Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter back in October 2022, new social media platforms have been rising up, with hope from users that these new websites could kill the blue bird. And, look, I’d love to hop off the Twitter train and go to a Musk-free alternative, but we’ve been through so many alternatives now. The latest one is Bluesky, which, unlike the other platforms, does come with an extra little bit of weight behind it – it’s being built by one of Twitter’s original co-founders, Jack Dorsey.
So is this going to be the Twitter killer? Well, obviously we don’t know, but let’s talk about it.
What is Bluesky?
Bluesky is a social media and micro-blogging app, most similar to Twitter in terms of user experience. The feed experience is similar, as is how profiles are displayed to users. It’s almost identical, actually, down to the colour scheme.
The big difference between Bluesky and Twitter is that Bluesky has a focus on ‘decentralisation’ – in that, as you can see in the above video, usernames are handled a bit differently. For example, while a standard username on Twitter might be @ZachariahK_ (which is my username), Bluesky requires its users to treat usernames like domains. With this in mind, the platform adds “.bsky.social” to the end of your username, unless you add your own domain instead.
This technical process is explained in this video, but if you’re just using social media casually and don’t care about having .bsky.social added to your username, it shouldn’t matter.
You can use domain names as handles in Bluesky!
Here’s why we’ve designed the AT protocol to let you join a social network with a domain name as your handle. https://t.co/zJbhg0crWS
— bluesky (@bluesky) March 6, 2023
It sounds a lot like Mastodon, another decentralised social media platform, when we get into the nitty-gritty details.
If you only care about having a social media account on a platform similar to Twitter that isn’t Twitter, Bluesky should be able to fill that void, however, if you care about the more technical details, then you’d be interested to hear that the platform is being built on the ‘AT Protocol’, a protocol that should allow users to transfer accounts and online presences across the internet from website to website.
Who is Bluesky owned by?
Bluesky is owned by Jack Dorsey, one of the co-founders of Twitter. Originally Bluesky was created as a spin-out from Twitter, and today it functions independently from the bird app.
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 ultimately be a client of this standard. 🧵
— jack (@jack) December 11, 2019
How do I join Bluesky?
At the moment, Bluesky is currently undergoing a private beta – meaning it’s invite only. If you know somebody who has access and you get an invitation, you should be able to get in, but as it currently stands, there’s no way to sign up for the app without being invited. You can, however, join the waitlist.
Official apps are available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, but you won’t actually be able to join the platforms without that invite.