According to a story in the New York Post, Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey has built a new Android app named “Bluesky” that will compete with the microblogging service now controlled by Elon Musk.
The “social internet” of the future will provide users with more alternatives and artists with “independence from platforms,” claims the app’s website. The software, which can only be accessed with an invite code, is still in development.
According to the website, “We’re building the AT Protocol, a new foundation for social networking that gives creators independence from platforms, developers freedom to build, and users a choice in their experience.”
In 2019, Mr. Dorsey launched Bluesky as a side business with funding from Twitter. It was initially made available to iOS users in late February.
According to TechCrunch, Bluesky does not include the fundamental capabilities like tracking likes or bookmarks, editing tweets, quote-tweeting, direct conversations, or using hashtags that are accessible on Twitter at launch. As a result, the app will become a more efficient rendition of Twitter than it was before.
According to the outlet, it is also incorporating decentralization into its own protocol, the AT Protocol, rather than building on the work already done on ActivityPub, the protocol powering Mastodon, an open-source Twitter alternative, and a variety of other decentralized apps in the larger “Fediverse,” the term for these connected servers hosting free, open-source web publishing software.
The application has 20,000 active users right now and has been in increasing demand.
