Just a few months after selling Twitter to Elon Musk for a whopping sum of $44 billion, the former CEO and founder of Twitter Jack Dorsey launched his own social media platform. Dorsey has announced that the Bluesky app is now ready for download via the apple app store.
Bluesky
In 2019, Twitter spearheaded the Bluesky project, which has since become a standalone company. The primary aim of Bluesky is to create a decentralized social network protocol, allowing various social networks to interact with one another using an open standard while maintaining their distinct systems of curation and moderation. Bluesky envisions each social network that uses the protocol as an “application”. It’s worth noting that Bluesky doesn’t rely on blockchain technology for its protocol.
How Does Bluesky Work?
Bluesky is striving to provide users with a social media experience that is both transparent and decentralized. Jack Dorsey has publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook which are centralized and monopolistic. With Bluesky, Dorsey aims to create an open and collaborative alternative.
Bluesky’s architecture is based on a decentralized model, which means that no single company or entity controls it. Instead, the community of users will have a say in how the platform is managed and developed. This approach intends to give users more control and privacy while minimizing the potential for censorship or bias.
Could Bluesky Become A Viable Alternative For Twitter?
At first glance, Dorsey’s recent announcement about Bluesky could be a response to Elon Musk’s recent Twitter activity. However, Bluesky was announced by Dorsey in December 2019 as an attempt to address longstanding issues with social media.
One of the goals of Bluesky was to give users more control over the content they see while reducing the power of platform owners. Initially, Bluesky had a team of five people but in 2022, it became its own independent company with Dorsey serving on the board. It’s unclear how much of a hands-on role he has in the day-to-day operations of Bluesky.
Dorsey has compared the Bluesky app to a web browser that allows users to explore the AT Protocol network. However, some potential users may be turned off by the fact that they must join a specific server, making the process seem more complicated and similar to a geekier online community like Reddit. At this point, it remains to be seen how user-friendly Bluesky will be for those who are less tech-savvy, although the screenshots are promising.
