Despite heightened competition in the world of microblogging, Bluesky, a service led by former Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, has successfully reached a noteworthy milestone of 1 million users.
The relatively new platform seems to be providing unique appeal factors, attracting users in an area where Threads, its major competitor, has been struggling.
In an announcement on X (formerly Twitter), Company representative Rose Wang confirmed Bluesky’s user count to be 1,000,055 and growing. She attributed this considerable achievement to the unique culture that has developed within the platform, considered to be a strong contrasting aspect to Threads.
1M users!!! 🦋 pic.twitter.com/VxivCC25P8
— @rose.bsky.team 🌹🦋 (@iamrosewang) September 12, 2023
Developed and launched in February 2023, Bluesky’s venture wasn’t entirely smooth sailing.
Initially, it was designed to interact with Twitter through a common ActivityPub protocol, but this plan hit a roadblock when Elon Musk purchased Twitter earlier in late 2022.
Read also: Threads vs. X (Formerly Twitter): Which is better for privacy?
Even with its invite-only entry, Bluesky has managed this considerable user growth. It issues invitation codes to new users, maintaining a sense of exclusivity that seems not to deter, but rather nurture, its allure.
Interestingly, while the app has seen over one million downloads since July, not all those who downloaded the app became users due to the invitation requirement, providing an intriguing juxtaposition to the subscription model of Threads.
Threads, owned by Meta, adopted a completely different user registration model. The platform was made accessible to all Instagram users, leading to more than a hundred million users in less than a week.
However, this meteoric rise wasn’t sustained as the initial enthusiasm waned and interest dwindled. Analysts, TechCrunch included, attributed this to the lack of a distinctive and appealing culture, a factor where Bluesky triumphs.
Bluesky’s distinctiveness is also observed in its content management, liberally featuring “surreal memes” and a generally quirky atmosphere.
Threads, on the other hand, upholds stringent rules, extending Instagram’s strict guidelines on content such as nudity, indicating a stark difference in each platform’s way of dealing with different types of content.
