X users jump to Bluesky - but what is it and who owns it?

Recently, you may have noticed the term 'Bluesky' appearing on your social media feeds, and you might be curious about what it is and why it is gaining so much attention. Bluesky is a new social media platform that serves as an alternative to Elon Musk's X, which was previously known as Twitter. The app has a similar color scheme and logo to X, but it offers a different experience for its users. Currently, Bluesky is experiencing rapid growth, with approximately one million new users signing up each day. As of now, it has around 16. 7 million users, but this number is likely to change quickly as more people join. So, what exactly is Bluesky? The platform describes itself as 'social media as it should be. ' It has a user-friendly interface that includes features like search, notifications, and a homepage, making it easy for users to navigate. Users can post updates, comment on others' posts, repost content, and like their favorite posts, similar to what you would find on other social media platforms. However, the key difference is that Bluesky is decentralized. This means that users have the option to host their data on servers that are not owned by the company itself. While most users will have a username ending in '. bsky. social', they can also choose to sign up using their own accounts if they prefer. The creator of Bluesky is Jack Dorsey, who was the former head of Twitter. He envisioned Bluesky as a decentralized version of Twitter, where no single person or organization has complete control. However, Dorsey is no longer involved with the platform, having stepped down from the board in May 2024 and deleted his account in September. Now, Bluesky is primarily run by CEO Jay Graber, and it operates as a public benefit corporation in the United States. Bluesky has been around since 2019, but it was only available to a limited number of users until February of this year. This allowed the developers to work out any issues before opening it up to the public. The surge in new users has been so significant that there have been some technical difficulties, including outages. Interestingly, the increase in users coincided with Donald Trump's success in the recent US elections. Many people are leaving X in protest of its political affiliations, especially since Elon Musk is a known supporter of Trump. Additionally, some media outlets, like the Guardian, have decided to stop posting on X, calling it a problematic platform. The popularity of Bluesky has also attracted several celebrities, including Lizzo and Ben Stiller, who have announced their presence on the platform. This has further fueled the app's growth, as fans of these celebrities are likely to follow suit. However, despite its rapid growth, Bluesky still has a long way to go to compete with X, which has hundreds of millions of users. A pressing question for Bluesky is how it will generate revenue. The platform initially received funding from investors and venture capital firms, raising tens of millions of dollars. However, with the influx of new users, Bluesky will need to find a sustainable way to cover its expenses. Unlike Twitter, which relied heavily on advertising for revenue, Bluesky aims to avoid this model. Instead, the company is exploring paid services, such as allowing users to pay for custom domains in their usernames. This means that users could have more personalized usernames, which could also serve as a form of verification. For example, a username like '@twgerken. bsky. social' could potentially become '@twgerken. bbc. co. uk' in the future. If Bluesky continues to steer clear of advertising, it may need to consider other options, such as subscription features, to maintain its operations. However, it is not uncommon for tech startups to struggle financially in their early stages. For instance, Twitter only turned a profit twice during its eight years as a publicly traded company before Elon Musk acquired it for $44 billion in 2022. The future of Bluesky remains uncertain, but if its growth trajectory continues, it could become a significant player in the social media landscape.