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With Bluesky, Jack Dorsey’s new social media site, he’s taking another shot at a Twitter-like service. The service is growing popularity among Twitter power users, drawing important figures such as US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Bluesky, which is similar to the Bluebird platform, is the latest in a long line of apps vying for Twitter’s attention following Elon Musk’s ‘disastrous’ takeover of the firm.

What is Bluesky?

It’s a text-focused social media service launched for select users in February. Users can post short messages of up to 300 characters, and pictures. There is no support for videos and direct messages, or DMs, so far, as per a report by Reuters.

Bluesky runs on a decentralized framework, similar to social network Mastodon. It allows users to build independent social media experiences and users can join a specific “server”, which has its own unique set of rules, interests and participants.

When Did it Launch?

The idea for Bluesky was conceived within Twitter in 2019, but it formed its own public benefit corporation in 2022, with backing from former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter in 2006 and stood down as CEO in 2021, now serves on Bluesky’s board of directors. In a lengthy discussion in April 2022, the platform emphasised its ties with Twitter, noting that former Twitter software engineer Jay Graber was also recruited on to assist launch the new platform, according to a report by NBC News.

The Bluesky app is similar to Twitter in many ways, but the main distinction is that it is organised around a decentralised framework. This means that user data can be stored on independent servers rather than those owned by the firm, and that in the future, users will be allowed to create their own servers to use with communities of their choice, the report says.

“People have been saying for years that it would be great if users could own their data and relationships; if we could have transparent algorithms and algorithmic choice; if there could be more accountability and user control over how social platforms are moderated,” Graber wrote last month in a blog post.

Can Bluesky Take on Twitter?

On a technical level, Bluesky is distinct from big social networking programmes such as Twitter. A report by Vox argues that the main difference that people notice is that people who use it are less mean and have been having more fun, so far.

“There’s something so refreshing about scrolling through a feed and seeing posts from accounts you follow that are funny instead of accounts you don’t follow and think you don’t deserve rights,” a user known as “em” was quoted as saying in the report.

This is in stark contrast to what some individuals claim to be experiencing on Twitter these days. In keeping with Musk’s “free speech absolutist” attitude, Twitter has controversially reinstated previously suspended neo-Nazis and other extremist individuals, and has lately pushed back some hate speech restrictions for trans users.

Musk has stated that he is reducing the exposure of unpleasant tweets and that hate speech has decreased since his appointment, although other studies have observed an increase in racial and homophobic slurs on the platform following Musk’s appointment, the report says.

However, some argue that the object of Bluesky is not to compete with Twitter, but consolidate it. A report by Kelly Nath in the Inc says that the two companies are a ‘strategic meeting of minds’ in terms of building a business that will stand the test of time, calling it an expansion strategy that fortifies the social construct that Twitter has developed.

As per Nath, the future points to decentralisation and Web3 for Twitter, which would need it to contemplate the adoption of decentralisation and how would affect it.

Companies frequently diversify to enhance market share and overall stability by generating new brands, brand extensions, or sub-brands, many of which appear to conflict with the original brand or firm, the report explains.

Even though having competing brands may appear strange to the average consumer, it allows businesses to strategically gain market share, expand as a whole, and secure a position in the future, it adds.

With inputs from Reuters

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