Why Is Bluesky Trending? What Is So Special About It? Find Out Here

Is Bluesky the new Twitter? Other than having links to Twitter from the Jack Dorsey days, Bluesky could emerge as the top choice for those who dislike X wholeheartedly.

Although the platform has been around since 2019 in an experimental guise, the changes in the social media landscape have enabled a mass refuge to Bluesky lately. In December 2024, Bluesky saw its active membership soar to 24 million subscribers, thus making it one of the fastest-growing social media networks humanity has ever seen. Although Bluesky’s reach is yet to be on par with Meta’s Threads (275 million monthly active users), the initial leap is promising. 

But why is Bluesky such a rage with the masses? Let’s find out. 

What is Bluesky?

Bluesky is essentially an attempt to recreate the magic of Twitter from the bygone days. Originally funded by ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was developed as a garage project alongside Twitter with an aim to create a decentralised social media experience. With an open-source nature, the aim is to be transparent to the people in how everything works. 

Bluesky offers a user interface familiar from the days of old Twitter – before the network was brought by Tesla and SpaceX fame Elon Musk. The platform offers users the same algorithms that made Larry The Bird such a sought-after icon on everyone’s mobile phone. Bluesky also stresses a community-based moderation arrangement, something which X has strayed away from in recent times. 

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Why is everyone flocking over to Bluesky?

Other than being a new platform with the perks of old Twitter, Bluesky’s massive rise in popularity can be credited to X’s drastic changes in user policy lately. 

One of the major concerns with X lately was the changes made to the blocking policy. If you have blocked certain members on X, the new policy now allows them to view your public posts. Although no interaction is allowed, loyal users of X have found this new policy unpleasant and have been asking X to reverse this policy. 

Then there’s the matter of training generative AI models on user posts and data. X’s latest policies have allowed third-party AI models to be trained on people’s posts and images. This has led to increased privacy concerns among users. The recent outcome of the 2024 US Presidential Elections has also encouraged more people to flee X and seek refuge elsewhere. 

While Threads has been a great alternative for many, Bluesky’s open and transparent approach to a micro-blogging portal has won hearts and hence, earned it the top spot on Apple App Store lately. 

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Is Bluesky free?

As of writing this piece, Bluesky is free to use. Anyone can create an account on their portal and use the services for free. The Bluesky app on Android and iOS is free to download on their respective app stores. 

How do you make an account on Bluesky?

You can log on to the web portal or download the app and follow the instructions for creating a new account on the platform. Upon entering the necessary credentials, Bluesky will ask you to create a handle in the same fashion you did for X. Bluesky’s user handle is presented in the following format: @username.bsky.social. 

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Is Bluesky just like Twitter?

In a larger way, yes. Bluesky’s UI is identical to the Twitter of yesteryear. Your feed is constructed of the people and accounts you follow on your Home feed. The Discover feed, on the other hand, curates all the popular posts from the trending section as well as everything else that the algorithm deems necessary for you to see.

As far as posting is concerned, the app/web portal allows you to create a text-based post of 256 characters. Similar to Twitter, you can also embed images. Every post allows others to reply, reshare and like. A three-dot menu offers more sharing options as well as reporting some content. 

For those who love to customise their digital persona, Bluesky allows users to put up and change a profile photo, a background image, a bio description along with a couple of other crucial details and more. The Profile feed itself is reminiscent of Twitter’s layout, i.e., posts and replies. 

Should you try Bluesky?

If you are frustrated with the antics of X and its celebrated owner and Threads isn’t as serious as you’d want a microblogging platform to be, Bluesky is worth a try. It provides the perks of Twitter from the old days without any of the fuss and controversies. 

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