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I can attest that BlueSky is really nice right now. Feels less combative than Twitter. I started to use it 25 days ago and got 400 or so follows pretty quickl

I can attest that BlueSky is really nice right now. Feels less combative than Twitter. I started to use it 25 days ago and got 400 or so follows pretty quickly. I am here: https://bsky.app/profile/benhouston3d.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/benhouston3d.bsky.social I used this tool to find accounts that match on both platforms: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/sky-follower-bridge/behhbpbpmailcnfbjagknjngnfdojpko https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/sky-follower-bridge...

adzm 2y ago
Agreed, it's a really fun community. I hope it lasts
- owlninja 2y ago
  The only thing keeping me around as someone who never comments or tweets, is that there are some great local accounts (to me) like weather, police, news, concerts, etc... Any chance these move over? I'm not looking for some great community, I just enjoy timely posts I guess.
  - cen4 2y ago
    Its weird how all these useful local info accounts end up being dependent on platforms that promote noise makers and attention cravers.
    - duxup 2y ago
      It’s not like local weather guy is likely to get anyone on just his website or such these days.
      - cen4 2y ago
        So the current dynamic is - platforms use noise makers to draw in crowds, then signal producers like the weather guy go where the crowds are. Does Bluesky change this dynamic?
        duxup 2y ago
        I do not know. But I know the dynamic of local weather guy with his own site is likely not a winning play.
        tmottabr 2y ago
        if only there was some kind of tool that allow producers to cross post to multiple social medias at once..
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Feels like there is a need for a message broker platform, where these local accounts can sign up and push messages out to whomever wants them via socials, SMS, RSS, whatevs. Buffer meets Svix for social/messaging PubSub or something similar vs Yet Another Platform.
      - antupis 2y ago
        Mastodon would be perfect for these but there is no critical mass at least yet.
        sitzkrieg 2y ago
        mastodon is a fediverse client
  - 112233 2y ago
    Please share once you find out! In $EUROPEAN_CAPITAL here it seems local govt. runs on twitter and facebook. Since I got banned from twitter for following those during covid (with no posts or likes made) I kinda wish there was a rss feed or mailing list for information posted by official institutions. bsky would do.
  - slyall 2y ago
    One way people here could help with that is to improve posting tools. I have a couple of informational bots. It's a lot easy for me when I can just download a cli tool and run that to post than if I have to signup to a platform as a developer and then write custom code to login via OAuth. Actually if I have to write code to talk to OAuth I probably won't bother. Currently using bsky to post to BlueSky and paying for IFTTT because I have to make time to sit down and get twurl working.
- krapp 2y ago
  Unfortunately, Bluesky being the "popular" alternative just means it's going to turn to shit faster. I have an account there because so many people seem to be moving from Twitter to Bluesky instead of Mastodon, for understandable reasons, but I expect Bluesky to be be awash in bots, AI and Nazis within a year. That's just the way things go now.
  - tmottabr 2y ago
    I dont think it will because the moderation tools available to people are better and actually work.. If i block someone they are gone from my timeline, their replies are gone from my posts even to other people.. If someone re-post me and i don't like the context i can go there and "disconnect" my post from their re-post.. Also Bluesky has public block lists anyone can create and sign-up for, those accounts would be noticed very fast and included in some block list if they start getting any traction.. So while it is not impossible for those accounts to exist, it is much harder for then to get traction.. And if they get traction it is much easier to hide then from our and our followers view..
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    One consequence of naughty ol’ Mr Car’s ascension to the Bird Throne was that mass-blocking lists, which were always a bit of a hack but somewhat worked, became unusable. Bluesky has blocklists as a first-class function; it will be awash with Nazis, but you won’t have to look at them unless you want to. AI slop may be trickier, but that’s really a challenge the whole web is facing at the moment.
- mardifoufs 2y ago
  It's also one of the least diverse communities I've seen. Almost everyone is white and western, twitter is extremely diverse in comparison.
KPGv2 2y ago
Following you, and hope to finally spend more time on the butterfly app instead of the bird app since it seems enough people are moving over there. I managed to primarily use Mastadon for a few months at one point but got sucked back into TWT.
- sohkamyung 2y ago
  Whenever people mention 'bird app', I think it's is ebird. Now, 'butterfly app' makes me think of iNaturalist. :-) http://ebird.org/ http://ebird.org/ https://www.inaturalist.org/ https://www.inaturalist.org/
elfbargpt 2y ago
https://x.com/AmericanGwyn/status/1856128159130812866 https://x.com/AmericanGwyn/status/1856128159130812866
caeril 2y ago
> Feels less combative than Twitter. Echo chambers are, by default, less combative. As Twitter becomes more hiveminded, you can expect it to become less combative, as well.
- mingus88 2y ago
  What evidence do you have that bluesky is already an echo chamber? Serious question as I haven’t used it yet. Could it also be that people who left Twitter are simply less politically minded, and by definition will be less combative if they get to focus on their interests instead of their differences? I left Twitter in 2017 because I was only there to get one liner jokes from professional comedians and follow some record label releases. I’m not joining any platform where memes and other low quality opinions are the primary modes of communication
- kccoder 2y ago
  It seems the combativeness of Twitter has increased with it becoming more hivemindy, not the other way around. The people leaving twitter are generally less combative than those staying / joining, so I imagine it will devolve further into a pit of rabid fighting dogs. Similarly, I expect Trump and Elon will have a falling out rather quickly. Two megalomaniacal narcissists don't generally play nicely for very long. When that happens, Elon won't be able to help himself from whacking the bees nest he's created, by criticizing Trump. I expect the combativeness of twitter to skyrocket soon afterwards.
theasisa 2y ago
I used Twitter mainly to follow fellow devs, industry leaders and InfoSec people. But after Elon made changes my timeline started to fill with politics and culture wars and it ended up missing me less informed and more angry. Maybe that is the future for BlueSky as well, but at the moment I am enjoying it and more people I followed on Twitter are making the move.
- stiltzkin 2y ago
  [dead]
JeremyNT 2y ago
I like it a lot too, and my feed is pretty good. Unfortunately adoption is really slow and few of the really famous people I'd like to follow seem to care about it. The network effects of Twitter/X are just incredibly powerful. Even many people who ostensibly dislike the fact that it has become a right wing propaganda tool seem reluctant to actually leave.
- johneth 2y ago
  The network effects are powerful, but anecdotally I've noticed fewer and fewer people I follow actually posting anything to Twitter. I think there'll be a tipping point where nobody of value is posting enough for anybody else to bother checking in, death spiralling its usefulness. It's already 80% bots, grifters, and engagement farmers.
6bb32646d83d 2y ago
I just scrolled 5mn on the landing page of bluesky, unlogged, and it looks like r/politics (mostly anti-Trump, anti-Musk posts). Hardly appealing for someone like me who goes on twitter less because there's too much politics
- verdverm 2y ago
  You have to curate your discover feed, like joining any new platform with a recommendation engine. The nice thing is there are many custom feeds for various topics beyond the singular main feeds (discover, following, friends) and you can write your own and use it from their app.

adzm 2y ago

Agreed, it's a really fun community. I hope it lasts

owlninja 2y ago
The only thing keeping me around as someone who never comments or tweets, is that there are some great local accounts (to me) like weather, police, news, concerts, etc... Any chance these move over? I'm not looking for some great community, I just enjoy timely posts I guess.
- cen4 2y ago
  Its weird how all these useful local info accounts end up being dependent on platforms that promote noise makers and attention cravers.
  - duxup 2y ago
    It’s not like local weather guy is likely to get anyone on just his website or such these days.
    - cen4 2y ago
      So the current dynamic is - platforms use noise makers to draw in crowds, then signal producers like the weather guy go where the crowds are. Does Bluesky change this dynamic?
      - duxup 2y ago
        I do not know. But I know the dynamic of local weather guy with his own site is likely not a winning play.
      - tmottabr 2y ago
        if only there was some kind of tool that allow producers to cross post to multiple social medias at once..
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Feels like there is a need for a message broker platform, where these local accounts can sign up and push messages out to whomever wants them via socials, SMS, RSS, whatevs. Buffer meets Svix for social/messaging PubSub or something similar vs Yet Another Platform.
    - antupis 2y ago
      Mastodon would be perfect for these but there is no critical mass at least yet.
      - sitzkrieg 2y ago
        mastodon is a fediverse client
- 112233 2y ago
  Please share once you find out! In $EUROPEAN_CAPITAL here it seems local govt. runs on twitter and facebook. Since I got banned from twitter for following those during covid (with no posts or likes made) I kinda wish there was a rss feed or mailing list for information posted by official institutions. bsky would do.
- slyall 2y ago
  One way people here could help with that is to improve posting tools. I have a couple of informational bots. It's a lot easy for me when I can just download a cli tool and run that to post than if I have to signup to a platform as a developer and then write custom code to login via OAuth. Actually if I have to write code to talk to OAuth I probably won't bother. Currently using bsky to post to BlueSky and paying for IFTTT because I have to make time to sit down and get twurl working.
krapp 2y ago
Unfortunately, Bluesky being the "popular" alternative just means it's going to turn to shit faster. I have an account there because so many people seem to be moving from Twitter to Bluesky instead of Mastodon, for understandable reasons, but I expect Bluesky to be be awash in bots, AI and Nazis within a year. That's just the way things go now.
- tmottabr 2y ago
  I dont think it will because the moderation tools available to people are better and actually work.. If i block someone they are gone from my timeline, their replies are gone from my posts even to other people.. If someone re-post me and i don't like the context i can go there and "disconnect" my post from their re-post.. Also Bluesky has public block lists anyone can create and sign-up for, those accounts would be noticed very fast and included in some block list if they start getting any traction.. So while it is not impossible for those accounts to exist, it is much harder for then to get traction.. And if they get traction it is much easier to hide then from our and our followers view..
- rsynnott 2y ago
  One consequence of naughty ol’ Mr Car’s ascension to the Bird Throne was that mass-blocking lists, which were always a bit of a hack but somewhat worked, became unusable. Bluesky has blocklists as a first-class function; it will be awash with Nazis, but you won’t have to look at them unless you want to. AI slop may be trickier, but that’s really a challenge the whole web is facing at the moment.
mardifoufs 2y ago
It's also one of the least diverse communities I've seen. Almost everyone is white and western, twitter is extremely diverse in comparison.

KPGv2 2y ago

Following you, and hope to finally spend more time on the butterfly app instead of the bird app since it seems enough people are moving over there. I managed to primarily use Mastadon for a few months at one point but got sucked back into TWT.

sohkamyung 2y ago
Whenever people mention 'bird app', I think it's is ebird. Now, 'butterfly app' makes me think of iNaturalist. :-) http://ebird.org/ http://ebird.org/ https://www.inaturalist.org/ https://www.inaturalist.org/

elfbargpt 2y ago

https://x.com/AmericanGwyn/status/1856128159130812866 https://x.com/AmericanGwyn/status/1856128159130812866

caeril 2y ago

> Feels less combative than Twitter. Echo chambers are, by default, less combative. As Twitter becomes more hiveminded, you can expect it to become less combative, as well.

mingus88 2y ago
What evidence do you have that bluesky is already an echo chamber? Serious question as I haven’t used it yet. Could it also be that people who left Twitter are simply less politically minded, and by definition will be less combative if they get to focus on their interests instead of their differences? I left Twitter in 2017 because I was only there to get one liner jokes from professional comedians and follow some record label releases. I’m not joining any platform where memes and other low quality opinions are the primary modes of communication
kccoder 2y ago
It seems the combativeness of Twitter has increased with it becoming more hivemindy, not the other way around. The people leaving twitter are generally less combative than those staying / joining, so I imagine it will devolve further into a pit of rabid fighting dogs. Similarly, I expect Trump and Elon will have a falling out rather quickly. Two megalomaniacal narcissists don't generally play nicely for very long. When that happens, Elon won't be able to help himself from whacking the bees nest he's created, by criticizing Trump. I expect the combativeness of twitter to skyrocket soon afterwards.

theasisa 2y ago

I used Twitter mainly to follow fellow devs, industry leaders and InfoSec people. But after Elon made changes my timeline started to fill with politics and culture wars and it ended up missing me less informed and more angry. Maybe that is the future for BlueSky as well, but at the moment I am enjoying it and more people I followed on Twitter are making the move.

stiltzkin 2y ago
[dead]

JeremyNT 2y ago

I like it a lot too, and my feed is pretty good. Unfortunately adoption is really slow and few of the really famous people I'd like to follow seem to care about it. The network effects of Twitter/X are just incredibly powerful. Even many people who ostensibly dislike the fact that it has become a right wing propaganda tool seem reluctant to actually leave.

johneth 2y ago
The network effects are powerful, but anecdotally I've noticed fewer and fewer people I follow actually posting anything to Twitter. I think there'll be a tipping point where nobody of value is posting enough for anybody else to bother checking in, death spiralling its usefulness. It's already 80% bots, grifters, and engagement farmers.

6bb32646d83d 2y ago

I just scrolled 5mn on the landing page of bluesky, unlogged, and it looks like r/politics (mostly anti-Trump, anti-Musk posts). Hardly appealing for someone like me who goes on twitter less because there's too much politics

verdverm 2y ago
You have to curate your discover feed, like joining any new platform with a recommendation engine. The nice thing is there are many custom feeds for various topics beyond the singular main feeds (discover, following, friends) and you can write your own and use it from their app.