BlueSky invites and requests

[CardsofSTL]

So I've been in a coma. WTF is BlueSky?

[ghostrunner]

So I've been in a coma. WTF is BlueSky?

Right now it’s like Twitter, circa 2014. Which I think is a good thing. No gifs, no videos. Text, images and links only.

Needs a few more features, and it’s invite-only for the time being. When you get invited and join you periodically get codes to give to others. Not sure what the plan is long term but they’re building it up slowly and so far, so good in my opinion.

[CardsofSTL]

So I've been in a coma. WTF is BlueSky?

Right now it’s like Twitter, circa 2014. Which I think is a good thing. No gifs, no videos. Text, images and links only.

Needs a few more features, and it’s invite-only for the time being. When you get invited and join you periodically get codes to give to others. Not sure what the plan is long term but they’re building it up slowly and so far, so good in my opinion.

Sounds cool...hope Elon doesn't buy it and rename it S.

[Smith Corks One]

Just got my first invite code if anyone is interested.

[TGantz]

Is this like joining the Pen fifteen club in grade school? To be a member you have to let someone write "Pen15" on your hand?

[sighyoung]

Is this like joining the Pen fifteen club in grade school? To be a member you have to let someone write "Pen15" on your hand?

I think it will open up generally to people eventually: it's just scaling up, but I also suspect that it doesn't have a large staff to deal with online harassment and bullying, and is really shifting a lot of the moderating responsibilities onto users themselves, which will probably cause many headaches when the floodgates open.

[sighyoung]

Right now, there is a large-scale exodus from X. It's the weirdest thing: I've sudden added four hundred followers on Bluesky--double my previous total-- in the past three hours. I know have twice the followers that I ever had on X/Twitter. And I hardly ever post--I mostly respond to others.

There are starter packs that you can subscribe to to add hundreds of accounts at a time, and I suspect I'm on one or two of them. But it's been an onslaught.

[ghostrunner]

I was going to post about that. It’s become a full Twitter replacement in the last week or so. I think it went from 13-17 million users over that period. Had been gradually getting there over the past month after being kind of a secondary version with fewer people. But a bunch of big popular accounts moved this week.

Also better blocking tools. One of the ways beef gets started on Twitter is quote-dunking. Someone quotes your posts and criticizes it and then a pile-on ensues. Bluesky lets you detach your post if that happens. And when you block someone, it’s really thorough. You can’t see them, they can’t see you or any linked reference to you. Twitter just weakened theirs so that if you block someone they can still see your posts and that was a big driver a few weeks back.

Sports was kind of a weak point but that’s now changed too I. the past week. Still missing some of the big media accounts, but Goold is there, most of the fangraphs and bbref writers. Hoping Katie Woo is coming over soon. Baseball is a big reason I was still using Twitter. Otherwise I’ve been unfollowing accounts over there and pretty much the only ones left are Indianapolis related, but a bunch of that community has now moved too.

The best thing is that it’s open source, and whereas Elon closed off or priced the API out of reach at Twitter, all the tools are easily accessible and there’s a good set of 3rd party services out there. So some things Bluesky hasn’t been able to develop itself has been done by someone else.

I need to read more about it, but the most promising thing is that I guess the way it’s set up is that if people get tired of Bluesky or it goes south, each account on the backend is basically its own website and if someone sets up a competing server you should just be able to move your account, and so can everyone else. The way they put it is if someone opens RedSky, everyone can just leave.

How viable that is in the long run, and where they get money remains to be seen. Right now it’s all investor money, so I assume some kind of premium features are coming and maybe ads. Right now though it feels more like Twitter used to feel pre-Elon and even pre-Trump, when I was mostly using it to follow sports and tv/movie related accounts.

[Jocephus]

i saw something too where twitter now can just take all your comments and put them in an AI learning model and you can't opt out. i hope it collapses. i liken social media to religion. i can't say it hasn't had some positive elements but overall its done great harm to society.

[BottenFieldofDreams]

i saw something too where twitter now can just take all your comments and put them in an AI learning model and you can't opt out. i hope it collapses. i liken social media to religion. i can't say it hasn't had some positive elements but overall its done great harm to society.

That’s an interesting thought. I’d like to extend it too, because I think it’s also going to become increasingly siloed off and tribal. People are going to push their ISN handcart to virtual Utah.

I’m sure there will still be some entirely edgeless, boring common spaces to look at butts and feel inadequate and buy supplements though—that will be the sacrament we share.