Bluesky (social network)

Last updated

Bluesky
Bluesky Logo.svg
Current logo used in Bluesky's interface branding, introduced December 2023.
Bluesky User Profile.png
Screenshot of the Bluesky desktop interface, featuring the official company account, February 2024.
Type of site
 Social networking service
Available in11 languages [1]
FoundedOctober 4, 2021;2 years ago (2021-10-04) in Wilmington, Delaware [2]
CEO Jay Graber [3]
Key people
Parent Bluesky Social, PBC [2]
URL
RegistrationPublicly available since February 6, 2024. Previously invitation-only. [4]
Users
  • Increase2.svg 5.5 million total registered users (as of April 2024) [5] [6]
  • Steady2.svg 500k daily active users (as of September 2023) [7]

Bluesky, also known as Bluesky Social, is a decentralized microblogging social platform and a public benefit corporation based in the United States. Jay Graber serves as the company's CEO and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and XMPP creator Jeremie Miller sit on its board of directors. [3]

Contents

In addition to its website, the service is also accessible via apps for iOS and Android. The service is focused on microblogging, and has been called "Twitter-like". [8]

Service history

The total number of users on Bluesky increased from about 55,000 in May 2023 to over 2.9 million by January 2024. Bluesky Registered Users.svg
The total number of users on Bluesky increased from about 55,000 in May 2023 to over 2.9 million by January 2024.

Bluesky was described in 2021 as an initiative to develop a decentralized social network protocol, in which multiple social networks, each with its own systems of curation and moderation, interact with other social networks through an open standard. Each social network using the protocol would be called an "application". [9] As of 2023, Bluesky operates its own official network, Bluesky Social, a centralized service running on open-source software for its servers and client apps, with their initial protocol implementation released under the MIT license. [10] Neither the protocol nor service claimed to use blockchain technology in 2022. [11]

Frequent users have called posts on the platform "skeets" [12] [13] (a portmanteau of "sky" and "tweets", [14] but also a slang word for ejaculation [15] [16] [17] ), despite CEO Jay Graber pleading with users not to call them that. [18]

The Authenticated Data Experiment (ADX), in mid-2022, was Bluesky's first early protocol release. It used personal data repositories, intended to be controlled by individual users, that social networks would optionally support. The stated purpose was to let users post messages without necessarily affecting their visibility to other users, as primary storage of the data would remain in the personal data repository while networks would handle the distribution to other users. [19] The ATP FAQ [20] later described this distinction as a division between "speech" and "reach" layers. [21] Bluesky released a simplified version as the "AT Protocol" in October 2022, alongside technical documentation. [22]

Bluesky started a waitlist in October 2022 for a service that would use the protocol. [11] At the time of release, Bluesky only addressed interoperability and had not explained how it would address platform moderation and monetization. [22] In February 2023, the Bluesky app was released for iOS as an invitation-only beta, and the service was available only to users who had received an invitation code, either from the company or from an existing user. Reviewing the app, TechCrunch called it "a functional, if still rather bare-bones, Twitter-like experience." [8]

In April 2023, it was released for Android. [23] [24] After the launch of the Android app, the social network reached about 50,000 users in April 2023. [25] The launch surfaced technical issues, including a bug that created incorrect notifications. [25] Bluesky Social was made open source under the MIT license in May 2023. [26]

On May 26, [27] 2023, Bluesky launched a feature it called "Custom Feeds", with the goal of promoting algorithmic choice. Bluesky developer Paul Frazee stated that "In future updates [Bluesky] will make it easy for users to create custom feeds in-app." [28] Third-party tools to publish Custom Feeds on Bluesky have been created by independent developers, including a popular client named Skyfeed. [29]

In September 2023, Bluesky Social reached 1 million registered users, [30] and in November, it surpassed 2 million users. [31]

In December 2023, Bluesky announced a new company logo, which was also used as the icon for the official app and website. This icon was a blue butterfly, inspired by existing users' usage of the butterfly emoji to indicate their handles on the service. The launch of this new icon corresponded with the release of a public view for posts on the network, allowing those without accounts on the service to view its posts. [32]

The platform became open to all public registrations on 6 February 2024, when the previous invitation-only format was dropped. [33]

Company history

Jay Graber, who would become the CEO of Bluesky in August 2021, gives a speech at an MIT event in Cambridge, Massachusetts during March 2018. Jay Graber MIT Bitcoin Expo 2018.png
Jay Graber, who would become the CEO of Bluesky in August 2021, gives a speech at an MIT event in Cambridge, Massachusetts during March 2018.

Twitter's then-CEO Jack Dorsey first announced the Bluesky initiative in 2019 on Twitter. [34] The company's Chief Technology Officer (and later CEO) Parag Agrawal was its manager, [11] inviting initial working group members in early 2020. The group expanded with representatives from existing decentralized networks Mastodon and ActivityPub. The group coordinated through a chat hosted over the Matrix protocol. Twitter commissioned Jay Graber of the Happening decentralized social network to compose a technical review of the decentralized social network landscape. [9] She was hired to lead Bluesky in August 2021. [35] [36] Bluesky formally incorporated in late 2021 as a public benefit LLC [11] separate from Twitter. [37]

Twitter executives approved of the initiative's scope and goals, which include what the protocol itself should encompass and what should be left to applications (the social networks built atop the standard). Some of these goals include letting applications customize their system of moderation, making applications responsible for compliance and takedown requests, and preventing virality algorithms from reinforcing controversy and moral outrage. The working group did not have a consensus toward these goals, so Twitter decided to field individual proposals, which ranged from reinforcing existing standards to endorsing standard interoperability, letting usage data decide where to invest. In early 2021, Bluesky was in a research phase, with 40–50 people from the decentralized technology community active in assessing options and assembling proposals for the protocol. [9] Bluesky's first three employees were hired in March 2022. [38] Around the same time, Dorsey acknowledged Bluesky's slow progress. [39]

Twitter's blockchain division, newly announced in November 2021, planned to work with the Bluesky initiative. [40] The division head resigned after Elon Musk bought Twitter in late 2022. Staff departures made the team's future remit unclear. [41] Musk's takeover did not immediately affect Bluesky's operations, as a separate entity, but does affect its long-term funding. [39] Bluesky had received $13 million from Twitter via Musk's initial offer in April 2022. Adi Robertson for The Verge wrote that even with Bluesky's independence, Musk's ownership of Twitter would make Bluesky easy to defund, with its main executive proponents having left Twitter. [11]

On July 5, 2023, Bluesky announced it had raised $8 million in a seed funding round. [42] The seed round was led by Neo, a firm with partners like Code.org co-founder Ali Partovi and former Twitter PM Suzanne Xie, and included other investors such as Joe Beda (co-creator of Kubernetes), Bob Young of Red Hat, Amjad Masad of Replit, Amir Shevat, Heather Meeker, Jeromy Johnson, and Automattic. [42] Bluesky plans to use the funds to grow its team, manage operations, pay for infrastructure costs, and build out the AT Protocol technology that it runs on. [42]

Prior to the seed round, Bluesky's website described the company as a Public Benefit LLC owned by Graber and other Bluesky employees. [43] Post-seed round, the company describes itself as a public-benefit C Corp. [42] The company has not publicly disclosed its charter. [43]

AT Protocol

Bluesky unveiled open source code in May 2022 for an early version of its distributed social network protocol, Authenticated Data Experiment (ADX), [19] since renamed the Authenticated Transfer (AT) Protocol. [11] The team opened its early code and placed it under an MIT License so that the development process would be seen in public. [19]

The AT Protocol's initial federation architecture centers around three main services: a Personal Data Server (PDS), Relay (previously referred to as a Big Graph Service, or BGS), and an AppView. [44] A PDS is a server which hosts user data [44] in "Data Repositories", which utilize a Merkle tree. [45] The PDS also handles user authentication and manages the signing keys for its hosted repositories. A Relay is described as analogous to an indexer on the web, ingesting repositories from a variety of different PDS hosts and serving them in a single unified stream for other services to ingest. AppViews, meanwhile, are services which consume data from a Relay and hydrate that data to provide behavior for specific clients, e.g. the microblogging feature set for the Bluesky Social app. [44]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twitter</span> American social networking service

X, commonly referred to by its former name Twitter, is a social media website based in the United States. With over 500 million users, it is one of the world's largest social networks and the fifth-most visited website in the world. Users can share text messages, images, and videos as "tweets". X also includes direct messaging, video and audio calling, bookmarks, lists and communities, and Spaces, a social audio feature. Users can vote on context added by approved users using the Community Notes feature.

Microblogging is a form of blogging using short posts without titles known as microposts. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links", which may be the major reason for their popularity. Some popular social networks such as Twitter, Threads, Mastodon, Tumblr, Koo, and Instagram can be viewed as collections of microblogs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Dorsey</span> American internet entrepreneur (born 1976)

Jack Patrick Dorsey is an American Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and programmer, who is a co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, Inc., as well as co-founder, principal executive officer and chairperson of Block, Inc., which is the developer of the Square financial services platform. He is also on the board of directors of Bluesky Social. As of October 2023, Forbes estimated his net worth to be $3.1 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Block, Inc.</span> American financial services company

Block, Inc. is a U.S. public company founded by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey in 2009. It is a financial technology conglomerate, reportedly serving 56 million users and 4 million businesses, with an annual payment processing volume of US$228 billion as of 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Instagram</span> Social media platform owned by Meta Platforms

Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters, be organized by hashtags, and be associated with a location via geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users' content by tags and locations, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed. A Meta-operated image-centric social media platform, it is available on iOS, Android, Windows 10, and the web. Users can take photos and edit them using built-in filters and other tools, then share them on other social media platforms like Facebook. It supports 32 languages including English, Spanish, French, Korean, and Japanese.

Distributed social network projects generally develop software, protocols, or both.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twitter, Inc.</span> American defunct social media company

Twitter, Inc. was an American social media company based in San Francisco, California, which operated and was named for its flagship social media network prior to its rebrand as X. In addition to Twitter, the company previously operated the Vine short video app and Periscope livestreaming service. In April 2023, Twitter merged with X Holdings and ceased to be an independent company, becoming a part of X Corp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twister (software)</span> Blog software

Twister is a decentralized, experimental peer-to-peer microblogging program which uses end-to-end encryption to safeguard communications. Based on BitTorrent- and Bitcoin-like protocols, it has been likened to a distributed version of Twitter.

The history of Twitter, also known as X, can be traced back to a brainstorming session at Odeo.

This page is a timeline of social media. Major launches, milestones, and other major events are included.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mastodon (social network)</span> Self-hosted social network software

Mastodon is free and open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services. It has microblogging features similar to Twitter, which are offered by a large number of independently run nodes, known as instances or servers, each with its own code of conduct, terms of service, privacy policy, privacy options, and content moderation policies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fediverse</span> Network of federated social media servers

The fediverse is a collection of social networking servers which can communicate with each other, while remaining independently controlled from each other. Users on different social networks and websites can send and receive status updates, multimedia and other files to and from others across the network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ActivityPub</span> Decentralized social networking protocol

ActivityPub is an open, decentralized social networking protocol based on Pump.io's ActivityPump protocol. It provides a client/server API for creating, updating, and deleting content, as well as a federated server-to-server API for delivering notifications and content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Koo (social network)</span> Indian microblogging and social networking service

Koo is an Indian microblogging and social networking service, owned by Bangalore-based Bombinate Technologies. It was co-founded by entrepreneurs Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka. The app was launched in early 2020; it won the government's Atmanirbhar App Innovation Challenge which selected the best apps from some 7,000 entries across the country.

Truth Social is an alt-tech social media platform owned by Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), an American media and technology company majority-owned by former U.S. president Donald Trump. It has been called a "Twitter clone" that competes with Parler, Gab, and Mastodon in trying to provide an alternative to Twitter and Facebook. Truth Social uses Mastodon as its backend.

Web3 is a marketing term for uses of the World Wide Web which incorporate concepts such as decentralization, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics, all of which existed on the web prior to the term being created. Some technologists and journalists have contrasted it with Web 2.0, wherein they say data and content are centralized in a small group of companies sometimes referred to as "Big Tech". The term "Web3" was coined in 2014 by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, and the idea gained interest in 2021 from cryptocurrency enthusiasts, large technology companies, and venture capital firms. The concepts of Web3 were first represented in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sriram Krishnan</span> Indian-American investor

Sriram Krishnan is an Indian-American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. He is a general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nostr</span> Decentralized social networking protocol

Nostr is a decentralized network protocol for a distributed social networking system. The name is an acronym for "Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays". It was designed with goals of censorship-resistance in mind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jay Graber</span> American software engineer; CEO of Bluesky

Lantian "Jay" Graber is an American software engineer and the CEO of Bluesky, a microblogging social platform and public benefit company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Threads (social network)</span> Social networking service owned by Meta Platforms

Threads is an online social media and social networking service operated by Meta Platforms. The app offers users the ability to post and share text, images, and videos, as well as interact with other users' posts through replies, reposts, and likes. Closely linked to Meta platform Instagram and additionally requiring users to both have an Instagram account and use Threads under the same Instagram handle, the functionality of Threads is similar to X. The application is available on iOS and Android devices; the web version offers limited functionality and requires a mobile app to be installed first. It is the fastest-growing consumer software application in history, gaining over 100 million users in its first five days, surpassing the record previously set by ChatGPT. Its early success was not sustained and the user base of the app plummeted more than 80% to 8 million daily active users by the end of July 2023.

References

  1. ↑ GitHub – bluesky-social/social-app – locales
  2. 1 2 "Division of Corporations - Filing". Government of Delaware. Archived from the original on September 21, 2015. Retrieved January 11, 2024. File Number: 6282898, Incorporation Date: 10/4/2021 (mm/dd/yyy), Entity Name: BLUESKY SOCIAL, PBC, Entity Kind: Corporation, Entity Type: Benefit Corporation, City: WILMINGTON, County: NEW CASTLE, State: DE
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Frequently Asked Questions". Bluesky . Archived from the original on July 14, 2023. Retrieved July 23, 2023.
  4. ↑ Silberling, Amanda (February 6, 2024). "Bluesky is now open for anyone to join". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 8, 2024.
  5. ↑ jazco.dev. "Stats for BlueSky by Jaz (jaz.bsky.social)" . Retrieved February 8, 2024.
  6. ↑ Bell, Karissa (February 8, 2024). "Bluesky has added almost a million users one day after opening to the public". Engadget. Retrieved February 8, 2024.
  7. ↑ David F. Carr (September 21, 2023). "Bluesky Hit Daily Active User Record When Musk Said X Will Charge All Users".
  8. 1 2 Perez, Sarah (February 28, 2023). "Jack Dorsey-backed Twitter alternative Bluesky hits the App Store as an invite-only app". TechCrunch . Archived from the original on March 6, 2023. Retrieved March 7, 2023.
  9. 1 2 3 Matney, Lucas (January 15, 2021). "Twitter's decentralized future". TechCrunch . Archived from the original on September 6, 2021. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  10. ↑ "Social networking technology created by Bluesky". GitHub. Archived from the original on May 2, 2023. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Robertson, Adi (October 29, 2022). "Will Elon Musk keep funding Twitter's most interesting side project?". The Verge . Archived from the original on November 18, 2022. Retrieved January 22, 2023.
  12. ↑ Lopatto, Elizabeth (April 27, 2023). "They're 'skeets' now". The Verge. Archived from the original on April 28, 2023. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
  13. ↑ Jordan Uhl [@JordanUhl] (May 1, 2023). ""There's a new social media app called Bluesky and on it @brianschatz just skeeted..." -@jaketapper" (Tweet). Retrieved May 2, 2023– via Twitter.
  14. ↑ Silberling, Amanda (April 27, 2023). "Bluesky's best shot at success is to embrace shitposting". TechCrunch . Archived from the original on April 27, 2023. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
  15. ↑ Jeong, Sarah (May 2, 2023). "What's it like on Bluesky right now, anyways?". The Verge.
  16. ↑ Sung, Morgan (May 2, 2023). "For Bluesky to thrive, it needs sex workers and Black Twitter".
  17. ↑ Ho, Soleil (May 9, 2023). "Bluesky is the latest Twitter wannabe. Can it avoid the Nazi problem?". San Francisco Chronicle.
  18. ↑ Frenkel, Sheera (April 28, 2023). "What Is Bluesky and Why Are People Clamoring to Join It?". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 28, 2023. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
  19. 1 2 3 Robertson, Adi (May 4, 2022). "Twitter's decentralized, open-source offshoot just released its first code". The Verge. Archived from the original on December 17, 2022. Retrieved January 22, 2023.
  20. ↑ "Protocol Overview". AT Protocol. Archived from the original on May 2, 2023. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  21. ↑ Woźniak, Michał "rysiek" (April 27, 2023). "BlueSky is cosplaying decentralization". Songs on the Security of Networks. Archived from the original on May 1, 2023. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  22. 1 2 Khalili, Joel (November 2, 2022). "Twitter Had a Plan to Fix Social Media. Will Elon Musk Follow It?". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028. Archived from the original on December 30, 2022. Retrieved January 22, 2023.
  23. ↑ Li, Abner (April 20, 2023). "Decentralized Twitter competitor 'Bluesky' now has an Android app". 9to5Google . Archived from the original on April 20, 2023. Retrieved April 20, 2023.
  24. ↑ Peters, Jay (April 19, 2023). "Bluesky, a decentralized Twitter alternative, is now on Android". MSN . The Verge. Archived from the original on April 20, 2023. Retrieved April 20, 2023.
  25. 1 2 Murphy, Hannah (May 2, 2023). "Jack Dorsey's Bluesky emerges as latest challenger to Elon Musk's Twitter". Financial Times. Archived from the original on May 2, 2023. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  26. ↑ Vaughan-Nichols, Steven (May 16, 2023). "Bluesky Social just took a big open-source step forward". ZDNET . Archived from the original on July 21, 2023. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  27. ↑ Bluesky, @bsky.app (May 26, 2023). "New feature just dropped: custom feeds!". Bluesky Social.
  28. ↑ "Bluesky now lets you choose your own algorithm". Engadget. May 26, 2023. Retrieved January 6, 2024.
  29. ↑ "Featured Community Project: SkyFeed | AT Protocol". atproto.com. Retrieved January 6, 2024.
  30. ↑ Hatmaker, Taylor (September 13, 2023). "Bluesky officially hits 1 million users". TechCrunch. Retrieved September 13, 2023.
  31. ↑ "Bluesky's Surge To 2 Million Users: A New Era In Decentralized Social Networking". DailyCompanyNews. Retrieved November 30, 2023.
  32. ↑ "A New Look for Bluesky: The Social Butterfly". blueskyweb.org. Retrieved January 6, 2024.
  33. ↑ "Bluesky, a trendy rival to X, finally opens to the public". Washington Post. February 6, 2024. Retrieved February 6, 2024.
  34. ↑ Masnick, Mike (December 11, 2019). "Twitter Makes A Bet On Protocols Over Platforms". Techdirt . Archived from the original on May 2, 2023. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  35. ↑ Dang, Sheila (August 16, 2021). "Twitter-backed Bluesky picks tech entrepreneur to lead web research group". Reuters. Archived from the original on December 21, 2022. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  36. ↑ Wagner, Kurt (August 16, 2021). "Twitter Finds Leader for 'Decentralized' Social Media Project Bluesky". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on November 22, 2022. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  37. ↑ Dang, Sheila (February 8, 2022). "Twitter-funded social media project Bluesky adds Jack Dorsey to board". Reuters. Archived from the original on January 10, 2023. Retrieved January 22, 2023.
  38. ↑ Dang, Sheila (March 31, 2022). "Social media interoperability project Bluesky names first employees". Reuters. Archived from the original on April 21, 2022. Retrieved April 21, 2022.
  39. 1 2 Smith, Tim (April 16, 2022). "Bluesky Funding to Be Reviewed If Twitter Owners Change: Dorsey". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on April 16, 2022. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  40. ↑ Lyons, Kim (November 10, 2021). "Twitter is launching a dedicated crypto team, part of its push toward decentralization". The Verge. Archived from the original on November 17, 2021. Retrieved November 16, 2021.
  41. ↑ Nicolle, Emily (November 18, 2022). "Twitter's Crypto Head and Staff Resign in Mass Musk Exodus". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on November 18, 2022. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  42. 1 2 3 4 Perez, Sarah (July 5, 2023). "Bluesky announces its $8M seed round and first paid service, custom domains". TechCrunch . Archived from the original on July 8, 2023. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
  43. 1 2 Lee, Micah (June 1, 2023). "Is Bluesky Billionaire-Proof?". The Intercept. Archived from the original on July 4, 2023. Retrieved July 4, 2023.
  44. 1 2 3 "Federation Architecture Overview". blueskyweb.org. Retrieved January 6, 2024.
  45. ↑ "Repository | AT Protocol". atproto.com. Retrieved January 6, 2024.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.