Bluesky Thinking

In the past seven days since the US election results, Bluesky has gained 1,000,000 new members. Our account, which has been mostly dormant since I signed up last year, is now attracting around 200 followers a day. It really reminds me of Twitter (now X) back in 2009.

Many are migrating from X to Bluesky, largely due to the Musk and Trump connection. Bluesky has nearly doubled its membership in the past two months, currently standing at 15 million—a far cry from X’s 615 million.

Notably, Bluesky’s CEO is the former CEO and co-founder of Twitter/X.

Some Bluesky users have cited Musk’s association with US President-elect Donald Trump and a rise in hateful content on X as reasons for switching to the platform.

“Hello, Less Hateful World,” billionaire Mark Cuban posted on Tuesday. Cuban, who supported Vice President Kamala Harris in the election, has embraced Bluesky as a change.

On Wednesday, The Guardian announced it would no longer post content on X, citing the “disturbing content” on what it called a “toxic media platform” marked by racism and conspiracy theories.

Personally, I consider myself a realist. I pay for X Premium to run ads for clients, but I doubt Bluesky will overtake X. It’s almost like Bluesky is arriving at a party just as people are heading home.

However, Bluesky does have something X lacks: the original Twitter algorithm that delivers news instantly. X is chaotic in comparison, with trending topics often days old by the time they surface.

If Bluesky can position itself as the go-to source for real-time news, it may well achieve a meaningful victory over X.

These are exciting times in the world of digital media. For now, I’ll be using Bluesky daily, just as I used Twitter back in 2009.