A hot new social media platform poised to replace Twitter has seemingly popped up every month since Elon Musk acquired the blue bird platform for $44 billion in October. The latest is Twitter lookalike Bluesky, which is making waves for capturing the golden age of early Twitter, chaos and all.
New platforms like Bluesky are ripe with fresh user energy, making them interesting testing grounds for communicators, especially since reporters are eager to try them. Twitter, after all, has been one of the best tools for PR pros to connect with journalists, and while many are sticking with Musk’s problem child, reporters also tend to be among the first to try out new platforms, and Bluesky is no exception.
Is Bluesky here to stay? Either way, here are four things for PR pros to know about it.
Invite only, and demand outweighs supply
Bluesky is now joinable by invitation only. Most invites come from current users, of which there were more than 50,000 as of late April. Existing users get an invite code every two weeks they’re on the app, meaning it could be a while before an entire team can join the platform.
Demand for Bluesky access is outpacing the supply of invites. Global iOS installs surpassed 375,000 — more than seven times the number of active users — as of April 26, TechCrunch reported. Invites are so sought after that some have sold on eBay for as much as $400.
The invite system intends to weed out bad-faith users that would envenomate the platform and zip away. Speaking of…
No brand presence, let alone brand safety
The brave few on Bluesky are describing it as Twitter in its early days — or heyday — depending on who’s talking. Nudity, a propensity to call posts “skeets,” much to the chagrin of CEO Jay Graber, immutable auto-reply spam bots that break threads and an inconsistent ability to block users are some of the features that contribute to the chaotic feel.
Developers are putting out fires as they start. After one user threatened blogger Matt Yglesias with hammers, the dev team implemented a block feature that worked on web browsers but didn’t get to the iOS app for days.
A Bluesky tech adviser said AI will start filtering posts that appear on the app’s main feed to crack down on rampant nudity. Labels that anyone can create, apply to posts and subscribe to are the third component of Bluesky’s moderation policy.
For those and other reasons, there’s almost no branded accounts or advertising on Bluesky, and any corporate communicator joining the platform might feel like they are pioneering uncharted territory.
Decentralized…eventually
Bluesky operates on one server, like Twitter, but will eventually move to a decentralized multi-server system like Mastodon. Also like Mastodon, divided audiences will presumably break up corporate messaging and ad delivery. Moderation practices could also vary from server to server.
Mastodon initially asked users to sign up for a server dedicated to their interests, like activism or gaming. On Monday, Mastodon began allowing users to choose between one of those servers or the platform’s main mastodon.social at sign-up. Users can then switch between servers as they like.
The goal of the decision is to encourage more sign-ups. It’s not yet clear how Bluesky will handle sign-ups when it rolls out more servers.
Only tangentially related to Twitter
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is financially backing Bluesky and sits on its board, but it’s an independent company, according to Bluesky’s FAQ. Twitter gave Bluesky $13 million to kickstart its launch while Dorsey still led Twitter, but the two companies severed their service agreement in late 2022.
Bluesky has received $13 million to ensure we have the freedom and independence to get started on R&D. Former Twitter CEO @jack is on our board, & a former Twitter security engineer has joined the team. https://t.co/S8vzObfc3u
— bluesky (@bluesky) April 25, 2022
If nothing else, Musk’s track record of spitefulness means Dorsey’s statements that the Tesla CEO is not the right person to lead Twitter should sever ties between the two.