My First Flight on Bluesky Social
A thrilling and promising hands-on experience.
Following Elon Musk’s takeover, many users started their exodus to new Twitter (aka X) alternatives.
Me too.
Wary of putting all my social media in one app basket, Mastodon was my first alternative Twitter of choice.
Registering on Mastodon was the first hurdle. I was soon granted a space on my first and then a second Mastodon server (instance). Until recently, I’ve been on Mastodon’s original instance (mastodon.social). From there, I moved my profile and connections to Medium’s own instance, me.dm.
With that move, my address changed from https://mastodon.social/@akingson@mastodon.social to https://me.dm/@akin.me.dm.
That is a whopping removal of 24 characters from my old profile name. Yet, my old profile URL is still active. Any new connection to it is redirected to my me.dm (Medium) instance. Don’t you just like it?
Onboarding Bluesky Social
Next, I installed Bluesky Social app.
Installing the app is like buying a flight ticket. Depending on your location, getting an invite code can take several weeks or months. Some early birds to join Bluesky do offer invite codes for free or for a few few-bucks on Bluesky related Reddit communities.
After over four months of waiting, I only got on board two weeks ago. And so far the experience has been worth the wait.
Your invite code takes the form bsky-social-*****- *****. You use this to register your username and first-time password.
Setting up the app was as smooth as a breeze. Bluesky uses
your first time password to generate a login password for you. Keep this new password secured. If you forget it, you will be required to generate another password.
Both my first-time and Bluesky-generated passwords are stored and secured. So, I don’t have to go through those pains of password recovery anytime soon.
User Profile
My address on Bluesky Social is https://bsky.app/@akinlade.bsky.social. On the app, only the name akinlade.bsky.social shows up. Just click on the link to follow.
If you are logging on from the web, you type https://bsky.app on your browser. Next, you enter with your login details.
From the image below, the mobile profile page and user interface are similar on both Bluesky Social and Mastodon apps.
Similar to Twitter at its first coming, Bluesky is more intuitive than Mastodon and easier to connect with other users.
This is unsurprising as most of the users have their profile names and URLs ending with .bsky.social.
In terms of decentralization, the app is not yet on par with Mastodon. Also, more users have yet to create more decentralized servers as Mastodon has. This is understandable since Bluesky Social is still in its beta stage.
My first-time user experience was pleasant, and the interface makes you want to share and post more frequently.
The only snag is that most of your friends are more likely warm and forever cozy on Twitter or other platforms.
Many of those who signed up for Bluesky will pass through the waiting period. Meaning, you will have to invite friends to your Bluesky adventure or wait for them to join in, if ever.
Presently, Mastodon makes for easier discoverability because you can easily add tags to your posts. The expectation is that Bluesky will add tags and more features to their app in their future updates.
Note the following
Bluesky limits you to a maximum of 300 characters while Facebook Thread max out at 500.
Depending on your server, Mastodon’s character limit is 500 or more per post.
Twitter limits free users to 280 characters per post while paid users can post entries up to 10,000 characters long.
On all these platforms, you can share longer posts by breaking them into numbered sections that you add as new posts.
So far, the only thing I find boring in the app is the monotonous, over-saturated pasterly blue sky app background preload image and the featureless icon.
On my Androids, I changed the icon to the picture below.
I highly recommend an icon redesign and a new app preload image for the otherwise engaging and user friendly Bluesky Social app.
With the entrance of any new app, some users tend to have morbid expectations of the new app killing off one old app or another. Ultimately, the survivability of any app depends on how it meets users’ expectations or any “miss-outs” that they have been yearning for.
Each of these social media takes different approaches to interconnecting users. Therefore, you won’t be seeing any app killing off another app anytime soon. Moreover, the ocean of potential users is more than spacious enough to accommodate all present and future social media apps.
If you’re like me and not weary of an overabundance of social media apps Bluesky is a joy to use. You will find it peaceful and not as acrimonious or toxic as what some users make of Twitter (aka X).
The quickest path to getting onboard Bluesky is via an invite code from an already boarded user. Otherwise, new users must wait till they receive their own invite codes. Hopefully, this “slow but steady” approach will end and the app will be opened to prospective users once it exits its beta stage. And the sooner the better.
Two weeks after I joined Bluesky Social, I received an invite code that I promptly gave to a friend. Comment or send a direct message if you would like to receive codes from me as I get hold of them.
Thanks for reading.
Are you on Bluesky or Mastodon? Connect via my profile links and share your experiences.
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