This week, the hype surrounding Bluesky, a new social media platform dubbed Twitter 2.0, rages on. Prominent Twitter users such as New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and model and cookbook author Chrissy Teigen are on board.Thousands of others are begging Invitation in addition.
Some Twitter users have been looking for another social platform since Elon Musk bought the company last year and changed the service. Bluesky users say the app, funded by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, comes closest to mimicking Twitter’s tone and feel.
Here’s what you should know about this:
What is Blue Sky?
Bluesky is a social network that offers many of the same core features as Twitter. Users can post short text and photo updates, reply to each other, and share other people’s posts.
The app, still in development, was made available for iOS devices in February and for Android devices this month.
How is Bluesky different from Twitter?
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber said: blog post It wasn’t a coincidence that the app looked like Twitter last month. But unlike Twitter, Bluesky is going to be a decentralized system. So people could eventually be able to build their own apps and communities within it. Graber said it was designed that way so that no individual could create rules for the entire Bluesky community.
Bluesky also works using an “open protocol”. This is unusual as social media platforms are traditionally walled gardens and anything posted on an individual platform remains on that platform only. For example, tweets appear on Twitter and photos appear on Instagram, but you can’t easily cross-post between these social networks.
But Bluesky is trying to be more open, so maybe one day posts will flow easily between different social media platforms.
Last month, a Bluesky user speculated that the app’s name came from Dorsey’s desire to transform Twitter into an open protocol and release Twitter’s bird mascot into the blue sky.Mr Dorsey responded“yes.”
How do I join Bluesky?
Bluesky is still in development and currently invite-only. In a post about the platform last month, Graber said the app was creating moderation tools before rolling it out to the public. An invitation code from a current user is required to sign up.
Why did Blue Sky become popular?
Since buying Twitter, Musk has transformed the service by lifting restrictions on online speech on the platform and changing verification methods. These are causing user confusion as well as an increase in misinformation and hate speech on the platform.
As a result, Twitter users have tried another method. In recent months, some have moved to Mastodon, another decentralized social media platform.A Viable Alternative to Twitter“
Bluesky was originally confined to a small group of technical people. On Thursday, several prominent Twitter accounts and celebrities, including Ocasio-Cortez, Teigen, and social media star Drill, joined the platform to create buzz.
Bluesky users seem to enjoy the app’s similarity to Twitter. For example, we refer to app posts as “skeets” and play them out as tweets. Even a plea from Mr. Glover to change its name on Thursday didn’t seem to deter them.
Kate Conger contributed to the report.
