Is Bluesky turning into the Twitter-killer?

Hey everyone, thanks so much for joining us for Ask the Expert Nord Texas. I'm Kristen Diaz. I'm David Rankin, never since Elon Musk bought Twitter and rebranded it to X. There have been at least a dozen social media companies that have tried to knock it out. There's one that's been around for a little while that has started booming for real. It's called Blue Sky and it's seen its subscriber base increase by millions in just the last few weeks. So what's the secret on today's ask the expert we're joined by the high tech techs and Michael Garfield in the K or all these zoom room. Michael, thank you so much for the time.

It's always great to be here with you guys. So why blue sky and not threads are masted on or any of the others? Well, over the week, it really is when it comes to social apps. Listen, I mean, I was about a year and a half ago. I was on with you guys and we were talking about threads, which was, you know, from Mark Zuckerberg and Meta and Facebook. And, you know, I really need to watch what I say because I remember telling you in everybody on Carol D, I said, you know what, this could be the pillar. This could be the Twitter killer.

And it's done very well. It threads us 200 plus million people. It's still X as, if you will, X slash, where it's still kind of the king. And then there has been a mass exodus. And we're going to call it political reasons after Trump took office. And blue sky, which interestingly enough, started internally at Twitter back in 2019. And now it's kind of its own thing. It has seen a lot of subscribers because it's kind of less politicized. And we'll keep it that.

What does make it different? As far as the way that you use this platform? The way you use it is pretty much the same. Listen, we pretty much know how to post things, keep it quick, 120, 240 characters. What do we eat for lunch? Let's post some photos or what have you. The difference really between blue sky and X slash Twitter.

Blue Sky is an open source platform. It is not controlled by one company or let's go back to, you know, look at X, one person, which is Elon Musk. So it's decentralized. There's several many tons of servers all, you know, all over the country and all over the world.

uh... and that's why i think people are saying you know what i don't want to be controlled i don't want somebody you know taking you know or putting political ads or having bots scour everything in watching what i put this is kind of an open-source topic and that's i think why blue sky is is is pretty much the uh... again the flavor of the week

It's been building momentum ever since certain things have happened. You mentioned the election. There's also some new rules that Elon Musk put onto Twitter X such as removing blocks and things like that just caused more of an exodus for people. We really haven't seen anything like this as an alternative with all of this publicity going on with people basically saying, I've given up on X and I'm going to blue sky.

think the word is exodus now let's go back to the other threat if you will which was thread uh... you listen i got on thread you got on threads we didn't delete x we didn't exit exit we were just gonna try it and there's no harm in having two three four five six different social media platforms and so many people do

the word access is being used because blue sky in in twitter x very similar i mean the look the logo to blue logo now even though it's it's kind of black it looks like a bird the whole thing very simple to use very simple to create an account but it i think people now are choosing one of the other i don't want to be govern for lack of a better word

by one company one person over decks let me do this blue sky and that is why it is so different but you're right uh... with some of the things that he learned has done over the past you know few weeks or your year year and a half days on it you know you used to be able to block people well no more he did that so if you block people they're still going to be able to see you it's just it's it's i think it's a choice of freedom that i think people are dipping their toes in the water for blue sky

When we say the mass exodus, does that include organizations as well, including? Yeah, you're seeing a lot of brands of blends. U. S. There's a lot of brands in the country. They've stopped posting to acts. They've shuttered their accounts entirely. I target.

United health group, media companies like NPR and even the Guardian. I mean, there's a lot of prominent accounts with a lot of followers too that said, you know what, I think we are done with this X stuff. We're going to try another social media platform to reach the masses. And again, you look at well over a million, two, three, four million people in the past, what, two, three weeks since the election? They're really popping over to Blue Scott.

There's something about the familiarity. I mean, Blue Sky, as you mentioned, actually created by people at Twitter, as you said, as an alternative. And there's something to be said for that familiarity of what Twitter, in a lot of cases, used to be.

Dorsey is the very smart and creative gentleman who started twitter way back in the day and he was the one who led the project in the initiative to start blue sky internally about five years ago right now before everything kind of broke off and now blue sky it's on his own but i think jack dorsey and you go to the i'm gonna come pioneers we still can look and laugh mark zooker bird or whatever they figured out

the, you know, the, I guess, the secret, the secret sauce of engaging with people, making things simple, making it very simple to sign up, making it very easy to use, and then kind of stepping back to some extent, just letting the people utilize it, post photos of their kids, their grandkids, like companies post their own messages, sales promotions or whatever, instead of, you know, kind of what Elon Musk has done, really kind of being the overlord of X and Twitter.

There's something we said as well for a lot of people talking about how it feels more peaceful. That's one of the reasons I go back to threads. When it first came on, it snuck out there. There was no big buildup. It was July 4 or so about a year and a go. They launched it.

And everybody loved it. It was calm. There was no politicizing this. There was no hatred into some extent, because I still do oppose to some extent on threads. It does seem a little bit more peaceful or less politicized than the people going back and forth. And so far, because it's so new and because it's open, I think people are playing nice. Now, are people going to still play nice after a year or two? Because this world is really in an interesting place that we're at. But as of right now,

It's a much more calm place than what we're used to going back and forth on not only just DAX and Twitter, but just really just the internet itself. Are there any premium features on Blue Sky right now compared to X?

it's a right now there's no premium features another thing i mean uh... i i mean i continue to see ads on that's going you know hey upgrades is premium and you're going to be able to do this in this right now loose guys pretty much open create an account and start posting away start following people hopefully people will follow you and uh... and and and and i think before people just go ahead and in in my opinion people are like a michael should we just go ahead delete acts it kind of depends if you have

hundreds of thousands if it's not millions of followers on acts like a lot of brands and companies and influencers do it's tough just to say bye bye you just you know you can't transfer that from one company to the other you have to build that brand again from day one you really need to think about it if you utilize social media as a as a resource brand identity or or a money maker