It smells like Twitter, tastes like Twitter, and looks like Twitter, but it’s not Twitter. For the past few days, the new social network Bluesky has been talking about him. While concerns around the bluebird firm – and its management by Elon Musk – are growing, Bluesky is gaining a little more popularity every day. And it is not Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former boss of Twitter, who will say the opposite.
And for good reason, Bluesky was created and initially financed by Twitter itself in 2019, when the man was still the general manager. The platform, which has become independent in the meantime, now presents itself as an alternative to that of the blue bird. Because like its cousin, Mastodon, Bluesky is a so-called “decentralized” social network: each user can create their own server and administer it as they wish.
twin brothers
If Bluesky almost looks exactly like Twitter, the similarities are not only aesthetic. On the interface – blue and white – users can scroll to scroll through the “skeets” – which are neither more nor less than tweets. As on Twitter, users can post text, images, links to articles, emojis and mentions. And there too, like its big brother, posts that can be commented on, liked or re-shared. But that’s not all. Like Elon Musk’s social network, Bluesky shows two news feeds: one based on user subscriptions and the other on general trends. The profile pages are almost identical to those of Twitter, with a nickname, an avatar and a banner including the description, the number of “skeets”, subscribers and subscriptions. On the other hand, it is not yet possible to send private messages or videos, according to our colleagues from Figaro.
While the controversies on Twitter have multiplied in recent months, the similarities between the firm with the blue bird and Bluesky have visibly seduced some users. Launched last February on Apple’s iOS operating system and at the end of March on Android, the Bluesky application has already been downloaded 360,000 times and ranks ahead of some popular platforms such as LinkedIn, Bing or Zoom in the Apple App Store, according to the Forbes magazine website, citing data from the firm Data.ai. Besides the mobile app, Bluesky is also accessible on an Internet browser. “The address is staging.bsky.app. This is obviously a temporary address. The mention “staging” in the URL generally indicates a test environment”, explain our colleagues from Numerama.
Invitations and cooptation
A figure all the more impressive as Bluesky is only available, for the moment, by invitation. To join the social network, you must receive an invitation after registering on a waiting list. Depending on the store Forbesmore than a million candidates are already waiting for their pass.
The other solution is cooptation. New members receive an invitation code every two weeks, indicates the platform in its frequently asked questions (FAQ). Users who distinguish themselves by coopting “trustworthy participants” will be awarded additional invitations, adds the social network. The goal, according to Bluesky, which claims 50,000 active members at the end of April, is to avoid “spammers and bad actors who might want to manipulate the public conversation”.
And the platform already has several personalities in its ranks, such as the elected Democrat in the House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or the model Chrissy Teigen, who each have more than ten million subscribers on Twitter.
“It’s gone into a spin”
It was in 2019 that Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter at the time, began to imagine this “decentralized” social network. “Twitter is funding a small independent team of five architects, engineers, and free software designers to develop an open, decentralized standard for social media. The goal is for Twitter to eventually become a customer of this standard,” he wrote on Twitter at the time in a lengthy thread detailing the project.
In 2021, he appointed as director of Bluesky, Jay Graber, who has long worked on the development of Twitter. In 2022, by mutual agreement, the new social network had separated from Twitter and became an independent company, Bluesky PBLLLC. His mission ? “Develop and drive the wide adoption of technologies for an open and decentralized public conversation”.
After being one of the few to support Elon Musk’s takeover bid for Twitter, Jack Dorsey is now more critical. “It’s gone into a spin,” he said on Bluesky, responding to a question from a user.
“But it’s done now, and all we can do is build something to prevent it from happening again. So I’m glad Jay (Graber, Bluesky’s CEO) and his team are here to build it,” added Jack Dorsey, who now sits on Bluesky’s board of directors.