Since the moment Elon Musk acquired Twitter, alternatives to this platform have gained more strength. However, the social network of the little blue bird continues to be the queen of its kind. At first it was speculated that Mastodon took advantage of the user leak that occurred in the first weeks of Musk's reign on Twitter. But shortly after it was already seen that this was not going to happen. Now the threat is called Bluesky, an app led by Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, which is now available for Android.
Back in 2019 Dorsey himself announced that he would fund a small independent team to develop an "open and decentralized" standard for social media. This past March, Blueskay was already available for the App Store, but it was necessary to have an invitation to access it. Now it is in the Android app store, although the invitation requirement is also requested.
Bluesky aspires to be an exclusive application. The same creators point out that the application promises a future of decentralized social networks and self-choice algorithms. This platform maintains the basics of Twitter, as far as short posts are concerned. Furthermore, it also maintains a shared timeline. In this case, the creators want the users to be the ones to control what they will see in their feed, and not for the platform itself to decide.
Like Twitter, it also has the options to like it, edit posts, cite posts, send direct messages, and use hashtags, among others. The creators of Bluesky have added their own protocol in the application: AT Protocol, "is a new federated social network. It integrates ideas from the latest decentralized technologies in a simple, fast and open network." Being federated means that "servers talk to each other, just like email." Thus, it powers the open source alternative Mastodon, in addition to a variety of decentralized applications on the Fediverse.
Interest in Bluesky has increased and the social network now claims to have close to 20,000 users. And it should be remembered that it is still necessary to fill out a form to access the platform. However, this procedure that gives more value to the statement that it is an exclusive social network and the data is not bad. As the company Data.ai points out on iOS devices Bluesky has seen 240,000 installations, 135,000 of which occurred this April; that is, 39% more than in March (97,000 downloads).
While Bluesky received $13 million when Musk acquired Twitter, the new platform will need to receive more funding, more capital, if it is to compete, firmly, not only with Mastodon but also with T2, Spill, Post and other alternatives that have been emerging. little by little in recent times.
