Instagram is for posers, Twitter is full of trolls, and Facebook is obsolete. Surely no one has room for more social media in their lives? Here comes Bluesky, however, a shiny new Twitter look so popular that invites 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, strict guest lists create long lines for those trying to get in. Bluesky invitations sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay.
Save your money. If you want to know what the app looks like, imagine Twitter, but smaller, weirder, and without the Elon Musk shenanigans. Discussions about work, politics and the news are limited. There are cat photos, Star Wars jokes and semi-serious discussions about whether or not nudity is appropriate. It’s like walking into an unruly classroom where you’ve been locked up. Look at how users decided to name their posts “skeets” (sky + tweet), despite Bluesky’s team objecting.
The setting is soothingly familiar. You create a profile and choose whether to see posts from people you follow or a curated trending list. That seems to be 90% of tech workers and tech journalists, and a few celebrities. Twitter’s favorite whiner, @dril, has a Bluesky account, though he’s only posted once. dead sean Director Edgar Wright has one too. So did Musk’s former partner, Grimes. Or at least, she seems to be. Bluesky was unable to authenticate the user.
The combination of exclusivity and high-profile users explains why Bluesky gets so much attention when it has just over 50,000 users—just 0.02% of Twitter’s. Because it’s so small, a post that might get retweeted thousands of times elsewhere gets only a handful of likes. Happily, this also means no bot spam replies. It’s in a sweet spot: big enough to be fun, but small enough to stop a brawl. This may change as it expands. Temperance has been divisive.
The app is still under construction. That’s why invitations are limited. For example, you cannot post videos yet. But Bluesky’s team, including CEO Jay Graber, did a great job answering questions. Users reacted more forgivingly than anything to Musk and his experiments on Twitter.
There are some downsides. The lack of an obvious business model is one of them. The clubhouse should serve as a warning. By inviting some big mouth users early, the live audio chat room has gained a lot of attention. But growth stalled before it managed to generate revenue.
There’s nothing revolutionary about the app either. The similarity to Twitter is intentional. It was seed-funded by Twitter when Jack Dorsey was CEO. He sits on the board.
What makes Bluesky’s success all the more remarkable is that it’s far from the only new social network hoping to appeal to disaffected Twitter users. All have strikingly similar interfaces, with short posts arranged into vertical feeds. None managed to gain much traction.
Perhaps competitors have limited themselves by targeting specific groups. Post, backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, focuses on news. That means it lacks the trappings that made Twitter popular. Substack’s Notes, a newsletter launched last month, is aimed at existing Substack readers. Spill is aimed at people who want to post about culture. Former President Donald Trump’s social network, Truth Social, targets the right (and Trump fans).
For a while, it looked like Mastodon would be the winning choice. Decentralization means that, unlike Twitter, it cannot be changed by a new owner. But for those of us used to cramming social networking setups, Mastodon is baffling. Choosing a server and choosing an application sounds like too much work.
Bluesky is also decentralized, though it chooses not to make it front and center. The first stage is controlled by the blue sky team. But apps aren’t really the goal. Bluesky’s more ambitious plan is to create a framework upon which multiple social networks can be built without central person control. Moderation can be customized, which could end impossible attempts to balance free speech and online harassment. Portability is key. Users will be able to transfer their accounts from one network to another.
Clearly, people are interested in new social networks. The problem with Bluesky is that users seem to like it because it reminds them of Twitter, not because they want to disrupt centralized social media. To scale up and keep the vibe going, it had to find a way to explain its mission without scaring away newcomers.
elaine.moore@ft.com