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A lot of people are taking to Bluesky as it is quickly becoming one of the most popular social networks in the world.
Founded in 2019, initially as a spinoff of Twitter, Bluesky not only created a new social network but an entirely new one. Kind of A social network, it is decentralized and open.
A few years after its birth, it continues to be a small and relatively important part of the Internet. But since Elon Musk bought Twitter and renamed it X in 2022, especially since he made a number of changes to the platform, including promoting his own posts, a lot of people have left and taken to Bluesky instead.
Here’s everything you need to know about making that change—including why you want to and what to do once you do.
How similar are Bluesky and X/Twitter?
The first thing you’ll notice about coming from X to Bluesky is that not much has changed. The latter grew out of the former, and includes some of the same team – and it shows in both the visual design of the app and the ideas behind its implementation.
So you can read, scroll to post text and images and videos, reply to other such posts, quote or share them. (The latter is called a repost rather than a retweet — although X adopted that language after its rebranding.)
In many ways, Bluesky was similar to Twitter before Elon Musk bought it. It bears more similarities than today’s X, and may be more similar to an earlier version of Twitter than an earlier version of X.
So, like Twitter once did, Bluesky supports an array of third-party clients, some of which offer additional features, while others offer simpler and sometimes more aesthetically pleasing ways to get a Bluesky feed.
How is it different for X/Twitter?
Central to Bluesky’s founding was a core idea: the future of social media should be decentralized, taking power away from the big platforms and putting it in the hands of users. That’s why Twitter established it in the first place, and it’s working towards it.
Much of that decentralization is not immediately apparent. Bluesky is built on open protocols, which enables integration with other platforms and gives users more control.
But it is clear in very clear and useful ways. Bluesky allows people to choose custom algorithms that allow them to share certain types of content — intentionally or unintentionally — when they want, with the hope that the site will avoid the problems Facebook, Instagram, and X have had that have led to divisiveness, misinformation, or other negativity. experiences.
How do I start Bluesky?
Setting up an account on the site was once a complicated and somewhat mysterious process, trying to get early access codes and not going through a particularly straightforward setup process. Now everything is a little easier and anyone can join.
To sign up, go to the Bluesky home page and click on Sign Up Options. It’s the same as signing up for any other online service, although you’ll need to choose your public handle – just be aware that if you don’t have your own domain, add the words “bsky.social” to the end of it.
Once you’re signed in, you’ll see your feed, but for now it’ll be empty. Now is the time to start following people (you can find The Independent here or this journalist’s account).
As you start following people, you’ll find more of them. Just like in the early days of Twitter, users would share other interesting accounts, and the site has a “popular among friends” section that lets you find other accounts.
But Bluesky’s real innovation was the introduction of Starter Packs, which arrived earlier this year. As the name suggests, they are a set of people that can be followed at the same time – they can be everything from a group of friends to employees of a particular company, and anyone can create them.
Twitter/X is making it progressively harder to import your friends and followers list to other platforms. While some extensions — like Sky Follower Bridge — aim to provide that functionality, they’re hampered by X, and it might be easier to start from scratch or manually follow any accounts you want to bring over to the new platform. .
What now?
Once you’ve got a few followers – and you’ve got a few followers of your own – you’ll be able to use the site. You can’t hide and post, or use it as a broadcast platform, or somewhere in between.
Bluesky has a few more useful features that make it a very useful place to be. Click the “Feeds” option from the menu, and you can choose from a few different algorithms — pictures of cats, for example — and it delivers more all the time.
Similarly, the “Discover” feed will take what you’re already following and offer new posts, from which you can either divert something or follow completely new people.
How to post on Bluesky?
Bluesky is still a new platform: no one has quite figured out what works best out there, and it’s changing fast. But some things are becoming clear.
As a still relatively new and largely non-algorithmic platform, posting and engaging with the site in authentic ways is a great way to engage and grow a following. This is in contrast to Threads, for example, which largely favors its own methodology and has led to the promotion of content that is at one end of two extremes: intentionally annoying or corporate posts from brands.
Although relatively young, some have grown their sites rapidly. Some of this may be the result of good posts, but Bluesky’s starter packs also help because they make it easy to get new followers – if you really want to grow your account, it might be worth trying to get one of those. Or at least make friends with people who have.
Any problems with bluesky?
It’s still relatively new – even the ideas behind Bluesky are relatively untested – so there are many teething problems in use. They run the gamut from the practical to the more principled, sometimes going offline.
Recently, Bluesky has faced questions about its use for AI training, for example — the app’s API is open for anyone to scrape, meaning it can be used to collect posts to train an artificial intelligence. But Bluesky has said it won’t train generative AI on its users’ data, and is trying to provide options to make it easier for those users to make it clear they don’t consent.
#Switching #XTwitter #Bluesky #Heres