Bluesky Social: Jack Dorsey’s rival project is like Twitter without Musk

The race is on to join Bluesky, the decentralised Twitter alternative created by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

The social platform will be launching soon.

Bluesky Social is (almost) here

Currently available for both Android and iOS, Bluesky only accepts new users via a waitlist or an invite code gifted by a current member.

Bloomberg reported that the iPhone app has already been downloaded 245,000 times, with over a million users on the service’s waitlist.

“Bluesky seems to be reaching a turning point this week, at least within the Twitter tech community,” tweeted The Verge editor Alex Heath.

How to join the cool kids

You have a small window to get an invite before it goes live and the excitement around this budding rival is skyrocketing.

Simply head over to Bluesky beta and join the waiting list.

Programmer Travis Brown wrote, “I had low expectations for Bluesky, but in just a week, it’s evolved from mostly crypto and bad AI art to a diverse mix of journalists and tech professionals I actually enjoy.”

Twitter’s downward spiral

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s erratic actions are transforming Twitter from a somewhat dependable platform into a glitchy, increasingly unusable mess.

Musk has even paywalled various Twitter features, such as API access and “verification,” which, amusingly, doesn’t verify user identities.

This shift is undeniably pushing away some of Twitter’s most devoted users, making it unsurprising that many are eager to abandon ship.

A fresh start

So, what exactly is this new app?

Bluesky project leader Jay Graber explained in a March blog post that the decentralised microblogging platform aims to offer “choice to users, freedom to developers, and control to creators.”

Currently, Dorsey’s Bluesky has a basic design, allowing users to create 300-character posts and replies, as well as share and repost images.

Whether Bluesky will dethrone Twitter, as NBC’s Ben Collins suggested, is uncertain. However, Collins noted that Bluesky “works and feels like this one, which is all we ever wanted.”