Trying out Bluesky

Posted 6 days ago

In August 2024, I lamented over the demise of Twitter as I had known it. At the beginning of the year, I wrote about my experiences with Mastodon. I was hesitant to jump back on the social media bandwagon after my disappointment with Twitter. But I also missed the connections that Twitter had once provided.

About the same time that I considered Mastodon, I also had considered Bluesky. I had seen several people write about trying it out. But it seemed like a lot of the tech crowd that I was interested in following were on Mastodon. I decided to try Mastodon. And I made a conscious choice to not try out Bluesky. I didn’t want to spread out over multiple social networks that did the same thing.

Recently, I had seen a lot of talk about Bluesky. Bluesky had a big moment after the election in November as a lot of people decided to abandon Twitter and give Bluesky a try. I wanted to see what Bluesky was all about and see how it compared to Mastodon so I decided to sign up for Bluesky.

First impressions

When I had first explored Bluesky over a year ago, it was an invite-only platform. But I had easily scored an invite but never used it. When I decided to pull the trigger and join, Bluesky was no longer invite-only. It was very easy to join and get started.

The most striking thing about Bluesky interface is that it looks and feels like Twitter. It makes sense because the person who created Bluesky had originally created Twitter. The whole experience was very familiar to Twitter. Finding people to follow, posting, and other interactions were easy to figure out because of the familiarity.

Screenshot of the Bluesky social network interface, which looks a lot like Twitter's interface.

My other first impression was that I felt like the interface for Bluesky was more elegant than Mastodon. They are not hugely different and I am not sure if I can explain why I think Bluesky is more elegant. It might have more to do with familiarity. I also like the navigation menu being on the left side of the Bluesky interface. The Mastodon interface has more content so the Bluesky interface does not fell as cluttered. I prefer more breathing space in the interfaces I build and appreciate it in the the interfaces I use.

A screenshot of the Mastodon social network interface.

As I was writing this post, I realized that the post box design on Mastodon has changed from when I first started using it at the end of 2023.

Mastodon post box in 2023

I think that design is more elegant that the current implementation.

I think what I liked about the previous version is that the background color of the post box UI was a different color than the background of the interface so it drew more attention to itself. The older post box UI was a bit simpler and didn’t feel as crowded as the current implementation.

Wider circles

Not only does the UI draw me more to Bluesky but more importantly, Bluesky has a wider circle of people using the service. This is probably more of a recent development with more people migrating away from Twitter. When I first started using Twitter, I was most connected to people that I knew IRL. Most of them were on my team or worked in the same office as I did.

I worked with a large Christian ministry at the time. I was part of a creative team but I was the only one doing what I was doing–designing and building websites. I broadened my circle on Twitter by following people in the Web industry. And as I made more connections, I felt more connected to that community. Those feelings of belonging only increased as my circle included people I had met at local or regional conferences. And I built some relationships with people I followed as I began to interact with them through the platform.

As Twitter became more widely adopted, I was able to continue to widen my circles to follow my favorite sports team. I also started following several Christian authors and thinkers. No longer was I confined in one circle but my Twitter community was more of a reflection of my diverse interests along with a lot of people that I knew offline.

When I joined Mastodon, almost everyone that I followed was from the Web/tech community. There was not really anyone from the other circles that I had enjoyed on Twitter.

But Bluesky has been a very different experience. Though I am not able to follow my favorite sports teams, a lot of Christian authors and thinkers that I like are now using Bluesky. I also feel like the vibe on Bluesky is a bit more casual. One of the things I liked about Twitter in the past was the more personal posts that those I followed would make. It was not just about the Web industry or links to articles in that realm.

I could find out about a person’s pets. I would see posts from a developer in the UK about seeing the latest movie with his son. Those are the type of connections I had missed from Twitter. Not that those weren’t being posted on Mastodon. But it feels like I am seeing more of those types of posts as I have spent time on Bluesky the last three weeks. And I have felt more free to post that type of content as well.

Lower barrier of entry

I think one reason that Bluesky is “winning” in this moment over Mastodon is that there is a lower barrier of entry. Because the way Mastodon is built, you have to choose a server for your account to live on. It use to be a lot more difficult to follow others that were on other servers. One of the barriers for me joining Mastodon is that I wanted to be part of a front-end community and server but that server was full. Although you could switch servers in the future, there were a lot of drawbacks including your content not going with you to your new Mastodon handle. I finally decided to join a very generic server.

You don’t have to make any decisions about what server to join on Bluesky. You just join. It is much more straight forward. Like I said earlier, it is a very familiar experience coming from Twitter. I think that is probably the primary reason why Bluesky is seeing wider adoption from various circles.

Things I like about Mastodon that I wish Bluesky incorporated

Mastodon’s commitment to accessibility. When a user uploads an image to Mastodon, there is a very clear indication to the user if they have not supplied alt text for their image. This signals to me that Mastodon takes accessibility seriously and I think it is a great default for any app of this kind.

An uploaded image in a Mastodon post includes a warning that the image does not have alt text by displaying a warning triangle icon next to ALT text in the bottom left corner of the image preview.

Sidenote: After writing this, I played around a bit with settings in Bluesky and you can turn on a setting to require alt text before posting with an image. I am glad that you can do that but I like the default mindset of Mastodon.

You can edit your posts in Mastodon. This is a feature that I wanted in Twitter for years. I would constantly misspell words or leave words out of my Tweets. Or I would forget to include a link or something I wanted to say and forgot. My solution many times was to delete the tweet and post again. I like that I could edit my posts on Mastodon and wish I could do the same on Bluesky.

Bluesky does not have the ability to bookmark posts. The bookmark feature was something I appreciated in Twitter and was glad to find in Mastodon. My main form of interaction with social media apps is on my phone. I do not install Pocket on my phone. So I liked being able to bookmark posts on Twitter or Mastodon so that I could revisit those later and add them to Pocket or my bookmarking app. I liked having the option to bookmark instead of “like” because I was not sure if I liked the content yet because I had not read it. Before Twitter implemented bookmarks, I would unlike many posts after adding to Pocket or bookmarking app (I was using Evernote at the time). Like and bookmark are two different things and “liking” posts that I just wanted to reference always felt wrong to me. So I appreciate the bookmark feature and would love to see Bluesky integrate it.

I like the butterfly animation on the Bluesky mobile app

When you open the mobile app for Bluesky, you see the Bluesky white buttefly icon on a light blue background. The icon scales up in an animation and then transitions into your feed display. It is a quick animation but it brings delight. Just another design detail that makes me like the service just a little bit more.

My biggest concern

I like using Bluesky. I like that I can follow people in my diverse circles because they are part of the Bluesky community. But my concern and the fear of many people is that the same people that made Twitter into a toxic environment will also migrate over. And the fear is that Bluesky will follow the same path and demise as Twitter. From what I have read, it seems like Bluesky has better tools to block those toxic accounts and they take the problems more seriously than the other platform. The very reason why I am drawn more to Bluesky is also the same reason that I am holding my breathe a bit.

It is difficult to start investing in something that you know might go away or evolve into something you no longer want to be part of. Especially when that service does not currently have a way to save an archive of your activity.

I am still trying to figure out how involved I want to be in social media now and into the future. There is a lot of ways that it has affected our lives in negative ways.

For now, I am still dipping my toes in both Bluesky and Mastodon. I don’t particularly like being divided between two places and there is a lot of overlap of my feeds in both. Right now I am leaning in more to Bluesky. And still trying to come up with a good strategy to post in multiple places.

Thoughts from others

The following is a collection of articles and resources that I have come across. Some of the content informed my thoughts here.

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