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Visualizing 13M Bluesky users

joelgustafson.com

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Re: Visualizing 13M Bluesky users

#121

Post by Pxtl »

testfoobar wrote: post #107
loevborg wrote: post #98

I'm part of the wave of users who migrated to bluesky last week. I have to say I really like it so far, which surprised me a bit given that I had been underwhelmed by mastodon before. I already spend more time in bluesky than in twitter. For those (like me) who don't know what bluesky is, it's basically a carbon copy of twitter circa 2015, down to an almost identical UI. Except that there's no monetization, no ads, n…

How does it compare to Threads?

The loudest complaint I see about threads (lack of hyperlinks) doesn't apply there. Also, Threads seems covered in growth-hacking dark patterns, like the notification/activity screen being flooded with "picked for you".

edit: my big worry about BSky is the lack of any coherent monetization plan. This isn't community-funded stuff like Mastodon, it's VC-funded software - there will be a need for revenue at some point and then what happens?

Re: Visualizing 13M Bluesky users

#122

Post by kstrauser »

josteink wrote: post #104
fsflover wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you try Mastodon? Many have a better experience there.

Mastadon has a massive problem with furries, people with loli anime-avatars or people who fit the «purple haired» stereotype. It’s very off-putting and alienating for normal people.

Mastodon’s only algorithm is newest-on-top, so your complaint is that the people you’re following seem strange to you. Uh, follow other people then.

Re: Visualizing 13M Bluesky users

#123

Post by singleshot_ »

frabcus wrote: post #57
mhartz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't this also sort of a feature with Twitter? iirc the retweet and other now popular features were originally hacked together by users

Retweet was original using the text "RT". Hashtags were also invented by Twitter users.

Seems to me like Jarkko Oikarinen or one of his crew invented hashtags, no? Denoting the context of your communication with something like #warez or #hack significantly predates web2.0.

Re: Visualizing 13M Bluesky users

#124

Post by skybrian »

mhartz wrote: post #42
typical182 wrote: post #40

Bluesky and atproto seem to be built to be hackable. Someone in the community recently built a searchable directory of Bluesky "Starter Packs" (which are a way for a user to publish a set of interesting people & feeds to follow, primarily to help newcomers bootstrap their experience): https://blueskydirectory.com/starter-packs/all Dan Abramov posted about it earlier today, saying he liked it and: "the fact that it ca…

Wasn't this also sort of a feature with Twitter? iirc the retweet and other now popular features were originally hacked together by users

Hashtags were invented. It's a convention that happened to work well with Twitter's search engine.

Re: Visualizing 13M Bluesky users

#125

Post by MeetingsBrowser »

purplethinking wrote: post #116
IAmGraydon wrote: post #109

As a broader comment about Bluesky, it seems to me that it's heavily left-leaning, while Twitter/X is obviously leaning more and more to the right. Amazingly, it seems that the BlueSky/X dichotomy is another emergent manifestation of a fracturing and continually more polarized society. In my opinion, what we will ultimately end up with is two echo chambers, each catering to opposite ends of the spectrum, each radical…

I have no interest in being in a left-leaning bubble. I get both sides on X, so far. People think X has been leaning more and more to the right, but in truth it's just not being censored (sorry, moderated) anymore, leading to more right-leaning content. Leftists can't really tolerate any difference of opinion so they move to other platforms, it's sad. But I think they'll be bored and eventually come back for some mor…

What specific type of content was being censored before Elon took over that is being allowed now?

Re: Visualizing 13M Bluesky users

#126

Post by kristofferR »

msluyter wrote: post #120
testfoobar wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it compare to Threads?

At some point Threads started to suppress (or at least, not boost?) political content or news. Which sort of crippled it as a "current events + hot takes" Twitter/X competitor. Bluesky doesn't appear to have this limitation (though perhaps for some this is a feature).

https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/continuing-ou...

Re: Visualizing 13M Bluesky users

#127

Post by Retr0id »

Pxtl wrote: post #118
jsheard wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Twitter bot situation only seems to have got worse since they shut down free API access. LLM engagement farming bots everywhere in replies, hordes of scam bots replying if you use certain keywords, porn bots following and DMing everyone non-stop... Evidently the people running the bots don't really care whether or not you give them an API to work with.

Reminds me of this meme: https://www.reddit.com/r/webscraping/comments/w1ve97/virgin_...

Presumably the bots weren't using the "proper" APIs even when they existed, so as to be less easily detectable.

Re: Visualizing 13M Bluesky users

#128

Post by [deleted] »

dgellow wrote: post #111
jsheard wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Threads is the highest ranked "social" app on the Play Store right now, so a lot of real people must be using it despite appearances. Next down the list is TikTok, then Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook, X (below Bluesky!), and finally Reddit.

I’m pretty sure app stores rankings are regional. You should mention your region and device type if you want others to compare

[deleted]

Re: Visualizing 13M Bluesky users

#129

Post by chefandy »

singleshot_ wrote: post #123
frabcus wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retweet was original using the text "RT". Hashtags were also invented by Twitter users.

Seems to me like Jarkko Oikarinen or one of his crew invented hashtags, no? Denoting the context of your communication with something like #warez or #hack significantly predates web2.0.

That use— to define IRC channels— seems distinctly different than Twitter hashtags to tag individual posts. I wouldn’t be surprised if hash tags started as a nod to that, perhaps even jokingly, but I don’t think you could consider them a descendent.

Re: Visualizing 13M Bluesky users

#130

Post by YetAnotherNick »

kps wrote: post #49
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluesky seems to be also very common among artists.

The mid-October bump was artists discovering that posting on Twitter allows them to use posts for training AI. https://bskycharts.edavis.dev/bluesky-year.html

If Bluesky is decentralized, can't twitter still train on Bluesky posts?
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