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social networks The Bluesky app has just reached the top of the free download charts for the Apple App Store in the United States, making it, at least for the moment, more popular than Meta’s Threads and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The decentralized social media platform has received a new influx of users over the past week as more X users become displeased with Elon Musk’s political ambitions and abandon his social media platform for an alternative. more than one millions of new users have joined Bluesky since the 2024 US presidential election on November 5, which was marked by Musk’s influence.
First launched in 2019 as a project within Twitter, Bluesky became independent from the company before Musk’s acquisition and subsequent name change. Bluesky also caught the attention of some ex-Tweeters back in 2023, when new users could only register through an invitation system. Now you no longer need to have a code to join and anyone can register. Interested in trying Bluesky? Here are some tips for creating an account, finding who to follow, and decluttering your new home.
Begin
The social media platform is available in your browser at bsky.application or through a mobile application (Android, iOS). I’m still getting the hang of it, but I know that Bluesky will give you an almost overwhelming amount of options when you sign up, such as the option to host your own server. That’s great and maintains the platform. decentralizedbut it’s probably more complicated than you’d like if you’re just online looking for sports scores and shit posts.
While you’re creating an account, you’ll probably want to sign out. Bluesky Social as your hosting provider, since that’s what most people use. Then, enter your email address, create a strong password, and enter your date of birth to verify that you have passed the minimum age of 13 years. After this, you’ll need to find some nifty user ID. Please note that the full name will be expanded to @examplehandle.bsky.social. Continue setting up your profile by completing your bio and uploading a photo or creating an avatar.
Before you start following someone, go ahead and open Settings to activate the two-factor authentication option, which will keep your account more secure. Then click on the Moderation tab to add any words you want to mute. Here you can also choose whether to view or block any adult content in your feed.
Find people to follow
One of the highlights of the platform is the freedom of choice you have when deciding what you want to watch. First are the Discover and Following feeds, which should be familiar to X users. Respectively, they show you an algorithmically generated feed of popular posts and a reverse chronological feed of posts from people you follow. As a new user, you will see a list of popular accounts to follow from the beginning.
You can also select your own shareable lists of users to follow, or choose to follow lists of feeds curated by other Bluesky users. Following one of these curated lists, called starter packs, is a great way to follow large groups of accounts at once based on a specific niche or interest.
For example, WIRED put together a starter pack for readers to easily follow our reporters and staff members who are on the platform. Can visit this website for a searchable database of all available starter packages. Starter packs are available for heavy metal bands, gardening, science fiction authors, queer transit nerdsand much more. All of this makes it easy to connect directly with communities of people with shared interests.
Manage the flow
Returning to the home tab, the Discover The posts feed will look familiar at first glance to anyone who’s been on Twitter this decade. The look, design and even the mechanics are practically the same. Tap the heart to like a post, press the two arrows to repost it to your followers, or click the small chat bubble to reply to the post. It’s worth noting that your Likes are public on Bluesky and anyone can see them. (Looking at you, Ted Cruz.)
Upon entering your Settings, you may want to open Chat settings to make some adjustments to the way direct messages work in Bluesky. The standard setting is to receive direct messages only from users you follow. You can open this setting to receive messages from anyone on the platform if you want, or you can turn off direct messages entirely if you’d prefer to be left alone.
While you’re under the hood tweaking your new account settings, I also suggest opening the Accessibility Settings and choose to request alt text descriptions on images before publishing. Alt text is crucial to helping blind or low vision users understand what’s in an image, and is an essential tool to help everyone navigate and enjoy Bluesky. This setting will serve as a solid reminder to take a few seconds and add descriptive text to any visual media posts on the platform.