Amidst the unrest revolving around Twitter and its regulations, which seem to be changing every week, some people are looking for alternatives to the social media platform in order to make the switch from Twitter. Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has been working on a new social protocol, AT, which aims to create a federated and decentralized social network, similar to the ActivityPub protocol that powers Mastodon. This new protocol is being showcased in the invite-only beta app called Bluesky, which is now available on the App Store.
Bluesky was originally incubated within Twitter, and the company provided financial backing for years. However, with Dorsey’s departure as CEO and the recent acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk, the future of Bluesky remains unclear. Dorsey had envisioned Bluesky as an open, decentralized standard for social media, reducing the power of large, centralized platforms in deciding which users and communities could engage in speech and who would be responsible for moderating that content.
Although Bluesky has received $13 million in funding to develop open and decentralized public conversation, Twitter has been cutting costs drastically, including through layoffs, auctions, office closures, and not paying its bills. This has led to speculation about whether a side project like Bluesky would remain a priority for the company.
Bluesky’s future is also uncertain given the growing popularity of Mastodon and other open-source, decentralized alternatives to Twitter. In fact, several companies, including Flipboard, Medium, Tumblr, and possibly Flickr, have committed to or discussed embracing the ActivityPub standard. Meanwhile, former Twitter third-party app developers have rolled out polished Mastodon clients like Ivory and Mammoth, which have gained significant traction since their launch.
Despite this, Bluesky’s arrival on the App Store suggests that a public launch could be close. Whether it will be able to compete with the growing number of open-source, decentralized alternatives to Twitter remains to be seen.
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(Via)
