What is Bluesky, the fast-growing alternative to Elon Musk's X?

Disgruntled X users are again flocking to Bluesky, a newer social media platform that grew out of former Twitter before billionaire Elon Musk took it over in 2022. While it remains small compared to established online spaces such as X, it has emerged as an alternative for those looking for a different mood, lighter and friendlier and less influenced by Musk.

Championed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was an invitation-only space until it opened to public in February. That invite-only period gave site time to build out moderation tools and or features. platform resembles Musk’s X, with a “discover” feed and a chronological feed for accounts that users follow. Users can send direct messages and pin posts, as well as find “starter packs” that provide a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow.

Bluesky said in mid-November that its total users surged to 15 million, up from roughly 13 million at end of October, as some X users look for an alternative platform to post ir thoughts and talk to ors online. post-election uptick in users isn’t first time Bluesky has benefited from people leaving X. platform gained 2.6 million users in week after X was banned in Brazil in August — 85 per cent of m from Brazil, company said. About 500,000 new users signed up in one day in October, when X signaled that blocked accounts would be able to see a user’s public posts.

Across platform, new users — among m journalists, left-leaning politicians and celebrities — have posted memes and shared that y were looking forward to using a space free from vertisements and hate speech. Some said it reminded m of early days of Twitter more than a dece ago.

Despite Bluesky’s growth, X posted after election that it h “dominated global conversation on US election” and h set new records.

Bluesky, though, has bigger ambitions than to supplant X. Beyond platform itself, it is building a technical foundation — what it calls “a protocol for public conversation” — that could make social networks work across different platforms — also known as interoperability — like email, blogs or phone numbers.

Currently, you can’t cross between social platforms to leave a comment on someone’s account. Twitter users must stay on Twitter and TikTok users must stay on TikTok if y want to interact with accounts on those services. Big Tech companies have largely built moats around ir online properties, which helps serve ir vertising-focused business models.

Bluesky is trying to reimagine all of this and working toward interoperability.