🦋 Bluesky Social

The place seems quieter than in December, are other people feeling the same?

I've seen a few independent newspaper saying that Bluesky doesn't bring them that much interaction compared to Twitter, and unfortunately they only have so much time dedicated to social media, so their priority is on Twitter now.

Bluesky users on Android now have access to a new app that works more like Instagram than X. On Tuesday, an app called Pinksky launched an Android version of its photo-centric social networking experience built on top of Bluesky.

The app is now one of many attempting to court former Instagram users by offering a similar user interface to Meta’s app, but one that’s built on open technology. Many of the newcomers in this space, like Pinksky, are building on top of the existing social network Bluesky, allowing them to tap into users’ social connections and feeds.

However, this also limits the apps to Bluesky’s own constraints of up to four photos per post and videos of up to one minute in length.

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For now, the app is just an experiment, but Souza says that could change if there’s further interest. For instance, he’d consider integration with other technologies, like Mastodon, Pixelfed, or Nostr, or running his own instance. But as he’s currently covering the costs of Pinksky, expansions would likely need to involve some sort of business model — like paying for premium features.

Pinksky competes with other apps being built in this space, including Flashes, Pixelfed, Reelo, and others.

Bluesky is setting itself up to be a social media jack of all trades. There's the main experience, of course, which replaces something like X or Threads. But it's not all about the text posts: Soon, you'll be able to use an app like Flashes to transform Bluesky into a kind of Instagram. Before that drops, however, you can use a different app to turn Bluesky into TikTok. It's not quite there yet, but it's a fascinating look into a unique kind of social media client—an app that turns one platform into something else entirely.

Bluescreen is a Bluesky client with one singular purpose: It identifies the videos from your Bluesky feed and delivers them to you in a TikTok-style endless scrolling interface. You don't interact with text-based posts, nor do you see still images. It's as if Bluesky offered a "video only" feed. But, since they don't, Bluescreen exists.

Before I jump down a big rabbit hole to try and figure out how to make a custom feed, I thought I may ask some folks here a question I've had on my mind.

I like the Discover feed generally. I like the idea - I can find some posts outside of my own followers. That's nice.

But my issue is that it often throws in posts from 20 hours+ ago. Things move too quickly, and posts that old are...too old. I wish it was at max something around 3-4 hours old.

So therein lies my question: does anyone know of a feed that's basically just the Discover feed but with better time constraints?

Thanks!

Flashes, an Instagram alternative built on top of the Bluesky social network, is now opening its doors to beta testers. Announced just weeks ago, the app offers people a means of exiting Meta’s social networking empire for a more open alternative, while also attracting new users who may not have been interested in using Bluesky’s official app, which works more like X.

Built by Berlin-based developer Sebastian Vogelsang, Flashes runs on the same underlying protocol that powers Bluesky, the AT Protocol (or atproto for short). As a Bluesky client, it supports photo posts of up to four images and videos of up to one minute in length. Users who post on Flashes will also have their posts appear on Bluesky, and Bluesky users’ comments on those posts will also appear on Flashes.

To work, Flashes filters Bluesky’s timeline for posts with photos and videos. Users can also switch between their own Bluesky feeds within Flashes to see different views of the social network.

As Vogelsang explained in January, he hopes Flashes will pull in newcomers to Bluesky who may have never seen themselves as a “Twitter person.”

Last week, there was a one-day story about the NFL prohibiting the Patriots from being on Bluesky, with some speculation that it’s got something to do with the NFL appeasing X owner Elon Musk. He has certainly earned any skepticism about his influence and motivations, but there’s not much reason to believe there’s a political angle. Every major social media platform had some period during its early growth when teams wanted to use it, but the NFL hadn’t yet blessed it.

For teams, it’s simple -- they want to be where their fans are. If a new social platform experiences big user growth, any content producer worth their salary is going to want to join them.

But it’s not so simple in the eyes of the NFL, which is acutely aware of the league’s capability to be a business kingmaker. If all 32 teams organically got on Bluesky, the platform could create a robust NFL news hub out of those accounts without much work at all. The NFL knows exactly what that would be worth to Bluesky, and wants to be paid for it.

Bluesky, an alternative to the social networking website previously known as Twitter, has reached 30 million registered users, according to the company.

Bluesky has experienced a surge in interest in the wake of last year’s presidential election in the U.S., although it’s still relatively small when compared to Twitter/X and Meta’s Threads, both of which have hundreds of millions of active users.

Bluesky’s 30 millionth user signed up at 11:21 p.m. ET on Tuesday, according to the company. It’s unclear how many of those are actively using the app but data from one tracker showed at least 2 million accounts liked a post on Tuesday alone.