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Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YouTube Listen and follow ‘Hard Fork’Bluesky, the Twitter spinoff, is now open for public sign-ups. Can its dreams of decentralization fix social media? We talk with the company’s chief executive, Jay Graber. Then, the New York Times reporter Erin Griffith on how Adobe’s failure to acquire Figma has spooked tech companies and upset Silicon Valley’s start-up pipeline. And finally, updates on ancient scrolls and artificial intelligence, Google’s chatbots, and the fight between record companies and TikTok.

Persons: Jay Graber, Erin Griffith, Figma, Google’s chatbots Organizations: Apple, Spotify, YouTube, New York Times

☆ Bluesky is finally open to everyone. But will anyone come? We ask its CEO.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-06 | by ( Katie Notopoulos | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Starting Tuesday, Bluesky is finally out of "beta" and will be open to anyone — no codes needed. Like Mastodon and Threads, Bluesky is an experiment in a new, "decentralized" way of running a social app, where users can create their own communities and moderation rules. AdvertisementJack Dorsey was involved in creating Bluesky while he was still at Twitter and now sits on its board. Business Insider spoke with Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky, about the app — which she said now has 3 million users. If you've never modified anything else, that's like a normal social app experience.

Persons: —, Bluesky, Joe Biden couldn't, Jack Dorsey, Meta, Jay Graber, We've, we've, you've Organizations: Service, Twitter, Meta, Business

☆ Bluesky says it temporarily paused new sign-ups after fresh Twitter chaos led to a surge in interest. Here's how the platform works.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-03 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

It comes amid fresh chaos at Twitter, which placed a limit on the number of tweets users can view. Bluesky, a Jack Dorsey-backed Twitter rival, had to temporarily pause new sign-ups over the weekend after it reported a surge of interest. "We will temporarily be pausing Bluesky sign-ups while our team continues to resolve the existing performance issues," Bluesky wrote in a post on the platform. On Friday, Twitter started requiring people to sign in to view tweets on the platform, a move that irritated some users. However, unlike Mastodon, users don't have to choose a server when they sign up – something that appeared to be an issue for Mastodon users who found the process too complicated.

Persons: Bluesky, Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, Twitter, Jay Graber, Sam Tabahriti, Dril, Alexandria Ocasio, Musk's, Grimes, There's, Graber, Dorsey Organizations: Twitter, Morning, Mastodon Locations: Alexandria, Cortez

☆ Bluesky experiences 'record-high traffic' after Elon Musk imposes rate limits on Twitter
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-03 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Twitter competitor Bluesky said it experienced "record-high traffic" Saturday after Elon Musk, Twitter's executive chairman and CTO, said the site will temporarily limit the number of posts users can read per day. Musk wrote in a tweet that due to "extreme levels of data scraping" and "system manipulation," verified accounts, unverified accounts and new unverified accounts will be subject to limits on the social media site. Musk changed the limits several times on Saturday, at one point announcing that verified accounts could view 10,000 posts a day, while unverified accounts could view 1,000 and new unverified accounts could view 500. As a result, people have been turning to Bluesky, an emerging text-based social media site backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. The decentralized messaging app Mastodon attracted significant interest in November, and social media giant Meta previously confirmed to CNBC that it was "exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates."

Persons: Bluesky, Elon Musk, Musk, Jack Dorsey, Twitter, Dorsey, Jay Graber, —, Jonathan Vanian Organizations: Twitter, CNBC, Google, Meta

The number of Twitter mobile app downloads actually declined 18% in February to 14.05 million from 17.2 million in January. Meanwhile, Twitter had 14.9 million app downloads in April, which is a 2% increase from the 14.6 million downloads it accumulated in March. Musk's Twitter makeover has sparked new interest in decentralized social networks. Elon Musk's Twitter is facing new competition from a rival called Bluesky, a so-called decentralized communications app that is backed by Twitter co-founder and twice-former CEO, Jack Dorsey. The front-end apps built atop these decentralized platforms are often clunky, not professional-looking or easy to use.

☆ What to know about Bluesky, the Twitter alternative that some celebrities and journalists are joining
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Kalhan Rosenblatt | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

While Bluesky's beta was made public in February, buzz surrounding the platform grew in April as more Twitter users began posting about flocking there. Although the Bluesky app has many similarities to Twitter, its key difference is that it is organized around a decentralized system. One person even claimed to sell Bluesky invite codes for more than $190 on eBay. The Bluesky app racked up 375,000 downloads on iOS worldwide as of Wednesday, according to analytics firm Data.ai. Jordan Uhl, a progressive activist with more than 271,000 followers on Twitter, joined Bluesky on April 14.

☆ Jack Dorsey encouraged the student who tracks Elon Musk's jet to keep posting on Bluesky after his Twitter ban
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Jack Dorsey encouraged the college student who tracks Elon Musk's private jet to keep on posting. Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey has doubled down on his explicit and implicit criticism of Elon Musk, encouraging the college student who tracks Elon Musk's private jet to keep posting on rival apps Bluesky and Nostr. Dorsey, who has given money to both platforms and sits on Bluesky's board, got into a brief exchange on Bluesky with college student Jack Sweeney Saturday about the jet-tracking account. the college student asked Dorsey. Sweeney created the original @ElonJet account in 2020, using public flight data to monitor the whereabouts the of billionaire's private jet.

☆ Elon Musk has chopped Twitter down to about 1,000 employees
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

In six months of ownership, Elon Musk has whittled Twitter's employee count down by close to 90%. Current headcount for full-time employees at Twitter is around 1,000 people, according to two people familiar with the company who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. Getting closer to 1,000 workers means Twitter's headcount is down by almost 90% from just before Musk took over, when the company had roughly 7,500 employees. More frequently, employees at Musk's Twitter are fired or let go piecemeal with little to no explanation after sending in weekly reports of their work for review, the people familiar said. The former CEO has also admitted that he hired too many employees at Twitter when he ran it.

☆ Explainer: With Bluesky, Jack Dorsey has another go at Twitter-like service
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

May 1 (Reuters) - Jack Dorsey is taking another whack at a Twitter-like service with a new social media platform called Bluesky. The service is gaining traction among Twitter power users, attracting prominent personalities including U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It's a text-focused social media service launched for select users in February. Bluesky offers a similar experience to Twitter - people create profiles and post short messages with text and images. On the timeline, Bluesky has "What's hot" and "Following" feed, similar to the curated "For You" and the chronological "Following" feeds on Twitter.

☆ What is Bluesky? A new Jack Dorsey-backed Twitter rival has people fighting for invites
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Bluesky has been compared to Mastodon and is backed by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey. The Jack Dorsey-backed platform, Bluesky, is a Twitter clone with a very similar format to its established rival. Bluesky users set up a profile by choosing a picture, bio, display name, and domain name. However, unlike Mastodon, users don't have to choose a server when they sign up – something that appeared to be an issue for Mastodon users who found the process too complicated. In April last year, Bluesky clarified the company's relationship to Twitter, saying: "The bluesky project originated with Twitter in 2019, but the Bluesky PBLLC established this year is an independent company focused on decentralized social network R&D."

☆ What Is Bluesky and Why Are People Clamoring to Join It?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Sheera Frenkel | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But unlike Twitter, Bluesky plans to be a decentralized system, meaning people may eventually be able to build their own apps and communities within it. Ms. Graber said it was designed that way so that no individual could create rules for the entire Bluesky community. Bluesky also operates using an “open protocol.” This is unusual because social media platforms have traditionally been walled gardens, meaning that what is posted on individual platforms remains only on that platform. But because Bluesky is trying to be more open, it could someday allow posts to flow between different social media platforms with ease. Last month, a Bluesky user speculated that the app’s name came from Mr. Dorsey’s desire to transform Twitter into an open protocol, freeing Twitter’s bird mascot to a blue sky.

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