I like the fact that in the #Fediverse the primary goal is not algorithms or making money, but owning your data and using social networks in your own terms.
#BlueSkySocial FEELS like open and decentralized but has been received funding from Twitter and has not yet fully revealed its monetization plans. This is why I won't fully trust it. I'm glad they won't invest in the ActicityPub protocol. Their reluctancy to AP is also something I find strange even after reading the arguments.
Let's remember that #BlueSky a startup company, and companies are to make money. This is where #Mastodon for example is different, there is no monetization and never will be.
Is #BlueSky built on top of #activitypub ? Hoping it’s going to be interoperable with #mastodon because it seems that the last wave of people fleeing #twitter are going there🤞
Bluesky: Two months after its launch, Jack Dorsey’s Twitter alternative comes to Android
Since his departure from Twitter in late 2021, co-founder Jack Dorsey has been working on an alternative to the microblogging site, now owned by eccentric billionaire Elon Musk. Bluesky was initially rolled out to iOS devices in February, and it’s now finally ...continues
— Decentralized
Like #Mastodon, #Bluesky intents to be decentralized. This means that not Bluesky as a company will be part of it, but others can also join in.
The exciting part is that this is happening on multiple levels: where your data is stored, and how your feed is composed for your timeline.
Note: Right now the devs are working hard on making this happen, while currently everyone invited is on the same server.
— Moderation
While #Mastodon has many instances, each one is moderated separately. That means once you have many users, you need people to moderate else you might get defederated.
#BlueskySocial has a different approach. Self labeling, automatic labeling using machine learning, and community labeling (in dev) of posts.
The #Bluesky app has multiple options of filtering for the AppViewer layer that builds your feed. Note that your posts are always yours. They are never deleted, only filtered.
By design #Mastodon makes it very hard to discover, basically it’s hashtags.
— Algorithms (discoverability I) #BlueskySocial intends a marketplace for algorithms. This allows third parties to deliver as well as users to decide which fits best. Hard to guess exactly what it will mean, but I imagine generic or specific algorithms, eg. about gaming, dev or art. Imagine getting those hot posts, while not necessarily following people, so you’ll discover something new on #Bluesky every day.
Most #Mastodon instances don’t enable full text search. And if they do, it won’t work for the others.
— Search (discoverability II) #BlueskySocial has a specific search index that will do a full text index on profiles and posts, much like on #Twitter these days. While hashtags support might come, full text index search will make it easier to find fellow comics or manga lovers. Whether by message or their profile on #Bluesky.
— Followers (discoverability III)
In addition #BlueskySocial will allow you to easily browse other user profiles, who they follow and follow those as well. Currently search in #Bluesky also suggest users that have common followers.
Unlike #Mastodon where (without some tricks) it’s hard to see any followers beyond your instance. And following them leads you through all kinds of (web) loops.
— Monetization #Mastodon are not free, you may use them, but they are either running on donations, commercial, self hosted, etc. There are no ads (afaik).
#BlueSkySocial is still thinking about this. It might be ads delivered through the AppViewer. Certain parts simply require money to keep running and also to continue development. Maybe the algorithm and moderation marketplaces can deliver some money as well.
As any company #Bluesky needs to look into a healthy way of running it.
Before anyone starts being anti-capitalism, your writing your reply on, you’re most likely living in a capitalistic world. That’s another topic, but everything in moderation.
— Jack Dorsey
Ex-CEO and founder of #Twitter is indeed a board member of #BlueskySocial. He is also investing in #Nostr. While he advices #Bluesky, it is run by CEO Jay Graber. She insisted on spinning of Bluesky as a company from Twitter a few years back. This is also when they got their initial funding.
— Jay Graber, CEO
From what I’ve seen Jay is running #BlueskySocial as a company admirable. She has shared a few times some of her decision making, including why it’s still currently in closed beta testing. It’s refreshing to see an open, but also decisive person like her. And of courses surrounded by a small, but fast moving forward team at #Bluesky that is expanding.
I want to remind everyone that #Mastodon also is supported by a company run by the CEO / lead developer.
— Protocol and APIs
Even if #BlueskySocial is still in closed beta for users, the API is already open for usage. And AT is open-sourced. So for developers it’s possible to get started creating new tools or improve the protocol.
I believe the previous posts on discoverability, portable user data, support do algorithms are valid reasons to create a new protocol by #Bluesky.
It doesn’t invalidate #ActivityPub used by #Mastodon. But it might indicate a concern on its slow development.
— Disclaimer
I tried to write down as much as possible close to what I think #BlueskySocial is and how it relates to #Mastodon. I’m not a journalist nor related #Bluesky.
As some wrote, this is not a cheap attempt in just promoting a competitive #Twitter alternative. I’m just honestly excited and curious of Bluesky’s development as it addresses my main concerns with Mastodon.
Right now there is no really big player and anyone can still take a major part away from Twitter, if executed well.
I hope we’ll see more third party apps of devs that worked on their #Mastodon clients also consider #BlueskySocial as a potential place to earn fame and money.
Who knows in the future we’ll might see some more collaboration between the various decentralized protocols from #Bluesky, #Nostr, #Farcaster and #ActivityPub. It really is hard to predict the future and the relevance of each while all the players are relatively small.
Right now they also seem to cater to specific groups of people.
For now I just ask everyone to be excited of the many opportunities, learnings and developments we’re in. A few years ago it all felt stale in the social media platforms world, look at us now.
Don’t dismiss, just be curious, of course you can always share your insights in good fashion. 👍
I hope this thread helps a few people here to understand what #Bluesky is 😬
@Judeau Indeed, as it’s still early in dev, there are challenges ahead to make the vision possible. It addresses pitfalls of #Mastodon and #Twitter. It’s not just about a scalable infrastructure with #Bluesky, it’s also moderation, to prevent the necessity for the (disbanded) moderation team needed at Twitter.
We’ll see how fast things will go. The team is small and rapidly developing it. But #Mastodon won’t be taken away. It might always stay for subcultures and other purpose groups.
@rolle if I understood correctly you will have your own data both locally and remote. A private/public key system to ensure only you have control and can restore it on another data repository.
I anticipate it won’t be compatible. Maybe it can work somewhat like the #Nostr bridge for #Fediverse, but haven’t looked at it.
We’ll need to wait and see how everything beyond the AT protocol develops and if the front/backends will be released as open-source.
It’s not just for profit, they actually have had ActivityPub expertise when deciding on this route.
This is the way it has always been in IT. When an existing solution isn’t a silver bullet, new potential solutions arise, fail, merge, etc. It’s evolution.
@volkris yeah #Bluesky removes the high dependency #Mastodon has on instances, and their admins and moderators. Mastodon feels pretty much like a #Reddit or Internet forum to be honest.
The divide they made at Bluesky, to give ownership of your data back to you is conceptually just better. Others can filter out, but not control you. So there can’t be an instance dispute about moderation, or instances being nuked along with your online presence.
@alastor8472 While I agree that #Bluesky has great potential, the current setup is a single instance with 25k users. This is trivial. The hard part is the actual decentralization and federation, which looks great in theory but really hard to implement and they haven’t shown any evidence that they could deliver that promise yet. I’m looking forward to it as AT protocol looks promising.
It’s effectively the web3 alternative to #activitypub . It’s a good North Star for the fediverse to aspirationally build towards.
But I’m only interested in BlueSky insofar as it interoperates with the existing #fediverse .
And I think they recognize that the the fediverse movement & community would turn on them if they cannibalize the existing network instead of adding to it as a friendly & compatible node.