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Posts, profiles, and user search are now available without login

bsky.app

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Re: Posts, profiles, and user search are now available without login

#261

Post by trifurcate »

rconti wrote: post #127
mminer237 wrote: post #48

It still doesn't seem to have a public feed though, so you can only view individual posts. I will say as someone has an invite: you're not missing out on anything. It definitely has far less activity than either Twitter or Threads, but somehow it also just has worse content. You would think they were invite-only to keep the quality high, but everything is either furry porn or hate-filled rage bait, neither of which I…

I get that this rage bait works on some percent of the population. 20%? 50%? 75%? What that leaves unanswered is, why aren't these platforms smart enough to adapt to what actual individuals react to? Sure, they picked the most successful single formula, but you'd think they'd want to increase the platform's engagement at the margins rather than just milking one approach for all it's worth.

You are just describing a (good) recommendation algorithm. TikTok's is infamously good at figuring out your niches and catering to your taste by looking at your minute interactions with the content it shows you. My TikTok "for you" page has absolutely 0 mainstream politics, rage bait, or any other "normie" topics. It's mostly technically fascinating stuff and good absurd humor that caters to my absurd taste.

Optimizing for engagement is not inherently bad, nor does it necessarily result in socially suboptimal outcomes. My TikTok feed is very engaging without having to resort to triggering my anger.

A recommendation algorithm that only sticks to a handful of given topics (rage bait and furry porn?) is not a very good one.

Re: Posts, profiles, and user search are now available without login

#262

Post by anotherevan »

dylan604 wrote: post #245
anotherevan wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you mean that Bluesky should make it a media RSS feed. I don't think it is something simple an end-user could do.

I thought you were saying the Bluesky was making content available via RSS, but crippled without media

Yes, they are not as useful without the media included.

Re: Posts, profiles, and user search are now available without login

#263

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #258

Seeing lots of comparisons to Mastodon, Threads, and XTwitter in this thread. I remember in the days of instant messaging, I had a single client (Adium for Mac OS X) which could talk to AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Chat, etc. It gave me a unified buddy list, and a unified interface for messaging any of my friends, regardless of the underlying instant messaging provider. Is anyone working on a similar o…

Don't forget about https://old.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/ either.

For Mastodon in particular, people are always talking about the difficulty of getting started. Is there a way to put a porcelain experience on that? Imagine I just enter my credit card info and I have my own instance without having to worry about any sysadmin details. You could monetize the client by charging a small premium above and beyond the baseline server costs.

I want an experience so porcelain that in order to create a new account, I enter my username and it automatically checks its availability across dozens of social sites, then registers me in as seamless a manner as possible. Then when I click post, it by default broadcasts that post across all the accounts I registered.

I suppose this is probably similar to the existing interface for a product such as Hootsuite, no? Maybe the best starting point is check if there's an open-source Hootsuite competitor, then optimize the interface for end users.

Re: Posts, profiles, and user search are now available without login

#264

Post by zappb »

franze wrote: post #205

Tried to sign up for bs. With valid invitation code. Got an error message after the final stage. Again and again and again. Social Media Companies that can't get their sign-up funnel in order have already failed.

Try to sign up to Instagram on a desktop browser using an email address. That was completely broken last time I checked.

Re: Posts, profiles, and user search are now available without login

#265

Post by anigbrowl »

Ombudsman wrote: post #222
JoshTriplett wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mastodon puts too much onus on the user to pick a home server So don't. There are multiple services you can pay a small fee to to host your own instance with only you on it.

You don't see how that's an even larger barrier to entry than just picking an existing home server?

Mastodon evangelists just don't seem to get why nobody else shares their masochistic tastes. It's not terrible if you want something highly configurable but most social media users want to chat, not federate.

Re: Posts, profiles, and user search are now available without login

#266

Post by e12e »

jakebsky wrote: post #239
notnullorvoid wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is BlueSky the one running those servers? If so that's still centralized, but yes at least it's a step.

Yeah, that's right. The production network's data layer (Personal Data Servers) are architecturally federated now (i.e. there are multiple PDS hosts) but still operated by a single organization (Bluesky Social, PBC), so it's still centralized. The goal in early 2024 is to enable federation with other PDS hosts, so that users can choose where they keep their data (posts, likes, preferences, etc).

Can I run my own network today? Is there an open server implementation?

Ed: Apparently you can play in the sandbox, but not set up a seperate network? Or federate with prod?

https://atproto.com/blog/federation-developer-sandbox

https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds

Re: Posts, profiles, and user search are now available without login

#267

Post by anigbrowl »

brycewray wrote: post #257
rileyphone wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a few invite codes for anyone to use (maybe reply if you successfully use one) bsky-social-exnc4-5h2qb bsky-social-cocv2-coy6u bsky-social-txqzx-nqhw3 bsky-social-h6snn-255ig

And a few more here... bsky-social-yxngj-y5dad bsky-social-fo32f-lz7p5 bsky-social-6txdl-ppkes bsky-social-ihhnj-w4e24 bsky-social-3kidb-2tagv

bsky-social-brvm4-gwcnj

bsky-social-llyit-xx3kt

bsky-social-eeqkk-tf6qh

bsky-social-qttr7-gjh3i

bsky-social-qttr7-gjh3i

Re: Posts, profiles, and user search are now available without login

#268

Post by greeneggs »

EstanislaoStan wrote: post #246
brundolf wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my twitter friends got invite codes through other friends pretty quickly (days or weeks), many people now have such a glut of codes that they're throwing them at whoever asks. I've got like 10 myself and nobody left to give them to Obviously they need to drop the invite system at some point (and I am surprised it's been this long), but it's not the reason a given subcommunity didn't make the jump

Could I get a Bluesky invite, by chance?

bsky-social-mjs72-44f7v

bsky-social-hqjo5-ylied

bsky-social-vjfij-soadz

bsky-social-qmeyu-jwmds

bsky-social-2joo4-sjp5p

Re: Posts, profiles, and user search are now available without login

#269

Post by anigbrowl »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #41
afavour wrote: post #4

Too late, IMO. The invite-only system meant that the "leave Twitter" crowd split between Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon. IMO none of them have ended up being great replacements.

It's so dumb. Someone please explain how a social network is supposed to succeed when it's invite-only? Hype alone won't carry it. IMO, being invite-only is THE reason Google+ failed. There were so many memes about people getting excited for an invite, getting on, and then finding only a couple people they knew were on it, if any at all. For a social network to work, it needs to be a network . Limiting on-boarding el…

Because they didn't have capacity a year ago. Gmail was invite-only as well you know.

Re: Posts, profiles, and user search are now available without login

#270

Post by jakebsky »

e12e wrote: post #266
jakebsky wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's right. The production network's data layer (Personal Data Servers) are architecturally federated now (i.e. there are multiple PDS hosts) but still operated by a single organization (Bluesky Social, PBC), so it's still centralized. The goal in early 2024 is to enable federation with other PDS hosts, so that users can choose where they keep their data (posts, likes, preferences, etc).

Can I run my own network today? Is there an open server implementation? Ed: Apparently you can play in the sandbox, but not set up a seperate network? Or federate with prod? https://atproto.com/blog/federation-developer-sandbox https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds

Yup, you could. Although connecting your own PDS hosts to the Bluesky production network won't be possible for a little while longer. Creating custom algorithms (feeds) is already possible, as it participating in the developer sandbox network, including PDS hosting.

The architecture is explained briefly here: https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/5-5-2023-federation-architecture

Code/docs are here:

1. AT Protocol (atproto) is documented here: https://atproto.com

2. App Web/Android/iOS app: https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app

3. API (AppView) and PDS (Personal Data Server): https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto

4. The Relay (formerly BGS) https://github.com/bluesky-social/indigo

5. Custom algorithm (Feed Generator): https://github.com/bluesky-social/feed-generator

6. Sandbox PDS distribution: https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds/blob/main/SANDBOX.md

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