TechSoftwareAppsThe replacement for Twitter is here, but it probably won’t replace TwitterAt long last, the billionaire-proof alternative to Twitter has launched. But is it too little, too late?When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
TechSoftwareAppsThe replacement for Twitter is here, but it probably won’t replace TwitterAt long last, the billionaire-proof alternative to Twitter has launched. But is it too little, too late?When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
At long last, the billionaire-proof alternative to Twitter has launched. But is it too little, too late?
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Bluesky)
(Image credit: Bluesky)
If you’ve been wondering whenTwitterco-founder Jack Dorsey’s new social networking app would arrive, wonder no more: it’s here, albeit in private, invite-only beta. Bluesky Social looks very much like Twitter, but at heart it’s very different: likeMastodon, it’s a federated social network. Essentially, it’s Elon Musk-proof.
Twitter is centralised: if you want to communicate with other Twitter users, you have to do it via Twitter.com or the official Twitter apps because there is only one Twitter. With federated social networks, however, things work more like email: there are multiple flavours (“instances”) of your social network and you can go with whatever provider you prefer. Those providers then pass messages and attachments to and from each other.
That’s how Mastodon works, so for example I use mastodon.social and most of the people I communicate with are on other Mastodon instances. Our respective Mastodon instances communicate with each other so that we can too. I’m free to move to any other Mastodon instance and take my follows with me. Bluesky is designed to work in the same way.
Is Bluesky social just blue sky thinking?
I don’t know how this is all going to shake out, not least because I don’t think Elon Musks' Twitter reign of terror is going to last much longer. But I do think that it’s very unlikely that we’ll see Bluesky achieve the scale of Twitter, as much as I do love the idea of a more user-focused, egalitarian network. I suspect what we might end up is more of a patchwork of much smaller social networks rather than One Network To Rule Them All.
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