Can Bluesky Rise Above Its Progressive Plateau & Beyond Threads Shadow‽
After news of Donald Trump's impending victory was confirmed, people began abandoning X for more favorable pastures. Many of those folks ended up joining the Atmosphere on Bluesky in November.
Bluesky, an alternative social media platform to X — formerly known as Twitter — has experienced a large surge in users as Democrats, including a number of prominent figures on the left, announced their departure from the social media network owned by Elon Musk in the wake of the presidential election.
Nearly 1 million users have signed up for Bluesky each day over the past week as the social networking website thrives in the wake of a liberal exodus from X.
Many users either quitting X or deactivating their accounts cited a “toxic” or “disturbing” environment, in part blaming Musk's leadership and promotion of certain political stances. (The Hill)
Although their growth was initially explosive after the election, Bluesky's rise has slowed down as of late, as the site has plateaued according to the latest stats (props to colesantiago on Hacker News for locating this link).
According to MUNIN stats, Bluesky is averaging around 14 million monthly active users, with about three million of those being active daily users.
Compare & contrast that with Threads, whose monthly & daily stats are 21 & 33 times larger, respectively.
Threads strong momentum continues — now 300M+ monthly actives and 100M+ daily actives 💪 (via @zuck@threads.net on Threads
Threads now has 300M monthly actives and 100M daily actives. A big thank you to this rapidly growing community — we're making something special together, and we'll focus on making it even better next year. (via @mosseri@threads.net on Threads)
A little over a month ago, Bluesky rocketed to first place in the App Store (in the United States 🇺🇸) according to AppFigures.
A month later, Bluesky has surprisingly fallen out of the top 100 app downloads for iPhone (Bluesky is listed as 148 according to AppFigures), & is not even listed in the top 200 apps for Android devices.
Meanwhile, Threads (in the United States 🇺🇸) has maintained its place within the top ten in the App Store (currently in fourth place as of this post) and Android (in 10th place on Google Play), respectively.
Note: X surprisingly has maintained its presence within the top 100 apps (they previously were not even listed), having secured the 46th spot on the App Store & the 66th spot in Google's Play Store for Android, respectively.
What Can Bluesky Do To Challenge Threads & X‽
Bluesky lacks the financial resources to compete against Threads or X, as both behemoths are backed by billions of dollars.
However, Bluesky seems to be carving a niche within progressive circles, & the site should actively court politicians, athletes, influential artists & businesses dissatisfied with X & Meta.
Since Bluesky lacks Threads ties to Trump or X's enthusiastic support for the once & future President, the blue butterfly 🦋 should flex its wings on Inauguration Day (January 20th, 2025) to those who desire an alternative social network to call home.
Last but not least, Bluesky needs to figure out a way to quickly embrace true decentralization, as the reports of them being decentralized are not accurate.
Note: Bluesky would be wise to convince more prominent players like @wordpressdotcom@threads.net, @ghost@threads.net & @flipboard@flipboard.social to integrate Atmosphere within their respective platforms before @threads@threads.net & @flipboard@threads.net fully embrace ActivityPub for their massive user bases.
Once the latter two fully embrace the Fediverse (ActivityPub style), hundreds of millions of users will ignore the Atmosphere altogether, reducing Bluesky to a singular decentralized node.
👨🏾💻 by @darnell@darnellclayton.com 🔛 @darnell@darnell.day 📧 darnell@darnell.day
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