Jack Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter, is making strides with Bluesky, a decentralized alternative to the platform. The project has now entered the private beta testing phase for its mobile application.
Bluesky has been released on the Apple App Store as an invite-only app, allowing a select group of people to test the new social experience by creating an account using an invite code.
According to a report from TechCrunch, the Bluesky iOS app was launched on February 17 and has received approximately 2,000 installations as of February 28. The app is not yet available for Android testers on Google Play.
Bluesky’s app store preview shows that the decentralized Twitter alternative bears a striking resemblance to Twitter, with its interface featuring many Twitter-like elements such as handles, followers, posts, and replies. Similarly to Twitter, the Bluesky app’s feed also includes likes, comments, and reposts.
TechCrunch reports that the Bluesky app enables users to create posts of up to 265 characters, which is slightly fewer than Twitter’s limit of 280 characters. Instead of Twitter’s “What’s happening?”, Bluesky’s prompt asks “What’s up?”. Users of Bluesky can share, mute, and block accounts, but more advanced features like adding accounts to lists are not yet available.
Despite its striking resemblance to Twitter, Bluesky is set to feature some technical aspects that will make it very different from Elon Musk’s social media giant. The platform aims to offer a decentralized social network protocol, which is expected to keep user data free from influence by any government or corporation.
Bluesky is based on the AT protocol, a new federated social network that incorporates ideas from the latest decentralized technologies. Originally known as the Authenticated Transfer Protocol (ADX), the AT protocol is Bluesky’s primary initiative to enable a new method of communication between servers, allowing individuals and businesses to self-host and have multiple websites instead of just one.
Last year, Bluesky secured $13 million in funding and appointed Jack Dorsey to its board. In a tweet, Bluesky stated that the funding would enable them to commence research and development with freedom and independence. They also mentioned that a former Twitter security engineer had joined their team.