So, you’ve made it! The remnants of science twitter have at last begun to coalesce around a new microblogging platformed owned by questionable individuals with inadequate content moderation that groans under the weight of a massive surge in new users. Welcome to Bluesky.
Honestly, it’s pretty great, in the way that Twitter circa 2012 was pretty great. While there’s a lot going on underneath, the whole site resembles early Twitter. It’s easy to get back into the groove.
Bluesky has one killer feature that I believe makes the entire value proposition of moving to a new network worth the effort: Custom Feeds.
On every other major social network, you are beholden to The Algorithm, a pile of math that determines who and what you see in your social media feed and dependent on the priorities of the site owner. Bluesky doesn’t have a The Algorithm, at least not yet. Post still roll in chronologically from the people you follow. At some point that will likely change as Bluesky figures out how to make money off of this endeavor, but for now, the timeline is an honest-to-cod timeline.
Instead of a singular The Algorithm, Bluesky has custom feeds, keyed to specific topics or interests. Here’s the neat part: Bluesky doesn’t make the feeds. We do. You can make your own The Algorithm on Bluesky, based on the type of content you want to see. And it’s really not all that hard to do.