Bluesky: everything you need to know about the social network that gains a million users per day

The Bluesky social network has experienced tremendous growth since the end of the US presidential election. The social network is currently number 1 in the free apps section of the iPhone App Store in the United States, ahead of popular social network Threads and artificial intelligence assistant ChatGPT.

This is a real leap forward compared to the month of October, when the application occupied 181st place, note TechCrunchwhich cites figures from Appfigures. Since then, the app has gained 1 million users per day, or about 12 new users per second.

According to The Guardiannew users mainly come from North America and the United Kingdom. This influx helped Bluesky reach 14.5 million users worldwide, up from 9 million in September. While there is no way to determine how many new users have left due to X owner Elon Musk's public support of President-elect Donald Trump, many Bluesky users are referencing the election in their posts. first messages. Wired reports that many fans of Taylor Swift, a group that once had a strong presence on X, are switching to Bluesky.

Bluesky shares many similarities with X, formerly Twitter. X has undergone a number of changes after billionaire Elon Musk snapped it up for $44 billion. He initiated radical reforms, making account verification payable, reinstating conspiratorial and extremist accounts that had been banned or dismantling the teams responsible for content moderation.

On October 16, X announced that it was changing its blocking feature, which allowed users to block others from seeing their posts. Accounts that have been blocked by someone can now see that person's posts on X if the posts are set to public, although they cannot reply, like, or repost them.

The next day, October 17, Bluesky shared a post announcing that they had welcomed 500,000 people in a single day.

” whose judges frequently award victories to conservative plaintiffs in political cases », reports the Globe and Mail.

These latest changes may have sparked renewed interest in Bluesky, which saw a surge in user accounts earlier this year when X was blocked by courts in Brazil (the block was later lifted when X paid a fine). According to the New York Timesusers consider Bluesky to be the application that comes closest to X.

How to register?

Bluesky was originally open by invitation only, but has been open to everyone since February. To sign up, simply go to the main page to create an account. You can download the Bluesky app for Android and iOS or use Bluesky on a computer.

You will be asked for an email address and phone number (to send an authentication code) after which you will need to choose a username and password.

How is Bluesky similar to X and Threads?

If you're used to X, Bluesky's design and focus should feel familiar.

The site uses vertically scrolling posts with small round photo avatars for users and icons below posts indicating the number of comments, likes and reposts they have received. It is very similar to the format of X and Threads.

Who is behind Bluesky?

Here's another Twitter/X link: Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey was previously a board member, and Project Bluesky began in 2019 when he was CEO of Twitter. Jay Graber is the CEO of Bluesky.

Even the name Bluesky is linked to the old name of could fly even more freely in open blue skies. Dorsey left the board in May, apparently because the service added moderation tools.

The app is built on what's called the Authenticated Transport Protocol, or AT, an infrastructure created by the company and made up of a network of many different sites.

And how is Bluesky different?

Domains as identifiers

On the one hand, you can set your domain as your identifier, if you wish. This might help with verification. “ For example, a newsroom like NPR could set its handle to @npr.org », explique Bluesky. « Then any journalists NPR wants to verify could use subdomains to set their handle as @name.npr.org. Branded accounts could also set their ID as their domain. »

Moderation is also different. Bluesky already uses automated moderation and is working on a community tagging system, which is described as “ something similar to shared block/mute lists ».

Users of many social networks have posts from their feed selected for them by an algorithm, although they can influence this by following or blocking certain accounts. Bluesky wants to provide the ability to choose from a variety of different algorithms to determine what one sees.

You can mute accounts, preventing you from seeing notifications or top-level posts from them. You can block accounts, meaning you and the other account can't see or interact with each other's posts. Finally, you can report posts or accounts for abuse.

Several features (the ability to hide replies to your posts and detach your posts from other users' posts that cite yours) are designed to prevent stacking and other toxic behavior.

Keep the links

It's possible that creators who gain an audience on Bluesky will one day be able to maintain connections with their followers, even if the service itself changes.

If you want to find the accounts you followed on X, Sky Follower Bridge is a free tool that analyzes your follower list and tracks accounts with the same name on Bluesky. You'll get a few false positives and a lot of inactive Bluesky accounts, but overall it works great. We offer you a complete guide to using Sky Follower Bridge.

Custom feeds

Bluesky offers what it calls custom feeds, which let you choose the algorithm that determines what you see.

« Imagine you want your news feed to only contain posts from your friends, or only posts with pictures of cats, or only sports-related posts – you can simply choose the feed you want from a place of open market ”, says a blog post on the site. Click the hashtag icon at the top of the app to add and discover new feeds.