BlueSky CEO Jay Graber discusses the future of social media, exploring decentralized platforms, data privacy, and moderation. They delve into account portability, monetization, and the controversy of demoting political threads. The conversation highlights the evolution of custom feeds and the importance of user understanding for a positive social media experience.
Blue Sky's rapid user growth showcases the potential for decentralized social networking.
Blue Sky prioritizes user control and account portability to create a diverse social ecosystem.
Deep dives
Blue Sky's Rapid User Growth
Blue Sky, the decentralized social media platform, has experienced significant user growth since opening up to the public. In just a week, their user count nearly doubled, reaching 4.8 million users. This surge in users indicates a positive response to Blue Sky's platform and highlights the potential for decentralized social networking.
The Evolution of Blue Sky
Blue Sky's CEO, Jay Graber, discussed the evolution of the platform and its timeline. Originally an idea within Twitter, Blue Sky became a separate company in 2022. The team spent years building a protocol for Twitter, which was eventually refocused into building an app when Twitter showed no intention of adopting the protocol. The past year has been dedicated to rolling out the app and refining the protocol to combine the benefits of centralized and decentralized social experiences.
The Vision of Blue Sky
Blue Sky aims to make social media more like the open web of the past, where users had control over their identities and social graphs. By building an open protocol, Blue Sky emphasizes account portability and user choice. They want to provide a foundation for a vibrant social ecosystem, allowing users to seamlessly migrate between different social apps while maintaining their relationships and control over their content.
Composable Moderation and Custom Feeds
Blue Sky's unique approach to moderation and feeds enables users to have more control over their social media experience. Composable moderation allows users to set their own moderation criteria and tailor their feeds to their specific preferences. Custom feeds have already showcased the power of this approach, offering users the ability to curate their content based on hashtags, topics, and more. Blue Sky envisions a future where users can easily create and customize their moderation feeds, fostering innovation and a diverse range of social apps.