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Bluesky, the decentralised micro-blogging platform created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has finally opened its doors to everyone after a year-long stint as an invite-only app. The platform was launched in beta last spring and currently boasts over 3 million users. With no waitlist to join, everyone can hop on to this open-source Twitter alternative, posing a challenge to Elon Musk’s X.
The platform is not much different from Twitter. Sorry, X. There is a home page that displays text posts and images from the people you follow. These posts are called “skeets” and are arranged chronologically. However, users can also follow algorithmic feeds created by other users to see more personalised content (there are over 250,00 of such custom feeds). That’s possible because of the tech that lies underneath, a decentralised infrastructure, which the folks at BlueSky call the “AT Protocol.”
Since Bluesky is an open-source, decentralised platform, developers can write their code on top of the AT Protocol to create anything from custom algorithms, and that’s what allows them to create custom feeds. Though, that is not all.
In the coming days, Bluesky will enable other developers to create their own versions of the service through federation. Thus, third-party developers can create their own server with their own rules when AT Protocol is activated.
BlueSky is not the only Twitter, not again, X alternative on the internet. Mastodon is another decentralised platform, which has gathered 1.8 million users. Then, there is Threads, launched by Mark Zuckerberg last year, and it already has about 130 million active monthly users. While it is not decentralised right now, Zuckerberg and his team have promised to integrate ActivityPub. Meanwhile, X has about half a billion users, as told by CEO Linda Yaccarino, checking up their feeds each month.
Seeing how many flock the bird’s nest into the clouds will be interesting.
The platform is not much different from Twitter. Sorry, X. There is a home page that displays text posts and images from the people you follow. These posts are called “skeets” and are arranged chronologically. However, users can also follow algorithmic feeds created by other users to see more personalised content (there are over 250,00 of such custom feeds). That’s possible because of the tech that lies underneath, a decentralised infrastructure, which the folks at BlueSky call the “AT Protocol.”
Since Bluesky is an open-source, decentralised platform, developers can write their code on top of the AT Protocol to create anything from custom algorithms, and that’s what allows them to create custom feeds. Though, that is not all.
In the coming days, Bluesky will enable other developers to create their own versions of the service through federation. Thus, third-party developers can create their own server with their own rules when AT Protocol is activated.
BlueSky is not the only Twitter, not again, X alternative on the internet. Mastodon is another decentralised platform, which has gathered 1.8 million users. Then, there is Threads, launched by Mark Zuckerberg last year, and it already has about 130 million active monthly users. While it is not decentralised right now, Zuckerberg and his team have promised to integrate ActivityPub. Meanwhile, X has about half a billion users, as told by CEO Linda Yaccarino, checking up their feeds each month.
Seeing how many flock the bird’s nest into the clouds will be interesting.
