bluesky? Anyone tried it?

The news keeps talking about bluesky.  I noticed more and more creators, news companies, and even some governments, now have bluesky accounts.

I thought it was just a flash in the pan, but it seems to be sticking around and growing.  

Anyone tried it?  

I have been in it for a few months now, but in the last few days it's really taken off.  I'm at adiantum.bsky.social

Hi r,

Thanks for the tip.  I took the time to check it out today.

It is a great time to grab some handles for permaculture-- right now there isn't much. I have been there a few months as well and it's starting to explode as anyone who hadn't left Twitter yet is finally making their way over.

(it's basically just like twitter)

Who owns bluesky?

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Who owns bluesky?

BBC says https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8dm0ljg4y6o

The former head of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, created it.

He even once said he wanted Bluesky to be a decentralised version of Twitter that no single person or entity owns.

But Mr Dorsey is no longer part of the team behind it, having stepped down from the board in May 2024.

He deleted his account altogether in September.

It is now run and predominantly owned by chief executive Jay Graber as a US public benefit corporation.

As a side note, the BBC hasn't yet added it to their socials.  

I've never looked at twitter, x or bluesky.

Are they news sources or conversations...videos and photos?

What do we do there...read by subject and participate?

Heather Cox Richardson mentioned an influx at bluesky after the unsuccessful south Korean martial law attempt...

bluesky has the same fatal flaw as other corporate social media, namely that the ultimate source of profitability will be users clicking on things that some third party is willing to PAY to put in front of them. So even if there is no algorithm driving you to click on sponsored content YET, it must be the end-game. For this reason, I like Mastodon. The mastodon servers are all operated independently and there is no algorithm driving what you see. Most mastodon servers are very well moderated so you don't get crazy stufff . . . I mean, WE'RE crazy - but I'm talking about Cra-cra Crazy which is different! Because nobody on mastodon is telling you what to look at, you can get there and find NOTHING! You have to make your own.

I am on the server called toot.cat. You can type that right into a browser and find it. In Mastodon parlance I'm @CadeJohnson@toot.cat and I have NO IDEA what else is on toot.cat because I have curated my own "home" feed and that is all I ever view, not my "local feed" nor the "federated feed" - aka the "firehose". You can create an ID on one server, and later move to another server and take all your follows and followers with you easy. But unlike corporate social media, Mastodon does not overtly count "likes" and "shares" - nothing can really go viral. Virality is a tool of corporations to drive clicking - you don't need that.

Judith Browning wrote:I've never looked at twitter, x or bluesky.

Are they news sources or conversations...videos and photos?

What do we do there...read by subject and participate?

It's hard to explain these media if you haven't participated, but basically you "follow" certain people/entities and the algorithm shows you more that are similar, especially if you show interest (reposting, liking, clicking to read more, etc). Then there are general things that are broadcast, so you may see things you normally wouldn't encounter, and the speed of posting is good for urgent/breaking stuff. I don't pay for any of these services but don't really see any ads for anything, honestly, although I do have some good ad blocker tools.

As the poster above mentions, Mastodon is more limited in terms of privacy and choice of topic (if i understand it right-- I know the servers dont have to stick to a certain topic but they are often formed by people who go to a certain server because they have stuff in common. It seems a bit like Reddit communities or forums like this one, unless I'm way off base). If you want to see "what's up" in a more general sense I think X (formerly twitter)/Bluesky/Instagram are better at that. I use Insta to see what's on sale in my local neighborhood stores, what shows are on the weekend, what events are happening, etc.

I am told that if you like keeping up with sports obsessively, as certain Brazilian men I am married to tend to do, X is the only option (as mentioned above, not everyone is everywhere).

Chiming in as a noob but I do know bluesky well and I can honestly it has been pretty delightful. The gardening feed is robust and everyone is informative and polite. I left Xitter last year and didn't look back bc of the toxicity and porn bots. There are a few permies on bluesky but I'd love to see more. One of my favorite features on bluesky is blocking actually blocks. Also you can mute words or tags so if you don't want to see certain things, you can make that happen. I go by snnybnny on there and would be glad to guide anyone into the super fun plant feeds and such.

r ranson wrote:The news keeps talking about bluesky.  I noticed more and more creators, news companies, and even some governments, now have bluesky accounts.

I thought it was just a flash in the pan, but it seems to be sticking around and growing.  

Anyone tried it?  

I like it.
I’ve been on it maybe a year?
It has really great hashtag functions and random people don’t really get into one’s hash tagged feeds. I guess their algorithm must be pretty good. (It’s not that a random public member can’t get in, it’s more that they don’t show up one one’s feed).
Also no ads, right now anyway.
It’s basically what Twitter was way back when, but tighter functioning.
Also, I haven’t tried this, but apparently they have “rooms” where it’s just for group member discussion. No public viewing. Kind of like FB I guess.

Yes, I enjoy bluesky.

There is more conversation there, but more bots.

i never used Twitter, but friends encouraged me to try Bluesky and i've been liking it for news and memes. ever since i got locked out of Facebook (lost password/they seem to want to send my login info to Whatsapp) i've missed just looking at memes and photos sometimes. Mastodon was/is a great idea, but it never gained traction; Bluesky went from 10 million users to 25 million users in the last couple months. it's here to stay, i think. and, given what's going on in the US, having a place to unify and share news could end up being critical.

EDIT: oh! https://bsky.app/profile/sirhcwarrior.bsky.social

There are a couple of reasons why comparing Mastodon with corporate sites is difficult. Mastodon's analysis, found here: https://mastodon-analytics.com of its own user base has a very different motivation than a corporate site. Because Mastodon is non-profit and not centralized, it has no motivation to make numbers or advertise to draw in the easily led user. Secondly, instance-managers of the various independent Mastodon servers have not only no financial incentive to permit bots, but bots actually cost money and are therefore vigorously blocked. Akin to this, Mastodon instances tend to be very well moderated. There ARE some instances that are totally bot-friendly and un-moderated, but well-moderated instances tend to categorically block traffic from those.

I am not a Mastodon instance-manager or moderator, just a contented user. I comment because the idea that BlueSky is somehow great because they have big numbers may be a misguided way to judge the quality of one's social media experience. I also think that my earlier comment about corporate-platforms' need to eventually return a profit is timeless: nothing has fundamentally changed to make BlueSky immune from profit-motive, so the fact that they are "not yet profitable" must mean that things will change. Where are you going to invest your personal time in developing a network?

Cade Johnson wrote:... they have big numbers may be a misguided way to judge the quality of one's social media experience. I also think that my earlier comment about corporate-platforms' need to eventually return a profit is timeless: nothing has fundamentally changed to make BlueSky immune from profit-motive, so the fact that they are "not yet profitable" must mean that things will change. Where are you going to invest your personal time in developing a network?

i understand your point, but i don't agree with it. the merit of a social network partially lies in how large it is; that fact is inescapable. the idea that Mastodon is bot-less? i'm not sure i agree, though my residence there was very short-lived, and long ago. it's possible that there are very few bots, true. and Bluesky has the issues of every young social network: bots, trolls, insane posting, etc. the difference is that Bluesky (from my observations) makes it incredibly easy to tailor your feed and block trolls and bots. has the presence of troll accts inflated Blueksy's numbers? *absolutely*. is Bluesky revving up to knock out those accounts? have i seen troll accounts disappear before i could even report them? also absolutely.

so my advice to the OP is that your mileage may vary. try it and see what you think.

Tereza Okava wrote:It is a great time to grab some handles for permaculture-- right now there isn't much. I have been there a few months as well and it's starting to explode as anyone who hadn't left Twitter yet is finally making their way over.

(it's basically just like twitter)

i'm actually following a few permaculture people on there that i found initially on Youtube. but it's true - could always use more

Christine Herrmann wrote:
i'm actually following a few permaculture people on there that i found initially on Youtube. but it's true - could always use more

That's great. I have been up to my ears in work (and will be til the last day of the year) but once i'm done i plan on doing some rooting around for my youtube faves, compiling a list (package? i forget what they call that list-of-cool-stuff-you-can-share-on-Bsky is called....) and maybe putting up a specific permies profile there.

Just please don't go to Bluesky only to close yourselves off into the echo chamber that is forming there. EVERYONE needs what Permies have to offer, and the shared love for good things enriching good lives to build good communities is one of the few things that we all have in common deep down.

James Calloway wrote:Just please don't go to Bluesky only to close yourselves off into the echo chamber that is forming there. EVERYONE needs what Permies have to offer, and the shared love for good things enriching good lives to build good communities is one of the few things that we all have in common deep down.

Don't worry, nothing touches permies

r ranson wrote:The news keeps talking about bluesky.  I noticed more and more creators, news companies, and even some governments, now have bluesky accounts.

I thought it was just a flash in the pan, but it seems to be sticking around and growing.  

Anyone tried it?  

I have, and it is a good site where folks are not allowed to hurl insults. The account is free and you can sign up at https://bsky.app/
It is not just politics either. There are posts about art, flowers etc. Without being elitists, the level of discourse is higher than on Twitter or other social medias.
You will be given an account and a "kit" of folks you may choose to follow who are already on BlueSky. It's a bit new to me too, so I don't know everything about it but after a bit of fumbling, I found my way.
When I find an article in a paper that's interesting and I don't see the tale tell blue butterfly, I call them and ask them to add it. A couple of them have on my suggestion, as well as one law firm. I tell them I do it because I'd like to share an interesting article and give them proper credit. Most newspapers now have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Rumble, so why not BlueSky, right?
It is growing indeed: at this point, there are approximately 25 Million users, with more coming on every day.

Just for fun!   come find us out at the bluesky

https://bsky.app/profile/permies.bsky.social