New home, same sarcasm! Come join me at Bluesky.
THE LEAD: Social media users and microbloggers found their tipping point when it came to the way in which X (formerly Twitter) was turning into a hell-scape. In the wake of the election, millions of users have shut down their X accounts and moved to one of several other sites that offered relatively the same services as X, but without the trolling and content manipulation.
Bluesky, a fledgling social media platform, reported Thursday that 1 million users had signed up in a single day. Some frustrated X users appear to have flocked to the newer network in recent weeks.
Bluesky, which began as an internal project by then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in 2019, was invitation-only until it opened to the public in February. Since 2021, it has been an independent company with Jay Graber as its CEO.
It currently has about 18 million users. Graber posted Friday that the platform is growing by 10,000 users every 10 to 15 minutes.
While Bluesky remains small compared to established online spaces, it has emerged as an alternative for those looking for a different mood and less influenced by X owner Elon Musk, a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump.
BACKGROUND: Alternatives like Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon and others have existed on the fringes of microblogging sites for several years, but never managed to gain traction. Twitter/X had the benefit of being one of the earliest sites of this nature, which meant that most people interested in this form of social media had developed significant followings there.
Data on how many people use X on a daily basis varies, but current figures place the general usage between 300 million and 500 million users overall. Thus, while Bluesky seems to be booming at this point, 19 million users is still just a drop in the bucket compared to Elon’s Army. It’s not even a drop in the bucket compared to Threads, which stated it has about 275 million users.
It’s unclear as to how many users have left X since the election of Donald Trump, with whom X owner Elon Musk has aligned himself. While the argument that X has become too toxic and conspiratorial is an oft-stated reason for leaving, the massive exodus also tended to coincide with Musk’s update to the service agreement:
A new terms of service document, which took effect on Nov. 15, allows Musk to use tweets, photos and videos — even from private accounts — to train Grok, the platform’s AI bot.
“You agree that this license includes the right for us to (i) analyze text and other information you provide … for use with and training of our machine learning and artificial intelligence models, whether generative or another type,” the terms say under the section about users’ rights.
They also stipulate that users’ content may be modified or adapted for other media.
Users will not be paid for their content, which could end up in the hands of other companies, organizations or individuals.
The company will not monitor posts for truthfulness.
“You may be exposed to Content that might be offensive, harmful, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate, or in some cases, postings that have been mislabeled or are otherwise deceptive,” the terms say. “All Content is the sole responsibility of the person who originated such Content.”
Yeah… It’s kind of like this:
SHAMELESS PLUG TIME: I shut down my X account, so come follow me at Bluesky.
If you are moved/moving to Bluesky, post your addy down in the comments or send it to me via the Contact Page and I’ll build us a starter kit.
DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE:Social media has always been a shifting landscape in which almost anything can (and usually does) happen. Over the past 15-20 years, there have been very few platforms that have remained a standard bearer for this form of communication. Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter were kind of the Fab Four in that regard.
Loyalty has been a big part of why these remained constants, although the owners of these sites have been accused of anti-competitive practices that basically kill the competition before it can grow legs. In other cases, the competing efforts fell flat because they lacked the infrastructure, vision or audience to keep up with the Joneses.
I’ve been watching social media for years, in large part because I’ve been writing books that have chapters on it and I hate looking dated or stupid. When I first had to write the draft of the “Dynamics of Media Writing,” the folks at Sage had me write the social media chapter first as part of the “pitch” they wanted to send to potential adopters.
I protested, arguing that it would be old and dated by the time it went to press, but they said they needed it as an example of what made the book current and fresh, so I did it.
From the first draft of that chapter until the day we published, I ended up rewriting the chapter completely FOUR TIMES. That didn’t count the last-second adjustments to things like Twitter moving from 140 characters to 280 characters and the death of a random platform or two.
What makes this particular situation so depressing is that Elon Musk doesn’t give a damn about this situation, or at least he’s doing a great job of pretending he doesn’t.
When advertisers were jumping ship in late 2023, Musk told them in a very public interview to “go fuck yourself.” If that’s what he had to say to people who were paying him millions, I doubt he’s worried about me and my 630 followers on X.
That said, this is exactly how social media is supposed to operate, based on its underlying paradigm: Platforms that cater to the audience interests and needs tend to thrive, while those that decide to do it “their way” regardless of what the audience wants tend to dry up and blow away.
If ever there was an example of how NOT to keep an eye on audience centricity, X is probably it.
EXERCISE TIME: Take a look back at the graveyard of social media platforms that no longer exist and see how, when and why they tended to go belly up. In analyzing those examples, how do you see some of these newly popular sites doing in terms of thriving or dying? What other opportunities might exist in the wake of the X exodus?
