Twitter users refer to the act of posting as tweeting. But Bluesky users have adopted a new term; they call it ‘skeeting.’ The decentralized social media platform has seen a growing number of users in recent months, including Hollywood filmmakers and some United States politicians.
Among the prominent individuals who have joined Bluesky is James Gunn, the director of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has more than 12 million followers on Twitter. Gunn has been influential enough to onboard several actors, including Jennifer Holland, Pom Kelementeff, Steve Agee, and Sean Gunn.
Other famous people joining the decentralized social media platform include ‘Silicon Valley’ star Kumail Najiani, ‘Shaun of the Dead’ director Edgar Wright, Duncan Jones, the director of ‘Scott Pilgrim’ and Christopher McQuarrie, the director of ‘Mission: Impossible.’
What’s Bluesky?
Bluesky was founded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in 2019. The platform is built on the AT Protocol, a decentralized and open social media standard. Before Elon Musk’s takeover, Dorsey had plans for Twitter to adopt the standard. However, Musk abandoned those plans and also ended the $13 million deal, which Twitter had agreed with Bluesky to support its development.
Following new Twitter leadership, Dorsey decided to make Bluesky an independent company, ending its association with Twitter. Zcash’s ex-developer Jay Graber was made the CEO of the decentralized social media app.
Bluesky users enjoy a similar experience to that on Twitter, but the platform lacks some features. For example, it has yet to include a video-sharing functionality.
It is worth highlighting that anyone can develop a social media platform on the AT Protocol, allowing users to transfer their data between various apps. At the moment, only Bluesky is operating on the protocol, but Graber revealed last week that several companies had expressed interest to start building projects.
Bluesky is still in an invite-only beta as its developers continue to update more features and fix some bugs. Those looking to access the platform have to receive an invite code from an existing user. Joining a waitlist is another option. But where can you find Bluesky? The platform’s website is staging.bsky.app. Its app is available on both Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store.
A Twitter Exodus?
Under the leadership of Musk, Twitter has made some controversial policy decisions, including the disbandment of the platform’s Trust and Safety Council, suspension of the Twitter accounts for its competitor Mastodon and that which tracks the CEO’s private jet flights.
On Friday, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) announced it would no longer provide real-time updates on Twitter, claiming that the social media app had become unreliable.
Musk has been criticized recently for pushing Twitter to implement a verification system requiring users to pay $8 monthly for blue checkmarks and $1,000 for organizations wishing to retain their gold verification badges. Following an outcry from users, Twitter resorted to reinstating blue badges for accounts with over $1 million followers.
These contentious decisions have forced a section of Twitter users to explore other platforms, including Nostr, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Farcaster.
Despite Twitter witnessing a decline in users, the platform still dominates the market with more than 350 million users. Meanwhile, Bluesky has only 35,000 users. Graber, however, says its waitlist has over 1 million individuals seeking to access the platform.
Before Elon Musk purchased Twitter, Mastodon had only 370,000 users. But that figure skyrocketed to 2.6 million two months after the world’s wealthiest man took over. However, in January 2023, Mastodon’s user base dropped to 1.5 million as users reported poor experience on the platform.
Dorsey hopes many Web3 developers will consider building decentralized social media platforms in the coming days. Besides his involvement in Bluesky, the tech guru has invested over $250,000 in Nostr to facilitate its development.
That said, whether decentralized social media platforms would become as huge as their centralized counterparts remains to be seen.
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