Shubham Sawarkar
Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, has returned to the social media world with his new platform Bluesky. The invite-only social network, which emerged from Twitter as a decentralized project, has recently become available on the App Store for iOS users with invite-only access.
The design of Bluesky is similar to Twitter, with circular profile pictures, follower and following counts, and bold account names with grey handle. It’s not surprising given that Bluesky originated from a Twitter spin-out company of the same name. In 2019, then-CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, disclosed the Bluesky team’s intention to develop a decentralized social media protocol known as Authenticated Transfer. This protocol would allow various social media networks to interact with one another, and the Bluesky app runs on this protocol.
Bluesky was launched in 2019 while Jack Dorsey was still CEO of Twitter. Twitter has been providing financial backing to Bluesky for several years. Although the project was initiated before Elon Musk acquired Twitter, the two executives had discussed the concept of an open-source protocol via text messages just before the acquisition.
The screenshots of the app displayed on the listing shows that Bluesky has a simple user interface that enables users to effortlessly create posts of up to 256 characters and images by clicking on a plus icon within the app. While Twitter focuses on ‘What is happening?’, Bluesky takes a more casual approach with the question ‘What’s up?’. The app offers a range of basic tools, such as sharing, muting, and blocking accounts. However, more advanced features, such as creating lists, are not yet available.
The discover tab in the middle of the navigation menu is a valuable resource that suggests ‘who to follow’ and displays recently posted updates. Notifications enable users to view likes, reposts, follows, and replies, similar to those on Twitter. However, Bluesky currently does not provide a direct messaging feature.
Users can search for and follow others on Bluesky and view their updates in a Home timeline. User profiles on the platform include a profile picture, background, bio, and metrics similar to those on Twitter. The Bluesky app is still in the beta phase with invite-only access, which means that it is not yet fully functional and may have some bugs that need to be fixed.
