Bluesky Review | A promising Twitter alternative that is growing at snail’s pace

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s brainchild Bluesky feels like the most developed of all the major Twitter replacements that sprang up in the past year, but it is still too small to make a real impact

Bluesky hit two million users only this month, putting it well behind Meta’s Threads [File] | Photo Credit: Bluesky

Social media platforms are confronting several issues, and the challenges Twitter faces have only compounded since Elon Musk bought the company a little over a year ago. As the platform steadily lost advertisers, it also started putting a number of its free features behind the paywall.

A handful of companies tried to be Twitter alternatives in the past one year. One such contender was Bluesky, a decentralised social media protocol that aims to let users move between social media platforms so that they don’t lose followers and data.

Signing up for Bluesky is still highly centralised and restricted. In fact, the platform reached two million users only this month. To compare, Meta’s Threads recorded 100 million sign-ups within a few days of launching this summer.

We received an invite code from Bluesky to try out the platform. Here are our findings after exploring the new social media ecosystem on both mobile and desktop for a few days.

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Design and UI

Twitter (now X) users shouldn’t have a problem switching to Bluesky, as the newer app faithfully sticks to the design of Dorsey’s older social media platform. Users can comment, share, and like posts, as well as add quotes when reposting them.

The platform encourages people to add alt text to their images, and explains the importance of making picture-based content accessible. This is a key feature that many other social media apps regard as a mere afterthought.

Bluesky may be aiming for a decentralised structure sometime in the future, but we saw little to no sign of such a model while using the platform.

According to the Google Play Store, Bluesky collects data such as the user’s email address and User ID, photos, app interactions and user-generated content, app performance data, and device or other IDs.

Verified news companies like WaPo can use their custom domain on Bluesky to show their legitimacy | Photo Credit: Bluesky

User experience

Bluesky takes a long time to load when the app is opened, leaving the user waiting for up to ten seconds or even more to view feeds and user accounts. Once in, however, users can switch between multiple feeds reflecting their own interests. People can choose to only see those accounts they are following, or switch to feeds related to astronomy, music, books, positivity, cats, etc.

X’s timeline feels chaotic with violent wartime content and cute animal videos lining up one after another, while Threads feels shallow as it tries to avoid overly political or journalistic content. On the other hand, Bluesky strikes a balance so users can focus on the feed which best supplies the information they are seeking, or they can be surprised by their ‘Discover’ feed. Hashtags are used to get posts included under specific feeds.

While Bluesky’s keyword search feature is adequate and differentiates between users and posts, it is nowhere near as sophisticated as the search features on X. There are no suggested search options on Bluesky, which makes the search process time-consuming and more prone to errors. Search results are chronological, so it can be difficult to locate older trending posts.

Ultimately, Bluesky’s slow and steady approach to building a social media app is a double-edged sword. We did not experience the pitfalls of larger platforms, such as spam bots or crypto scammers, but the Bluesky community itself feels slightly empty and disengaged. Even celebrity Bluesky accounts with tens of thousands of followers see low engagement levels, with re-shares often being in the single or double digits. Unless you are a celebrity, an influencer, or able to ignite old networks from other social media platforms, the Bluesky experience can be lonely at first.

Bluesky allows users to switch between thematic feeds | Photo Credit: Bluesky

Posts on the platform can be translated, copied, shared externally, muted, and/or reported. Users can add accounts they are interested in to a special list, similar to Twitter.

There is no DM (direct message) feature on Bluesky as of yet, and no way to see the number of post views or other data points.

Desktop version

We tested the Android and web versions of Bluesky; the latter provides an excellent user experience. The layout is very similar to Twitter, but a fine addition is the moderation setting on the sidebar, which lets users control the visibility of graphic content, spam, nudity, hate speech, etc. based on their comfort levels.

Bluesky will also soon be launching its public web interface, so that people can see posts even if they are not Bluesky members. Twitter earlier had this feature, but it was largely removed after the platform became X, forcing users to make an account to see the latest posts.

Bluesky’s web version is extremely similar to Twitter and convenient to use | Photo Credit: Bluesky

Verification system

Bluesky users will see the “.bluesky.social” domain added to their usernames, with the exception of established news companies (such as The Washington Post), which are allowed to use their website as their username. Checking the domain name serves as a verification system of sorts for now, but a more visible marking system or label will be necessary as Bluesky grows and users sift through more posts quickly. Account verification for celebrities would also help the site feel more usable for journalists, activists, and marketers.

User impersonation is something we noticed when searching out well-known figures. Several accounts are named Jack Dorsey and some even use his image, though they are clearly not him.

Content moderation

Posts on Bluesky can be reported for spam, unwanted sexual content (meaning unlabelled nudity or pornography), copyright violation, anti-social behaviour, illegal and urgent content, or other issues. Users can also be muted, blocked, and/or reported.

We did try reporting a post that contained insults targeting another person. Though the report went through, we were not notified of its receipt or any action taken against the poster.

A dedicated content moderation setting allows users to adjust the visibility of sensitive or explicit content shown to them | Photo Credit: Bluesky

Verdict

Bluesky has found the functional middle ground in the social media universe. Essential features such as direct messaging and verification marks are still missing, and there are too few users to create any impact, but the platform feels better planned than many of its existing competitors.

While Bluesky is still far away from actively challenging mainstream social media apps, it might until then serve as a refuge for those escaping the toxicity of X.

In order to sign up to Bluesky, applicants can join the company’s email waitlist to receive an invite code. Alternatively, they can ask already registered members who receive additional invite codes from the company.