Instagram is for posers, Twitter is full of trolls, and Facebook is old. Surely no one has room in their life for more social media? Yet here comes Bluesky, a brilliant new Twitter lookalike so popular that invitations to join are in high demand.
For those of us who spend too much time online, Bluesky invite codes have bragging rights. Like a private party, the strict guest list has created a queue of people wanting to get in. On eBay, Bluesky invitations sell for hundreds of dollars.
Save your money. If you want to know what the app is like imagine Twitter, but smaller, weirder and without the shenanigans of Elon Musk. Talk about work, politics and news is limited. There are pictures of cats, jokes about Star Wars, and half-serious discussions about whether or not to moderate the nudity. It’s like walking into an unruly classroom that has been grounded. See how users decided posts should be called “skeets” (sky + tweet) despite opposition from the Bluesky team.
The set up is pleasantly familiar. You create a profile and choose whether to see posts from people you follow or a curated news list. This appears to be 90% technologists and tech journalists with a few celebrities scattered around. Twitter’s favorite grouch @dril has a Bluesky account, even though he’s only posted once. Night of the Living Dead even director Edgar Wright has one. So does Grimes, Musk’s former partner. Or at least, it seems. Bluesky has no means of user verification.
The exclusivity and high profile users explain why Bluesky has received so much attention despite a minimum user count of over 50,000, equal to only 0.02% of Twitter. Because it’s small, posts that could be retweeted thousands of times elsewhere get a handful of likes. Luckily, that also means there are no bots spamming replies. It’s in a sweet spot: big enough to be interesting but small enough to deter fights. This will likely change as it expands. Moderation is already causing disagreements.
The app is still under construction. This is why invitations are limited. You can’t post videos yet, for example. But the Bluesky team, including CEO Jay Graber, is doing a good job of answering questions. The user reaction is more lenient than anything shown towards Musk and his experiments on Twitter.
There are some drawbacks. The lack of an obvious business model is one of them. Clubhouse should serve as a warning. Inviting some chatty users soon, the live audio chatroom garnered a lot of attention. But growth stalled before it could generate revenue.
Also, there is nothing revolutionary about the app. The similarity to Twitter is intentional. It was funded by Twitter when Jack Dorsey was CEO. He sits on the blackboard.
What makes Bluesky’s success all the more unusual is that it’s far from the only new social network hoping to attract disgruntled Twitter users. All have strikingly similar interfaces, with short posts arranged in vertical feeds. None managed to gain much traction.
Perhaps rivals have boxed in by targeting particular groups. Post, backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, focuses on the news. That means it lacks the snark that made Twitter popular. Newsletter company Substack’s Notes, which launched last month, is designed to be used by existing Substack readers. Spill targets people who want to post about culture. Former President Donald Trump’s social network Truth Social is aimed at those on the right (and Trump fans).
For a while it seemed that Mastodon could emerge as the winning alternative. Decentralization means that, unlike Twitter, it cannot be changed by a new owner. But for those of us who are used to being fed social networks, Mastodon is baffling. Choosing a server and choosing an app sounds too much like hard work.
Bluesky is also decentralized, although I have chosen not to front and center this. The first stage is controlled by the Bluesky team. But the app is not the real goal. Bluesky’s most ambitious plan is to create a framework on which to build multiple social networks without a central figure in control. Moderation can be customized, potentially putting an end to the impossible attempt to balance free speech and online harassment. Portability is key. Users will be able to take their account from one network to another.
There is clearly an appetite for new social networks. The problem for Bluesky is that users seem to like it because it reminds them of Twitter, not because they want to upend centralized social media. To expand and keep the good vibes alive, she’ll need to find a way to explain her mission without scaring off newcomers.
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