Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of the online microblogging service Twitter, is moving forward with Bluesky, a decentralized Twitter competitor, with its mobile version now in private beta testing.
Bluesky is now available on the App Store as an invite-only app, allowing select users to try out the unique social experience by entering an invite code.
According to TechCrunch, the Bluesky iOS app was released on February 17 and had approximately 2,000 installs as of February 28. According to reports, the app is not yet accessible on Google Play for Android testers.
The competing software, as shown in Bluesky’s App Store preview, appears very much like Twitter, with the interface containing many Twitter-like features, such as the way handles, followers, posts, and replies are represented. Similar to Twitter, the Bluesky app’s feed reflects likes, comments, and reposts.
According to TechCrunch, the app allows users to publish posts of up to 265 characters, which is only a few characters less than Twitter’s 280-character limit. Bluesky asks “What’s up?” instead of “What’s happening?” on Twitter. Bluesky users can share, mute, and block accounts, but advanced features such as adding them to lists are not yet accessible.
Despite its resemblance to Twitter, Bluesky is said to have significant technical elements that will distinguish it apart from Elon Musk’s social media powerhouse. The platform seeks to provide a decentralized social network protocol, which is anticipated to make its user data free from influence by any government or corporate.
Bluesky is a new federated social network developed on top of the AT protocol, which incorporates ideas from the most recent decentralized technologies. Formerly known as Authenticated Transfer Protocol, or ADX, the AT protocol is Bluesky’s main initiative that intends to enable a new way for servers to connect with each other, allowing individuals and organizations to self-host and have several websites instead of one.
Bluesky, as previously reported, delivered its first batch of code in early May 2022, only a few weeks before Dorsey stepped down from Twitter’s board of directors. In October, Dorsey formally unveiled the Bluesky social app and the AT protocol, over three years after launching the project with Twitter support in 2019.
The announcement comes as Dorsey is rumoured to be moving some Bitcoin via his other social network, Nostr. In February 2023, Damus, the first mobile app to use the protocol, was released on the App Store.
