FIR #436: Nothin’ But Bluesky (and TikTok and Threads and Instagram and WhatsApp…)

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Bluesky — the Twitter-esque social network that has suddenly started attracting refugees from Elon Musk’s X — had its start when Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey asked software engineer Jay Graber to introduce federation to Twitter. She told him she couldn’t, but she could create a new social network based on a new federation protocol called AT, a decentralized foundation for public social media. At first, Bluesky was an invitation-only network. Many of those who scored invites were underwhelmed. But a surge of migrations from X has reinvigorated Bluesky, which is also adding features as a further incentive for people to join and stay. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel discuss Bluesky’s potential and whether communicators should consider establishing a presence for their companies or clients.

Links from this episode:

• Bluesky’s Boom: Are We Watching the Next Big Shift? – NevilleHobson .com
• Journalists Are Leaving X for Bluesky. Will They Stay There?
• Bluesky Is Growing Up. Maybe Too Fast.
• Benefits of an open network
• Inside Bluesky’s big growth surge
• Mass X-odus: professionals desert Elon Musk’s network
• Number of users on Bluesky
• How Bluesky, Alternative to X and Facebook, Is Handling Explosive Growth
• Journalists Are Leaving X for Bluesky. Will They Stay There?
• Like ‘old Twitter’: The scientific community finds a new home on Bluesky
• CIPR to Cease Engagement on Twitter
• PRovoke Media Will No Longer Post on X
• ‘Growing space for connection’ – why charities are finally moving to Bluesky
• X-odus: Should Your Company Leave X?

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The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, December 2.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [e-mail].

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

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Raw transcript:

00:00:00] Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 436 of four immediate release. I’m Shell Holtz. And I’m Neville. Hobson. In this episode, we are gonna talk about Blue Sky. It’s something that you probably will have heard of. It’s a social network. The new Challenger one in the news hugely. This past week, today, blue Sky, surpassed 22.7 million users.

That’s a significant leap from 7 million. Just three months ago, disillusioned users are migrating from x former Twitter in search of healthier online spaces. This surge mainly since the US presidential election, early this month and widely reported across mainstream and social media during the past week highlights a broader shift in professional and organizational engagement as users abandoned platforms that feel no longer serve their needs.

Are we watching the next big shift in the media landscape, or is this simply the latest fat? We’ll share our thinking [00:01:00] right after this.

Blue Sky’s rapid growth presents both opportunities and challenges. Casey Newton, the platformer noted yesterday that the platform faces significant hurdles in scaling its infrastructure and implementing robust content moderation systems to ensure user safety and trust as blue sky expands. Balancing its decentralized ethos with these operational demands will be critical.

Organizations too are taking note. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations, CIPR in the UK under CEO Alistair MCC Capra announced it would cease engagement on X immediately due to concerns over the platform’s direction. The CIPR set up an account on Blue Sky yesterday complimenting its established presence on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Similarly, Paul Holmes, founder of Provoke Media stated that his publication will no longer post on x. Reflecting a growing trend among professional media outlets. The Guardian’s decision last week to stop posting new content on X marks a pivotal moment in how [00:02:00] major media organizations are rethinking their social media strategies with over 27 million followers across its accounts on X.

This isn’t a small shift. It’s a significant recalibration of priorities for one of the world’s most respected media outlets. Charities and advocacy groups are also finding a new space for connection on Blue Sky. According to Civil Society News, many charities are setting up accounts on the platform, leveraging its community driven ethos to engage audiences authentically.

The scientific community has been quick to embrace Blue Sky as well with Science magazine reporting that researchers and academics are increasingly using the platform to share knowledge and collaborate. This migration underscores Blue Sky’s potential as a hub for professional and intellectual discourse.

We’re also seeing political communities making moves. Political engagement on social platforms is often a key indicator of their relevance and staying power. Blue Sky’s adoption by UK Labor Party members of Parliament and discussion among influential [00:03:00] voices in the European Union about Blue Sky’s potential role are significant developments.

These shifts highlight the platform’s growing appeal as a space for public discourse, one that feels safer, more transparent, viable, and far less chaotic than X on whether organizations should leave X entirely. Luke Brinley Jones, founder of OST Marketing, argues for a balanced approach. In his piece on the Exodus, he highlights the importance of carefully weighing the cost and benefits before making such a move, noting that abandoning X prematurely could leave organizations out of important conversations.

Blue Sky’s decentralized framework and user-friendly design have attracted praise, but its long-term viability will depend on its ability to address scalability and trust. As Casey Newton noted, the Columbia Journalism Review has highlighted how American journalists have found blue Sky to be a promising alternative to X.

Though retaining their engagement will depend on the platform maintaining its unique appeal without succumbing to the [00:04:00] challenges that plagued its predecessor. And what about threads? Meta’s Ex Challenger that now boasts over 275 million users is not getting the same attention and buzz as blue sky with its vibe, open, creative, and refreshingly free of the corporate polish.

That makes threads feel well a bit lifeless by comparison. Yet Meta says Threads is now getting over a million new signups every day, and X has over 600 million monthly users at the moment. Blue Sky is tiny by comparison. Still, blue sky feels like a place where people actually do want to be, and we’re already seeing a third party app ecosystem taking shape.

A definite sign of strong interest from the developer community. The energy on the platform is unreliable, and the moment is hard to ignore. I think it’s fair to say that if blue sky keeps surging, it’s hard not to see threads slipping further into the background, no matter the numbers. Looking ahead the next few months will be crucial for Blue Sky.

The platform must navigate its growing pains while continuing to [00:05:00] attract and retain users and organizations. Its ability to scale responsibly while preserving its community driven ethos could well determine whether it becomes a viable alternative to x. Or just another chapter in the ever-changing social media landscape.

What do you think? Shell, is Blue sky poised to become the next big thing, or will it fade like so many others? I think it depends on the steps that they take going forward. They can, it depends. Good answers certainly stumble and it depends. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. They certainly could stumble make some mistakes that drive people away or slow their growth.

On the other hand, they could take steps that attract more people. They seem to be. Taking the approach of slow and steady implementation of new features adopting some of the ones that are popular over on threads. One of the things that I think is going to drive its adoption. Is that they’ve taken a hands off approach [00:06:00] to the content that people share.

Both on X and on threads. They are tamping down posts with links in them. They don’t want those. What made Twitter, what it was the real time nature of people sharing information. People used Twitter. To find out what was happening in the news because it’s where news broke and it’s where journalists were sharing links to what they were reporting or.

Giving you heads up on what they were reporting. And you can’t really do that on threads because the algorithm is not real time. It’s more geared toward, social fun stuff. And without links rising to the top on X, you’re not gonna be able to do it there either, even though. There are still some journalist communities that have not made a move from x.

I was listening to a podcast just yesterday on my way home from work where they were talking about the fact that the whole national [00:07:00] football league sports reporting community continues to thrive on X. It has, nobody’s made the move over to either threads or. Blue sky. This is all happening at the same time that we’re seeing a tremendous fragmentation.

We have generations that are more inclined to spend time in their groups on WhatsApp or on TikTok. So are we gonna see Blue Sky become the next Twitter? I have serious doubts that anybody, regardless of what they did could. Assume that kind of popularity because people have too many options and they have their preferences.

They like what they like. There were fewer options back in 2007 when Twitter was first introduced, it was the first Microblogging tool and people gravitated there the real time. Nature of it made it very exciting compared to some of the other options that are out there. Even [00:08:00] if they do have 600 million over on X monthly users that’s a drop in the bucket.

Compared to what the 4 billion on Facebook. All these things are relative. But it will continue to grow. And the other thing I wanted to mention real quickly is that its federated model is mostly aspirational at this point. There are not a lot of servers that have been set up with the AT protocol.

You’re seeing more of that with the activity pub protocol. From Mastodon. There are a lot of instances that have been set up which is the one that threads uses, which is why we’re seeing that kind of cross-posting through threads, but you’re not seeing a lot of it. It, it is pretty much a monolith right now, even though that protocol exists.

Just this morning, by the way, I was reading a website that explained how to set up an at server and it’s involved compared to. Process. This is not for the casualty or the average user. Certainly not. And in fact, I think the point about mention [00:09:00] numbers, I think we need to stop mentioning these numbers because that’s not the important thing.

Twitter’s rather blue sky is not suddenly gonna overtake Twitter and eclipse it. It’s simply not possible. It’s totally and your point about, football league and others who are massive on. X and haven’t ported over that is absolutely the case with many others. So I think to put this in the correct perspective, this is not like a sudden tsunami about to happen.

Of all these people suddenly gonna flood over to blue sky. I can’t see that happening. It’s it. If things are moving, there is definitely something in the air. On the examples I mentioned on who is leaving or who is in fact more significantly, I think, is to talk about who is setting up shop on Blue Sky rather than who is migrating from x.

Most of these people aren’t closing down X, they’re still there in one form or another, which to me is a sensible thing. No matter how you feel about Elon Musk and his behavior and the interference he does, and all these [00:10:00] stuff that he seems to do that upsets a lot of people. Reality. There are people using x in their millions.

As ways of keeping in touch as ways of alerting people about something, whether it’s an event or a disaster or some other thing. The weather even. All that flight information isn’t suddenly all gonna migrate. So this is for, I think for those who feel they just don’t want to be on X anymore and want to be someplace more pleasant.

And I would argue from experience. Blue Sky is a much more pleasant place. It’s not the same as XO got 600 million against 22.7. Of those 600 million, what half are bots probably. And the other half are mixture of nice people and some pretty nasty characters in there too. So it’s that kind of difference yet.

Something is shifting. The sands are moving. It seems to me when you’ve got things like the vibe is changing too. Yeah. You mentioned about the AT protocol. So I’m testing something which I’ve just installed. I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet, which is a plugin for WordPress. [00:11:00] That when you post a blog post, it’ll also share it to Blue Sky.

We already have that with threats. Now we’ve got something like this on blue sky. That’ll appeal to a lot of people. Another one, not WordPress specific, lets you host your comments on Blue Sky. That appeals to me hugely reminds me of the outstanding work Shannon Whitley did back in before 2010 I think it was, where he created tools that, had huge takeup. And I look back on my blog in those days and find it’s absolutely cram full of comments made on Twitter that were then posted to the blog as well. And that was a, actually it was a plugin that Shannon created. So if we can get to that area, then that adds, I think, momentum to a platform that would make it easy to to attract attention from a lot of people.

We are early days. This is early. Early adoption days. Where we’re at currently. So this is not mass migration time at all. Yeah. But the other thing that I think will drive [00:12:00] adoption is it’s not the media coverage it’s getting now, which is all about how people are. Migrating from X, it’s the media coverage is gonna get when the media starts reporting news based on posts on Blue Sky and you have enough influential people moving to Blue Sky from X saying things that the media might want to cover, that you’re gonna see and increased volume.

Of you remember how you used to see tweets all the time embedded in news coverage of events. You still do on the websites, you still do, but you’re gonna start to assuming that they’re gonna allow you to. Do that. I’m sure they will. You’re gonna start to see the blue sky posts, whatever they’re called.

I don’t, what do they call it? No do not use the word skeet. Whatever you do, it’s a disgusting word in my opinion. I, you didn’t hear me say it, did you? No. I said it. So did no, I don’t up yet. She. No one’s set that up yet. No one has set up embedding from from Blue sky too early days.

You can always do a screen grab if you needed to. Yeah, but the point is to [00:13:00] do it like you do it with Twitter or X doesn’t exist yet. You can’t do it. But that’s something they should consider because they are the real time. Their algorithm does not favor anything. No, it does let you follow a list.

I mean there’s Blue Sky books and writers and things like that. I did, by the way, love, I have to share. It was a tweet from Austrian Air Airlines. Yeah, that was a good one A few days ago it chose a flight attendant. With her arms out, like she’s pointing to the exits. And it says, we took a moment to locate our nearest exit, and the exit is not ex it’s the logo for XIT.

And beneath that, in very small type it says Austrian is closing this account effective immediately. So I think there are brands that are actually taking advantage of leaving X to. Make an exclamation point of that action. Yeah. But this is, this is, individual steps here and there, which get media attention.

It’s not gonna drive huge people to, to leave without question. But [00:14:00] like I said, this is, to me, the feel is there is a shift, there’s something in the air, something is moving. It’s not mass, it’s not a migration, it’s not an exodus of some say, although to individuals that you see it as an exodus. That’s fine.

It’ll coexist. You and I have talked about this quite a few times before that whatever we feel about X, like I mentioned, Elon Musk himself, the way he’s, he, depending on your point of view, ruined it or whatever he is done to it. It’s not gonna suddenly vanish as far as we can see right now.

Although anything’s possible tomorrow, who knows what he might do or not do. In the meantime, we have this alternative place that is attracting a huge amount of tension right now, and it’s being driven in mainstream media typically, and echoed in social and then reverberated back into mainstream.

I’m seeing media stories in some of the UK media talking about who’s saying what on. Blue sky. That’s because it’s a news story. Not because a matter of course they’re gonna do this. And the other thing you mentioned about threats not being a news place. Yeah. They actively [00:15:00] discouraged news in those early days.

And wouldn the surface news stories. I think they made a huge mistake doing that, frankly, because you didn’t get. Media, people, journalists, and anyone else going to thread at all? You didn’t at all. That’s beginning to change. I saw an announcement this morning, my time that thread had announced that now you can customize the feed.

What is your default rather than this for you? Stuff that, that. Pushes stuff out. You don’t want to wanna see really, or you don’t know whether you do, the algorithm thinks you might, you can now choose your own. They’ve pinched that idea from Blue Sky according to all the reporting I’ve seen about it.

In which case, what does that signify? Are they getting a little nervous about Blue Sky? Possibly. They’ve upped the ante and some competition’s good in that case, so it is still. Early days, you, we cannot say that this is the ex successor at all. We are seeing something that many people, including me, for that matter, find quite attractive.

Up until now, threads has been my primary social network. It still is, but Blue Sky is looking increasingly [00:16:00] attractive from my point of view. And I don’t see some are people talking about there’s too much US politics there. The magazines are in there. I don’t see any of that stuff. I really don’t.

So is that an algorithmic thing or is it because I’ve chosen feeds of what I pay attention to, which is not. The stuff that has, that you can decline seeing some of the stuff or the people you follow? As well. Some of the people I follow don’t talk about that kind of thing, or there’s one person who does, you’ve gotta have someone in there so you know what you don’t wanna be seeing.

It is very much like Twitter, 2008 period, as I see it, frankly. It’s a pleasant place. That was what that was like back then. Before algorithms, before the advertisers got in, before the ugly people got there. And the cesspit it is now is a different thing. It is not comparative. So it is interesting and I’m seeing people building lists a useful tool in blue Sky as a good half dozen I’ve seen of communicators of different.

Plays a lot of overlap between them. There’s a big one on internal communicators, a huge one on PR [00:17:00] people. And these you can get hold of and keep ’em yourself as well. And in which case you could follow just those if you wanted to. I like following things I don’t know yet because that’s how you get interesting stuff as well as the stuff you can avoid, but you’ll know it when you see it.

So it, it’s got that air of Twitter in those early days. The exploratory, the experimenting times, it’s good. Yeah. And get better as they add more features and tweak it. And I find that I’m spending more time on blue sky than I am on threads these days. Yeah. Just because I tend to find more interesting stuff there now.

And I suspect that’s the algorithm not pushing stuff down that I would be more interested in. Yeah, we’re here where I work we’ll be opening a blue sky account. We don’t wanna miss out on this just because of the 20 seconds it would take to cross post something there. Yeah. That’s actually what I would suggest to anyone who’s wondering, I work for x, y, Z company, what should I do something there?

Set up an account. Don’t close anything else. Yeah, just try it out. See, join things, talk to [00:18:00] people, see what it’s like, get a handle on it and make your decision then and see what others are doing that would be a smart move that would apply to any new social network by the way. That’s worth doing.

I think so. We’ll watch this with great interest. And also as people are creating those. I was gonna say is people are creating those topic driven lists. Find out where people are talking about things that your customers are interested in and join those conversations. Yeah, so we’ll keep an eye on this.

They’ve got some serious work to do. Casey Newton said that quite well, I think, and particularly on moderation and filtering out really vile content. And his interview with the guy who runs the trust and moderation team, there is quite. Eyeopening, quite insightful. I did read that, where he shares some insights on literally the issues they’re having to deal with, which is a microcosm of what the bigger networks are having to deal with.

Except of course the big one, Twitter, who doesn’t seem to do anything because they haven’t got the staff anymore. So they’re talking on Blue Sky, ramping up the [00:19:00] moderation team to currently 20 people to a hundred plus. And it’s still, maybe that’s a drop in the ocean because as.

Keep attracting new members. If this continues this wave, then they’re gonna need to do probably more than that. So it’s quite a challenging time for them, and I think we need to kinda recognize that this has got risks if you go there where you might get something. They did talk today about some overzealousness in preventing some of this stuff by suspending accounts that.

Just got caught up in the way. ’cause they mentioned a word that the algorithm actually is not the right word ’cause it has the wrong connotation. But they’re using a tool that is designed to spot and call out prohibited content. Stuff that, that doesn’t meet the parameters that humans can then look at.

So it’s used by many companies from what I read in an article. So I think awareness of this behind the scenes is useful to know as they’re building out something that. Will be trustworthy. I see people saying, yeah, but is it I’m worried about if I go there, I’ll see all this bad [00:20:00] stuff I see on x.

I think it’s unlikely. It’s worth a shot. Mind you, I think to just give it a go and do it carefully. Yeah, you have to be serious about content moderation. There are things that you just can’t allow. Even x can’t allow, child pornography on its site. So you’ve gotta be looking for all this stuff.

Blue Sky I think I read that the EU says it’s out of compliance with eu. Was it privacy rules? I think yeah. That’s a, they got work to do. They only have 20 employees. I think that’s a red herring shell. They’re not even the size in terms of use in terms of users how many they’ve got and all that stuff.

They don’t meet the minimum standard where the EU would pay attention to them. So this is a red herring. They did respond to that, by the way, by saying that they just looking for some help to identify who they should talk to. The eu. So they don’t have an office anywhere there. There you go.

I don’t think they do have an office. Yeah so does say EU has a website that makes it easy to find who to talk to and customer support. Yeah. Oh yeah. Anyway, they only have 20, they’re startup and they [00:21:00] employees, they haven’t got, they haven’t gotten themselves established yet. They’re only a startup.

They have only 20 employees that are full-time. They have no revenue stream. Everything that they’re getting right now is investment. They’re not talking about advertising as a means of producing revenue. They’re talking about subscription fees for special features and the like. So we’ll see how that all shakes out.

But yeah, it’s definitely worth watching. And that will be a 30 for this episode of four immediate release.

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