What’s next for Bluesky? CEO Jay Graber on growth, community, and decentralization
Jan 2, 2025
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Discover Bluesky's unique onboarding with customizable starter packs that help new users find niche interests. Dive into its explosive growth, skyrocketing from three to twenty-four million users in a year. Explore the platform's innovative user-centric advertising strategies that prioritize user agency. Discuss the evolution of social media verification, tackling authenticity and trust issues. Finally, examine how Bluesky transforms business dynamics and fosters user control in a decentralized social media landscape.
22:28
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Quick takeaways
Bluesky's innovative onboarding process enhances user engagement by allowing curated account lists, significantly boosting its user base to 24 million.
The platform's commitment to decentralization empowers users to control their social experience, fostering an open ecosystem for innovation and collaboration.
Deep dives
Growth Through Customization
The innovative onboarding process for Blue Sky is designed to enhance user engagement by allowing individuals to create curated lists of accounts for new users. This feature addresses a common challenge where many potential users struggle to find engaging content on social platforms. By enabling users to share custom feeds easily through links or QR codes, Blue Sky significantly increases the likelihood of attracting new members. As a result, this user-centric approach contributed to Blue Sky's rapid growth from a few million users to 24 million in a remarkably short period.
Decentralization as a Core Philosophy
The vision of Blue Sky is rooted in the idea of decentralization, guided by the foundational paper 'Protocols, Not Platforms.' This approach aims to provide users control over their social network experience, allowing them to migrate to different platforms built on the same protocol if desired. By fostering an open environment, Blue Sky positions itself as a custodian of a broader social ecosystem instead of merely operating as a standalone application. The focus on modularity in the app’s architecture encourages innovation and collaboration within the social media landscape, empowering developers and users alike.
Rethinking Advertising Models
Blue Sky aims to redefine the traditional advertising model prevalent in social media, steering away from exploitative practices that prioritize user engagement metrics. Rather than relying solely on ads, Blue Sky seeks to align its business incentives with user preferences, offering alternative revenue streams like subscriptions. The platform intends to adopt a more intentional approach to advertising, making it user-driven and less invasive. By prioritizing user choice and transparency, Blue Sky fosters competition and innovation, attempting to establish an ecosystem where advertising supports rather than detracts from the user experience.
Happy new year, Equity listeners! At the end of 2024, all eyes were on Bluesky's rapid growth. According to the social platform’s CEO Jay Graber, however, their goal is not just to recreate Twitter. Today, Rebecca is handing the reins over to TechCrunch senior reporter Max Zeff, who sat down with Graber at our last StrictlyVC event.
Listen to the full episode to hear pair dig into the company’s success and why, according to Graber, people need to, “be able to control the social networks they communicate on," regardless of whether that continues to be Bluesky or another federated social platform.
Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Wednesday and Friday.
Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here.
Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.
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