Feed: Slashdot
Feed Link: https://slashdot.org/
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Title: BlueSky Isn't Dying - and There's a Larger Ecosystem Growing Around
Its Open Protocol

Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/06/21/0462...

BlueSky has grown from roughly 10 million users in early November to 36.79
million today - and its last 30 days of traffic looks very level. But instead
of calling BlueSky's traffic "level", right-leaning libertarian Megan McArdle
argues instead that BlueSky's "decline shows no sign of leveling out"
(comparing the stable figures from the last month to a one-time spike seven
months ago so they can write "It's now down about 50 percent". And Wednesday
the conservative UK magazine Spectator also ignored the 30-day-leveling to
write instead that BlueSky is somehow "sliding down a slope". But TechCrunch
thinks the "up or down" conversation is entirely missing the point of "the
wider network of apps built on the open protocol that Bluesky's team
spearheaded" - and how BlueSky "is only meant to be one example of what's
possible within the wider AT Proto ecosystem." If you don't like the tone of
the topics trending on Bluesky, you can switch to other apps, change your
default feeds, or even build your own social platform using the technology.
Already, people are using the protocol that powers Bluesky to build social
experiences for specific groups - like Blacksky is doing for the Black online
community or like Gander Social is doing for social media users in Canada.
There are also feed builders like Graze and those in Surf that let you create
custom feeds where you can focus on specific content you care about - like
video games or baseball - and exclude others, like politics. Built into
Bluesky (and other third-party clients) are tools that let you pick your
default feed and add others that interest you from a range of topics. If you
want to follow a feed devoted to your favorite TV show or animal, for
instance, you can. In other words, Bluesky is meant to be what you make it,
and its content can be consumed in whatever format you prefer best. In
addition to Bluesky itself, the wider network of apps built on the AT
Protocol includes photo- and video-sharing apps, livestreaming tools,
communication apps, blogging apps, music apps, movie and TV recommendation
apps, and more. Other tools also let you combine feeds from Bluesky with
other social networks. Openvibe, for instance, can mix together feeds from
social networks like Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, and Nostr. Apps like Surf
and Tapestry offer ways to track posts on open social platforms as well as
those published with other open protocols like RSS. This lets the apps pull
in content from blogs, news sites, YouTube, and podcasts. Even just
considering BlueSky itself, three weeks ago Fast Company pointed out that
BlueSky "grew from 11 million users to 25 million between late October and
mid-December, but has added only about 10 million more since then." So how is
a 10-million user increase "dying"? For a social network, being prematurely
written off is a rite of passage. It's even a compliment of sorts - a sign
that people are paying attention and care... When I chatted with Bluesky CEO
Jay Graber this week, I wasn't surprised that she didn't seem fazed by the
debate on her platform and saw the parallels with early-days Twitter.
"Reports of our death are greatly exaggerated," she told me. "It's a similar
thing, because with social sites, it's not straight up all the time. [Growth]
comes in waves, and at each stage, there's a new era of communities being
established and formed. We're still seeing a lot of community formation, and
one of the most exciting things is how structurally different this is. It's
not just another social site that has to be a singular winner-take-all in an
ecosystem with existing incumbents...." One other challenge that Bluesky has
not yet fully confronted is monetizing itself. Onstage at Web Summit, Graber
emphasized that it's working on subscription services, a healthier revenue
source than stuffing feeds with ads, though potentially a tougher one to
scale up to sustainability. The company announced a $15 million Series A
funding round last October. But again, the point isn't BlueSky's increasing
user count or its stablizing levels of Daily Unique "Likers" - but its
underlying open source protocol: [S]he was at her most passionate when
discussing the company's aspiration to decentralize social networking via its
open AT Protocol. It powers Bluesky - and variants such as the Pinksky photo-
sharing app, which she praised onstage - but could also provide the
infrastructure for further-flung social experiences. Maybe even ones catering
to folks who have zero interest in participating in the Bluesky community.
"The goal is to really get through that this is a Choose Your Own Adventure
and Bluesky's just the beginning," she says. "The sky's the limit." Whether
she'll fulfill her grandest ambitions, I'm not sure. But I already like this
era of social networking better than the one when a handful of winners really
did take all.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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