EXPLAINER: Can Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky steal Twitter’s thunder?

Jack Dorsey is taking another shot 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 t.o 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 decentralised 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 customisations. “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 $13m 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?

It is too soon to say. The company told Bloomberg News it had more than 40,000 users. It began to sign up users on a waiting list early this year and announced its biggest single-day jump last week.

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

Reuters