The Rise of Bluesky
Bluesky is gaining popularity as a user-friendly alternative to Twitter, offering chronological feeds and features like "Starter Packs," attracting users, especially in the scientific community, though sustainability remains uncertain.
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Bluesky, a social media platform, is gaining traction as an alternative to Twitter (now X) by offering a user-friendly experience reminiscent of early Twitter. Unlike platforms that rely heavily on algorithmic feeds to maximize engagement, Bluesky and similar services like Mastodon provide a chronological timeline based on user curation. This shift is partly due to recent geopolitical events, such as X's temporary ban in Brazil, and the introduction of features like "Starter Packs," which allow users to curate and share collections of accounts based on specific topics. This has facilitated user growth and engagement, with Bluesky surpassing Threads in U.S. user activity as of November 2024. The scientific community, in particular, is looking to Bluesky as a potential successor to Twitter for sharing research and discussions, especially as algorithmic changes on X have hindered link sharing. While the platform is experiencing a surge in users, further observation is needed to confirm the sustainability of this trend.
- Bluesky is emerging as a user-friendly alternative to Twitter, mimicking its early interface.
- The platform allows for chronological feeds, reducing reliance on algorithmic content selection.
- Recent geopolitical events and new features like "Starter Packs" have contributed to Bluesky's user growth.
- The scientific community is increasingly viewing Bluesky as a viable platform for research discussions.
- Continued observation is necessary to determine if the current user migration to Bluesky is sustainable.
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10 commentsAfter the demise of Twitter, I first tried Post.news — which had great branding but failed to get the everything-is-a-tweet model right (comments were 2nd class citizens to posts).
Then I moved to Mastodon, which I enjoy. Mastodon’s biggest issue is the enormous UX hurdle to pick an instance before even signing up, though. That and the lack of a unified view (mentioned in the article) will probably keep it niche. Also lack of quote-tweeting, a deliberate choice.
BlueSky is the first truly worthy successor. It’s better than Twitter in its prime, before it went algorithmic. It allows quote-tweeting but gives the quoted party control over the scenarios that Mastodon was trying to prevent by avoiding the feature entirely.
Twitter/X is actually a balanced discourse site now. CNN even admitted that the party affiliation of its users went from majority-left (65/31) to split down the middle, 48/47. https://x.com/ScottJenningsKY/status/1861445812175147353
Their smart use of domains makes it so that their equivalent of "channel" can be an actual website, that will offer you recommendations when you watch videos on it exactly like YT, except you control the algorithm.
Users will get much better choice and experience over the already excellent YouTube, but most importantly the creators will be able to express themselves however they wish. They will rent hosting from a provider, shows ads from an Adsense-like service, and actually own both their content _and_ their subscriber list.
I've been wanting to build it, but I'm always deterred by how ATProto is still tightly linked to Bluesky itself.
It's basically become yelling into the void. Started out in 2007 and it was great for finding people and getting interest in your projects, but now, I just get a bunch of spam bot follows and on an account with 3,600+ followers, only 30-40 views at most per post (w/ no engagement).
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Bluesky, a decentralized social media platform launched in February 2023, has surpassed 15 million users amid rapid growth, facing challenges like outages while promoting user control and developer engagement.
Bluesky's success is a rejection of big tech's operating system
Bluesky, co-founded by Jack Dorsey, has gained 15 million users, attracting those from Musk's X. It emphasizes user experience, offering a reverse chronological feed and "starter packs" for engagement.
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Bluesky has surpassed 20 million users, offering customizable algorithmic feeds to reduce harmful content exposure, promoting user control and community engagement, though challenges in personalization remain.
'A place of joy': why scientists are joining the rush to Bluesky
Bluesky's user base has surged from 14 million to nearly 21 million, attracting researchers with its content control features and popular Science feed, despite concerns over potential spam and bad-faith actors.
'A place of joy': why scientists are joining the rush to Bluesky
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