. They say it feels like a platform where people are just hanging out and chatting with each other.
