In today’s digital age, there are plenty of social media platforms that a person can choose from, with more coming into the mix every year. So far, the dominant players have always included Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly known as Twitter). With the immense popularity of the “X” format, multiple companies have attempted to imitate and perfect the model within their own platforms. Threads, created by Facebook owner, Mark Zuckerberg, launched his platform in July 2023. And while it had a lot of buzz initially, after four months the platform saw a major decrease in usage among users. It begged the question that if the genius minds behind Facebook and instagram couldn’t create a sustainable “X” model for a new platform, could anyone? The answer is yes.
Enter Jack Dorsey. Who better to create a new platform modeled after the popular “X” social media platform than the former creator of Twitter. After Jack Dorsey left the board of directors of the social network in October 2022, he ventured out to start a new project. Bluesky was initially a project kicked off by Jack Dorsey in 2019 when he was still the CEO of Twitter. Twitter paid Bluesky services income to build an open social protocol for public conversation that it could someday become a client on. In late 2022, Twitter chose to sever the service agreement with Bluesky, and Bluesky agreed.
Bluesky is a social app that is designed to not be controlled by a single company. It's an app that's built by many people, and brings a collection of ideas together to make a cohesive, easy-to-use experience. This is achieved by Bluesky being built on the AT Protocol, an open source toolbox for building social apps that can all talk to one another. Bluesky is currently doing very well competing and climbing their way up the ranks of the social media marketplace.
Over the past month, Bluesky has seen a surge in usage, which seems to have been triggered by the results of the U.S. Election, and a swing against Elon Musk’s X, as well as the shortcomings of Meta’s Threads. Bluesky’s popularity is soaring due to it being much more like Twitter once was, with the capacity to default to your “Following” feed, while Bluesky also refrains from restricting political topics or limiting the reach of links. According to Similarweb, Bluesky usage has surged 500% in the U.S., while the daily active users have increased bh 350% in the U.K. Additionally, Bluesky has held the top spot on the App Store downloads chart for almost a week, beating out both X and Threads. Bluesky surpassed the 20 million users mark, almost tripling its user base since August.
While this surge has proven to be quite impressive for the company, it still falls short in comparison to the user base of both Threads (275 million) and X (500 million), It could establish a niche purpose, and it could become a bigger hive of conversation in certain sectors. In conclusion, it may be worth setting up a profile on the social media platform, and securing your preferred handle/s. The current surge in growth in this platform can’t and shouldn’t be ignored, and future proofing on this unique app could prove to be beneficial for potential future reference.
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Meet the Author
Erik Rudolph
Marketing Assistant Student Worker
Erik is a senior advertising student with a minor in communications, he also is a part of the MSJ 4+1 program at WVU. He is currently the marketing assistant student worker for the WVU Marketing Communications Graduate Programs. Erik loves the sport of boxing and works closely with a local boxing promotion in Morgantown, Real Fight Promotions, as a color commentator and a social media manager.
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Marketing Communications Today is a collection of resources for marketing communications professionals filled with industry research, marketing trends, and career information about integrated marketing and data-driven communications. Learn industry insights through the Marketing Communications Today blog, podcast, as well as Integrate Online.
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