bluesky, one of many potential Twitter replacements on the market, is making a remarkable change in the way users find new content on its network. Previously, the Bluesky app featured popular posts in a feed called "What's Hot," where users aspired to find a piece of content as it would attract more attention and potentially gain more followers. Now, that feed is being replaced with a personalized, algorithmic “Discover” feed that features more than just trends.
the company comments, the initial version of the new "Discover" feed that will combine trending content with posts from accounts you follow and posts from accounts "near your social graph."
This type of recommender system is not new. In fact, it is similar to the algorithmic feeds used by other social networks, such as Twitter (now X), the For You timeline, the TikTok For You page, the Instagram Explore page or the Facebook News Feed. now improved. The idea is that combining posts focused on your interests and those from your broader social graph will create a unique and engaging feed for each individual user.
Bluesky isn't the first Twitter rival to resort to personalization, either.
Yesterday, in fact, Mastodon's app, Mammoth, proposed its own custom For You font to make its app more familiar to those fleeing Twitter for other microblogging social networks, like the open source Mastodon. And of course, Meta's entry into the space with Twitter clone Threads also started with algorithmic streaming before more recently adding the user-demanded reverse chronological timeline.
The reason to turn to this type of feed is simple: it's more attractive, research shows. In a study published this week, with the cooperation of Meta, they found that users who were only served a reverse chronological feed spent “significantly less time on Facebook and Instagram.” Algorithmic feeds simply outperform when it comes to time spent and engagement, which is why they are widely adopted on today's social platforms as the default, despite user demands for a “ follow up» most basic.
However, the difference with Bluesky's implementation is that it doesn't force its algorithmic feed on its users. It is simply an option that users can employ if they wish.
“What's new is our approach to algorithmic choice, allowing you to unpin feeds you don't like and discover and install new feeds that better suit your interests,” Bluesky said. on your blog. "If you don't like our new Discover feed, you can simply delete it and replace it with any other custom feed."
Bluesky was first launched personalized feeds in may, which allow users to subscribe to feeds with different algorithms or themes. For the end user, feeds work in much the same way as Twitter lists, as they can be pinned to the "My Feeds" menu in the app's sidebar for easy access. Among the feeds available at Bluesky's launch were its "What's Hot" feed with trending content and the "What's Hot Classic" feed in which any post that featured 12 likes was featured (a feed that really only made sense when the network was small).
Since then, users have created many other custom feeds, such as those that focus on types of content such as science, dog photos, gardening, art, and more, or those that help you view your social graph in a different way, Like reciprocal feeds, a feed of just photos posted by people you follow, or a feed that's customized to your tastes, for example.
Despite Bluesky's innovation in terms of algorithmic choice and its underlying decentralized network protocol, there are concerns about the future of this particular clone of Twitter. The company has repeatedly faced criticism for its mishandling of moderation challenges, recently allowing usernames with racial slurs to leak.
It's also still running in invite-only mode, even though it now faces a bigger threat than Twitter itself, given Meta's entry into the market, where its Threads app reached 100 million users faster than any app to date. the date. Meanwhile, Bluesky hit its first million installs this month, but only It has approximately 400K users since it remains closed to the public. At this point, the company may be wasting an urgent opportunity to appeal to the limited audience of dropouts. Twitter for them to try your application. Negative headlines about its lack of trust and security capabilities don't help its reputation either.
In other words, Bluesky can build a smart system with custom fonts and algorithmic options, but its impact may be limited if the app remains closed, its network doesn't welcome marginalized users, and its competition is so strong that users settle. somewhere else.
