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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

#271

Post by ziml77 »

brundolf wrote: post #144
jjfoooo4 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choice is only good if the options are differentiated and easy to understand. A bunch of algo and client options sound good for someone who is already a committed user, but for a new user it just complicated the onboarding experience. Not to mention, it’s unclear what the incentive to put real resources behind any of these clients is.

It doesn't complicate the onboarding process though, because there's an official client and a default algo. That's Bluesky's whole thing: sensible defaults and easy onboarding, so it can be "just twitter" if you want it to be. But the open protocol and ecosystem that give you more options if/when you want them, and put pressure on the official ones to stay good

That's really the key. Most people don't need to care. Bluesky is nice and easy for their needs. They just use the bsky.app website and the official Bluesky phone app.

This is in contrast to Mastodon where people were told to pick an instance and not really guided to any one as the primary one (because Mastodon devs/users don't want there to be a thought that there even is a "primary" instance).

People here on HN can claim picking an instance isn't a big deal all they want, but I can say with confidence it is. I'm in various furry artist Discord servers where people expressed their distaste for having to deal with the multiple instances.

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

#272

Post by e12e »

jakebsky wrote: post #270
e12e wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thanks. Would it be possible to set up a real self-hosted, federated instance today, so I could set up a community and let others run their own pds'?

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

#273

Post by devinivy »

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…

Not exactly what you're describing, but https://brid.gy/ is a pretty neat project in this space.

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

#274

Post by pfraze »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #107
brundolf wrote: post #20

It's lost the initial momentum but it's not dead yet. I'm still holding my breath that the critical mass makes the leap eventually; "it's just twitter but you can write and use custom clients and feed algorithms" is a compelling proposition For me and a lot of others, it's the only twitter alternative we ever signed up for. A few never came back to twitter, but most did mostly for social reasons. But twitter as a pla…

> "it's just twitter but you can write and use custom clients and feed algorithms" is a compelling proposition For the average twitter user this is probably the exact opposite of a compelling position. Tech people want more control and less abstraction. Everyone else is happy with their walled gardens and ten layers of separation from the machine code. Its why things are the way they are and not some technopunk utopi…

It's a consumer product and it has to compete as one. We've been pretty aware of that from the start.

I think you're under-estimating what's happening with 3rd-party feeds. That's a core pattern where independent services can integrate into the UX as if they're native to the product. This means turning the client into an open platform for third-party applications.

That's been a success with feeds. They're actively adopted and created by users. Most of the feeds are hosted by skyfeed, a 3P app which gives users a GUI to create them. The author of skyfeed submitted this actually. Talented dev afaict but I've not met them, which is kind of the point. (Looking forward to it though, redsolver!)

3P integration operates by a thick client model. We exchange typed JSON that describes content and interfaces. This lets services drive the client through request/response flows. We can bounce out to webviews when we need, but not executing code means better integration into the app, which means users get access to new experiences within the client and providers get users more easily. This being social protocol means that auth and high level verbs (following, liking, commenting) also come along. The Web 1.0 did quite a bit without client scripting, and I suspect this client can too.

I also want to mention: the product experience right now is establishing a UX on a protocol-driven network that feels good to consumers. Our metric for success wasn't whether it was novel; it was whether we could meet consumer expectations. If we can prove out scaling -- which I'm now confident we will -- then we've established the core of the network. After that we use that core as a backbone for 3P devs to build integrated experiences, and it should lead to a notably diverse product, and I think that's the compelling position for us to offer.

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

#275

Post by BryantD »

cubefox wrote: post #136
brundolf wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I haven't even bothered trying Threads (and don't plan to) Mastodon puts too much onus on the user to pick a home server Bluesky got it right by saying "we're going to be exactly familiar to people who like twitter, just open and better". The concepts are an almost exact drop-in replacement, for practical purposes, other than which one your friends are active on I don't use it much right now because most of my…

Do you know how censorship and Balkanization work on Bluesky? On Mastodon this was quite extreme, as entire servers can block each other, without any involvement from the individual user.

At the moment there’s no issue because there’s still only one server. De facto I can’t imagine any federated protocol that won’t enable servers to block each other, though.

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

#276

Post by execat »

anigbrowl wrote: post #267
brycewray wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

All of these are used.

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

#277

Post by execat »

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

All used. Don't try these.

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

#278

Post by lxgr »

execat wrote: post #276
anigbrowl wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bsky-social-brvm4-gwcnj bsky-social-llyit-xx3kt bsky-social-eeqkk-tf6qh bsky-social-qttr7-gjh3i bsky-social-qttr7-gjh3i

All of these are used.

Only got one:

bsky-social-5xbvh-kgbua

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

#279

Post by npunt »

rglullis wrote: post #161
npunt wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for me, I've spent the last ~3 years designing new feature ideas for twitter and twitter-like products as a hobby and been involved in various communities working on these issues. Ways to improve quality of comments, reduce conflict, improve context, build media literacy, etc. I need to get around to publishing these ideas but have definitely put real work in. This is the only one I've published in blog form…

> designing new feature ideas for twitter and twitter-like products Which is not the same as "innovating with UX" in any way that is incompatible with the status quo. Going by your blog post, do you agree that it is not something that (by itself) a feature so innovative that would make people drop twitter to favor a new social network that implemented it?

No this feature by itself isn't something to attract people to a brand new social network, I hope I didn't represent it that way.

My perspective on the problem is that the way twitter's medium is designed doesn't produce a wonderful signal:noise ratio. Some people might revel in the noise, and some amount of noise certainly generates MAUs and ad dollars, but ultimately it's not living up to its potential as a medium and social network. 'A clown car that fell into a gold mine' still applies.

My theory of change is that in general, features that improve SNR are going to provide a sustaining MAU advantage to products that implement them, because the vast majority of users want better SNR. They want quality discourse, funny memes, kind interactions, etc. Drama and conflict also produce MAUs, but ultimately they're net negative because of the people they scare off.

If you accept that premise, then the question is more when than if features focused on improving the SNR of interactions should be built. Do they meaningfully differentiate and help with the cold start problem? Or are they to be built after some amount of audience has arrived?

From what I've seen on the clones, as they grow they're all running into the same SNR ceiling. I think that ceiling is preventing them from being breakout successes, because whatever differentiator they started with (decentralized, free speech, etc) will fade in relevance as they get bigger and their core experience reverts to the mean. They're just twitter, but smaller.

Would a product that focused more on improving SNR be able to breakout? I don't know, I'm just disappointed nobody seems to have tried very hard.

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

#280

Post by bordercases »

h0l0cube wrote: post #112
bordercases wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nice migration story would probably help for Mastodon no? Sign-up on an "index" server, then one button to end up somewhere else?

The problem with that is coordination. All the Mastodon servers would need to align, agree, and implement this new process. The whole point of Mastodon is that it is federated, and so consensus will ensure progress is limited to the lowest common denominator.

Federation works when protocols and standards are negotiated upon, and people do coordinate implicitly wherever they apply the protocol. So I'm not sure if there's anything to explain as if we're at cross purposes.

Why couldn't a protocol and reference implementation exist for a client migration if servers have similar schemas for users and posts?

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