About Bluesky

The NYT writes (not paywalled):

How Bluesky, Alternative to X and Facebook, 

Is Handling Explosive Growth

Jay Graber 

Bluesky’s chief executive

Over the past week, Bluesky’s growth has exploded, more than doubling to 15 million-plus users as people seek alternatives to X, Facebook and Threads. It has rocketed to the top of Apple’s and Google’s app stores as the most downloaded free app. Its ascent has been so rapid that the company has been forced to grow up practically overnight.

Bluesky’s 20 full-time employees have been working around the clock to deal with the issues that come with hyper-growth: site outages, glitches in the code and content moderation issues. Most importantly, they have been trying to keep early users happy as new members have flooded in.

From its beginning, Bluesky aimed to separate itself from other social media. The project grew out of an idea from Jack Dorsey, a founder of Twitter, who said he hoped to build a “decentralized” social network.

That meant building the app with an “open protocol,” which keeps the social network’s power and decision making out of the hands of any one company or group of people. Mr. Dorsey called the project “Bluesky,” and it eventually became a public benefit corporation, a type of for-profit company that aims to have a positive impact on society rather than focus on maximizing shareholder value.

Bluesky was initially financed with a grant from Twitter under Mr. Dorsey; Mr. Musk cut ties with the Bluesky team after he bought Twitter. Bluesky later raised more than $23 million in two rounds of venture funding from private investors.

With Bluesky, “you’re no longer tied to a dominant algorithm that promotes either the most polarizing posts and/or the biggest brands,” Rose Wang, Bluesky’s chief operating officer, said in a recent video explaining the site to new users. She added, “It’s built by the people, for the people.”

Rose Wang, COO

We'll see how this plays out. Bluesky is still a pipsqueak.