What is Bluesky? Jack Dorsey’s Twitter rival, explained

Twitter’s former CEO might just have an alternative to the increasingly unpopular social media site.

Ever since Elon Musk took the helm, Twitter’s been on a sharp downturn. The Tesla CEO has made numerous unpopular decisions, including “Twitter Blue,” an initiative that allows anyone to obtain the coveted blue checkmark with nothing but a monthly charge. The site appears to be hemorrhaging even more money, in the months since Musk took over, and people are fleeing the platform for greener pastures.

As people begin perusing for Twitter alternatives, they’re only finding a few options at their disposal. Mastodon is a well-documented substitute, but it has yet to truly take off in the eyes of users. Then there’s Bluesky, an initiative started by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, which was intended as a spin-off of the mega-popular social media site. But could Bluesky serve as a Twitter alternative for disgruntled users, or is it something else entirely?

What is Bluesky?

A quick perusal of the search term “Bluesky” will yield plenty of information, but no actual access to a social media site. That’s because the social network portion of Bluesky has yet to officially launch, but interested users can navigate to what will eventually be the site, and add themselves to a waitlist for its eventual arrival.

Bluesky was always intended as a spin-off of Twitter, but it doesn’t quite follow in the site’s direct footsteps. On the Bluesky page, it frames itself as “building a social internet,” and seemingly aims to bring social media back to the simpler days of “Email. RSS feeds. XMPP chats.”

Rather than lean on the somewhat more complicated structure of sites like Twitter or Instagram, Bluesky instead outlines its goals of allowing “people to freely interact and create content, without a single intermediary.” The site aims to do this via its AI Protocol, which — if successful — will give “creators independence from platforms, developers the freedom to build, and users a choice in their experience.”

So, in many ways, Bluesky is more than one thing. It is the protocol, which aims to change the way we interact with social media, and it is also a new social media site — utilizing the protocol — which will soon enter its beta phase. The waitlist that pops up when you navigate to the “app” will eventually open up, and provide a new social media experience for people to enjoy. An early 2023 review for the fresh social media app describes it as “a functional, if still rather bare-bones, Twitter-like experience.”

So, in the simplest of terms, Bluesky is — or one day will be — an alternative to Twitter. It likely won’t look or feel precisely the same, but it will likely provide a similar experience. The waitlist to get in on early Bluesky access is still open, and the app’s page promises that “Bluesky will launch soon.”