Bluesky, the social networking app created by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, is now accepting users for beta testing and is set to launch soon. What is this application and how will Twitter compete after it was acquired by Elon Musk, and will it have an impact on other social networking applications?
On October 18, 2022, Jack Dorsey announced that his new decentralized social app (Bluesky) was looking for two beta testers, and just two days later the app got 30,000 orders queued up with people excited to try the app.
Blue Sky is being promoted as a decentralized social networking application to rival or alternative to Twitter, and it is believed that it will pose a major challenge to other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.
What is Bluesky app?
The Blue Sky application works with a decentralized distributed protocol called “ AT Protocol ” that allows users to control its algorithms and have complete control over their data.
This means that user’s data will be free from government influence and the control of companies that exploit it in their marketing activities, a move that could revolutionize the personal data economy.
The application will allow the transfer of user account data from one platform to another, whereby Bluesky users will be able to use their account to log into any social application that adopts the new protocol.
So one account will give them access to all their favorite social media platforms. Furthermore; The owners of these applications will not have control over the data of Bluesky users.
What are DApps?
Decentralized applications – commonly known as DApps for short – are open-source applications based on the blockchain or P2P network, which do not have central ownership and are intended to give all users equal control, so they are unlike the normal communication applications that it creates An individual or a company becomes their property and under their complete control.
Decentralized applications offer a lot of features such as the protection of users’ privacy, no censorship from a single authority, and flexibility for development. But of course, it has some drawbacks such as the inability to expand, challenges in developing the user interface, and difficulties in making modifications to the code.
For example, the Twitter application is a central application that works for a large number of users around the world at the same time, but in the background, it is an application that is owned by a single central entity only and that it manages according to its will.
Examples of decentralized applications now: BitTorrent, Tor, and Popcorn Time applications are multi-user applications on both ends, some users consume content and others produce and add to it, while some perform both functions simultaneously.
Will Bluesky be a Twitter competitor?
The Bluesky app is not a recent project, but Dorsey first talked about it in December 2019, as a non-profit initiative to develop an open, decentralized protocol for social media, and the “Bluesky” Twitter account was launched before that in November 2019.
“The new protocol will allow Twitter to access and contribute to a much larger set of public conversations, focus our efforts on building open recommendation algorithms that promote healthy conversation, and force us to be more creative than we have been in the past,” Dorsey said at the time.
in 2021; “Blockchain is a means by which decentralized social networks can implement open and permanent hosting, governance, as well as monetization,” Dorsey said.
in November 2021; Dorsey left his position as CEO of the platform that he co-founded in 2006, to announce in February 2022 the establishment of the independent “Bluesky PBLLC” company for the public benefit, and Dorsey’s name was included among the members of its board of directors.
Bluesky would be a competitor to any company trying to own the raw basics of social media or the data of the people who use it, Dorsey said, and that Twitter could also use the protocol infrastructure being designed.
“The goal is for Twitter to eventually be a client of this protocol,” he added. The new protocol will be developed in the spirit of transparency and decentralization.
When Dorsey launched the project, he said, “The work should be done transparently in the open, and that it is not owned by any private company, reinforcing the principles of an open and decentralized Internet.”
The Blue Sky development team tweeted: “The AT Protocol is a new federated social network, fusing ideas from the latest decentralized technology into a simple, fast and open network.”
Will this application affect the global data economy?
If users are able to access social media platforms without handing over their data to specific companies, it could have a huge impact on the world’s multi-trillion-dollar economy of personal data.
In 2017, the World Economic Forum (WEF) estimated the global data economy to be worth $ 3 trillion, and a July 2022 policy report from the University of Cambridge found that US-based data-driven companies alone are worth more than $5 trillion.
According to the World Economic Forum; About 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated per day, and 90% of all data was generated within the past two years.
Blue Sky’s move comes at a time of heightened conflict between the value of data and individual privacy, and while data has no inherent value, its use has wide applications from targeted advertising, manufacturing, agriculture, and innovations offered by the Internet of Things.
Many companies are now making data exchange the primary source or primary goal of their business.
Twitter under the leadership of Elon Musk:
Last Friday, Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter for $ 44 billion, and as soon as he entered the company’s headquarters, he dismissed: Parag Agrawal, CEO of the platform, Ned Segal, chief financial officer, and Vijaya Gadi, the legal official, and there is still Reports that he plans to lay off employees from all departments.
In addition, Musk announced that he will ease restrictions on the content that can be posted on Twitter, and all of this has raised a wave of concern about the future of the communication site, which plays a vital role in political and media life in the United States of America and around the world.
The beginning was with the German government, which announced that it would study whether to maintain its presence on the Twitter platform or not! After it was bought by the richest man in the world, it is especially important due to its influence on the German people.
But since Blue Sky was originally developed to be a part of Twitter, will Mask support Dorsey’s new DApp?
Dorsey’s decentralized project Blue Sky has surfaced in text messages between Dorsey and Musk amid his latest bid to buy Twitter, as documents released amid an ongoing lawsuit between Musk and Twitter over the past month reveal how Dorsey suggested Twitter “cannot have an advertising model.”
Musk hinted at a new revenue model for Twitter, and according to a New York Times report; Musk plans to reduce Twitter’s reliance on ads, with ads accounting for 45% of total revenue, down from about 90% in 2020.
Musk will bridge the advertising revenue gap through a subscription model, expansion of Twitter Payments, and data licensing. It is expected that in 2028, advertising will generate $12 billion in revenue and nearly $10 billion in subscriptions.
It is clear that Musk was quick to implement these plans, as new reports indicate that Musk asked employees to raise the price of the paid subscription service Twitter Blue from $ 5 to $ 20, and within it, the authentication service and verified accounts will have 90 days to sign up or they will lose the blue mark.
In a public message exchange, Dorsey wrote to Musk: “If Twitter has a central entity behind it, it will be attacked.”
Dorsey also frequently expressed his vision of WEB3 ‘s decentralized organizational models, and he lamented the 2013 public offering of Twitter and making it public. Last August, Dorsey said, “My biggest problem and my biggest regret is that it went public.”
“I think it’s worth trying to move Twitter in a better direction and do something new and decentralized,” Musk said in response.
So is Dorsey working on Bluesky now to correct the mistakes he made on Twitter?!
