As Elon Gets Ready To Take Over Twitter, Bluesky Takes A Big Step Forward

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the some-good-news dept

It seems quite likely that Elon Musk will own Twitter in a few days. One thing that has remained very much up in the air through all of this is how Musk views Bluesky. As you’ll recall, Bluesky was a project kicked off by Jack Dorsey back in late 2019, partially influenced by my paper on why we needed to move more to a world of protocols rather than platforms. While Bluesky was seed funded from Twitter, it is entirely separate from Twitter. However, part of the promise behind Bluesky was that Dorsey made it clear he hoped to one day move Twitter over to using the Bluesky protocol — and one of the biggest challenges for any of the many attempts at building a protocol-based social media system is actually getting users to sign up. A Bluesky/Twitter deal would effectively bring the users along for the ride.

In the text messages revealed as part of the legal fight between Twitter and Elon Musk (as he sought to get out of the deal), it was clear that Dorsey’s support of Musk was, in part, around the idea that a Musk-led private Twitter would be more likely to embrace Bluesky and move over to it. This is not a crazy idea. One of my biggest concerns about all of this was that the existing board of directors at Twitter would never let the company move over to a protocol. The various demands that were being put on Dorsey from the board (before he left) appeared somewhat incompatible with his protocol plans. And, indeed, one of the most regular conversations I’ve had with people about moving Twitter to a protocol like Bluesky is about how it might impact Twitter’s short-term revenue and profitability. I think there are ways that it could work out well, but it would be a big bet, and a risky one, of the nature that Wall St. is loathe to take.

Some of the other text messages also talked about Bluesky, including ones from Axel Springer CEO Mathias Dopfner (though his other texts were a bit nonsensical). But Musk himself has never even mentioned Bluesky. It’s unclear if he’s seriously considering adopting Bluesky, or having anything to do with it.

However, Bluesky has continued to move forward. Earlier this year, soon after Musk announced his initial stake in Twitter, Bluesky revealed its first “experimental” protocol piece. Now the organization has announced the next steps, officially naming its authenticated transfer protocol, and explaining what it will include:

Account portability. A person’s online identity should not be owned by corporations with no accountability to their users. With the AT Protocol, you can move your account from one provider to another without losing any of your data or social graph.

Algorithmic choice. Algorithms dictate what we see and who we can reach. We must have control over our algorithms if we’re going to trust in our online spaces. The AT Protocol includes an open algorithms mode so users have more control over their experience.

Interoperation. The world needs a diverse market of connected services to ensure healthy competition. Interoperation needs to feel like second nature to the Web. The AT Protocol includes a schema-based interoperation framework called Lexicon to help solve coordination challenges.

Performance. A lot of novel protocols throw performance out of the window, resulting in long loading times before you can see your timeline. We don’t see performance as optional, so we’ve made it a priority to build for fast loading at large scales.

That all sounds… good. But it’s all meaningless if there’s not an actual way to use it. So the next part of Bluesky’s announcement is a lot more important. They’re going to build a reference app to show how it all works. Now that’s where things could get interesting:

Coming soon: the Bluesky app

The World-Wide Web wouldn’t have been much fun if it was created without a browser, and the same is true of the AT Protocol. So we’re also building a social app called Bluesky.

The word “Bluesky” evokes a wide-open space of possibility. It was the original name for this project before it took shape, and continues to be the name of our company. We’re calling the application we’re building Bluesky because it will be a portal to the world of possibility on top of the AT Protocol.

We’re looking forward to sharing more about the Bluesky application as it develops.

Again, there will still be big questions in who will actually use this, and whether they can get enough users to make it worthwhile, but the approach still feels much more thorough and well thought out than most other attempts at building a social media protocol. I will continue to watch with interest.

Filed Under: platforms, protocols, social media
Companies: bluesky, twitter