Bluesky might be the Twitter-like we’ve been waiting for.
Yes, I know it’s still invite-only. Yes, I know there are only thousands of people on the platform right now. Yes, I know that it’s still missing table-stakes features like video uploads and DMs.
Still, I’m starting to feel that Bluesky is where it’s at.
It happened over the last few days. Bluesky — the decentralized Twitter alternative spun up by Twitter itself — has suddenly filled up with tech media and other people I follow on Twitter. Over and over again, I would check Twitter for one thing or another and see somebody begging for a Bluesky invite, then just a little while later, that person would be in my Bluesky skyline (timeline) and skeeting (tweeting). While that means I might be able to use Bluesky for actual newsgathering, which is what I rely on Twitter most for, I was most happy to see the vast majority of those news hounds and former Twitter obsessives posting with a raw, deranged energy that I haven’t seen in a very long time.
In one day, Bluesky hit viral escape velocity
Then on Thursday, the service hit the viral escape velocity that every new social platform searches for as some of the internet’s biggest names hopped on board. Dril joined. Then, AOC. WeRateDogs, the dog-rating service. Darth, the Sith Lord red panda. Hell, I even found a “Thursday! What a concept!” account and Hard Drive, the satirical video game publication.
In the midst of that busy day, Bluesky even survived a downtime. Shortly before 5:30PM ET on Thursday, the official Bluesky account said the service needed to upgrade databases after seeing “our biggest single-day jump in new users that we’ve experienced.” The downtime took a worrying 20 or so minutes longer than the expected five minutes, but the skyline eventually returned, with everyone posting a collective sigh of relief. Twitter’s fail whale from the platform’s early days is still legendary, so it’s a good sign that people couldn’t wait for it to return.
