Jack Dorsey's Bluesky Emerges as Another Twitter-Like Service, Gaining Traction Among Power Users

Bluesky is the latest in a long list of apps that are looking to steal Twitter's thunder after Elon Musk's chaotic takeover of the company.

By Reuters | Updated: 1 May 2023 23:05 IST

Jack Dorsey's Bluesky Emerges as Another Twitter-Like Service, Gaining Traction Among Power Users

Photo Credit: Reuters

Bluesy is a text-focused social media service launched for select users in February

Highlights

Bluesky runs on a decentralized framework, similar to Mastodon
There is no support for videos and direct messages, or DMs, so far
Bluesky's core framework allows for various customizations

Jack Dorsey is taking another whack at a Twitter-like service with a new social media platform called Bluesky.

The service is gaining traction among Twitter power users, attracting prominent personalities including US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Bluesky, which bears similarities to the blue bird platform, is the latest in a long list of apps that are looking to steal Twitter's thunder after Elon Musk's chaotic takeover of the company.

Here are some details on the service:

What is Bluesky?

It's a text-focused social media service launched for select users in February. Users can post short messages of up to 300 characters, and pictures. There is no support for videos and direct messages, or DMs, so far.

Bluesky runs on a decentralized framework, similar to social network Mastodon. It allows users to build independent social media experiences and users can join a specific "server", which has its own unique set of rules, interests and participants.

How does it compare to Twitter?

Bluesky offers a similar experience to Twitter — people create profiles and post short messages with text and images. On the timeline, Bluesky has "What's hot" and "Following" feed, similar to the curated "For You" and the chronological "Following" feeds on Twitter.

Unlike Twitter, Bluesky's core framework allows for various customizations. "Instead of one site running the network, you can have many sites. It means you get a choice of provider, and individuals and businesses can self-host if they want," it said in a blog post in October.

Who is behind Bluesky?

It was started by Dorsey as a project within Twitter in 2019 and was set up as an independent company in 2022. As of April 2022, it had raised $13 million (nearly Rs. 105 crore) from Twitter.

Dorsey, Jeremie Miller, the inventor of communication protocol Jabber/XMPP, and Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky, are its board members.

Is Bluesky taking on Twitter?

Too soon to say. The company told Bloomberg News it had over 40,000 users.

The company began to sign up users on the wait-list early this year and announced its biggest single-day jump last week.

While its user base is still small, Bluesky has attracted many power users including writer and comedian Dril, following frustrations with Musk's management of Twitter and the recent changes to the platform.

Xiaomi launched its camera focussed flagship Xiaomi 13 Ultra smartphone, while Apple opened it's first stores in India this week. We discuss these developments, as well as other reports on smartphone-related rumours and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.