Bluesky

[amyja89]

Anybody else attempting to join the great migration from X to Bluesky? If so, I'd be happy to have some fellow theatre folks in my orbit as we all start from the ground up!

bsky.app/profile/amyjandrews.bsky.social

[anthony40]

I am. Though I am still trying to negotiate my way round it so until I do, will continue to toggle between the two until I am confident enough to wean myself off X.

Just followed BTW.

[n1david]

There's a very useful resource at www.blueskydirectory.com - in particular, it collects 'starter packs', which are curated lists of people that you can search for by keyword or interest.

For example, here's a starter pack of 'UK Theatre People' bsky.app/starter-pack/beccydsouza.bsky.social/3laobcux6jz2o

So far I've found Bluesky best for journalists and political thinkers rather than creatives, but I expect they will come...

(Oh, and I'm n1david there, but I don't say much)

This is also an interesting tool: bsky-follow-finder.theo.io
It will look at who people you follow are also following, to help you find people that you might have missed.

[anthony40]

I am josephzep.

I too don't to say, or post much- I just tend to road and scroll, unless it's Sondheim related

[BurlyBeaR]

I thought Threads was the acknowledged alternative to the cesspit. What is Bluesky bringing? Is it just the fact that it’s not a Meta product?

[craigbowker]

I'm not against Bluesky but Threads seems to be where a lot of theatre people have already migrated.

[n1david]

I found Threads too Instagrammy - I don't use or like Instagram much, and I find it Threads too filled with influencers and Americans delivering homespun wisdom. (Also, I used the option on Threads to automatically follow the people I follow on Instagram, and I now realise there are quite a few people whose pictures I like but I definitely do not want to read their "thoughts"). So I'm on Threads, but don't find it satisfying.

Bluesky has the advantage (at the moment, at least) of not being owned by a social media empire, by not having advertising, and by not having an algorithm - so you see who you follow, posted in chronological order, rather than what Meta thinks you should see. Finally, there are many more sophisticated ways of managing what you see on Bluesky, so your posts can't be hijacked by someone famous so you get a pile-on and you can properly block people so that you are not part of their world.

Having said that, who is on there is an important part of social media, and it's true that many creatives who were on Instagram switched over to Threads. Bluesky is much better for journalists, politicos, etc which is what I missed most from Twitter when it went mad. I hope that more creatives will make it to Bluesky, bit it may be that it ends up being a different type of community. Which is fine.

[n1david]

And here's a Bluesky starter pack put together by the Theatres Trust of UK theatres and live performance venues. Quite a short list at the moment, but they'll keep updating it, so worth checking regularly to see who's joined.
bsky.app/starter-pack/theatrestrust.bsky.social/3lavsr6dwzs2l

[theatresellers]

Nov 14, 2024 11:47:45 GMT BurlyBeaR said:

I thought Threads was the acknowledged alternative to the cesspit. What is Bluesky bringing? Is it just the fact that it’s not a Meta product?

I think it'll depend on the community that builds up. Right now I like bluesky. It's getting momentum.

[Rory]

I think I'll try Blue-sky.
I just can't really justify staying on X any longer and it will be absolutely unbearable when Trump is actually installed.

[theatresellers]

Nov 14, 2024 11:49:30 GMT craigbowker said:

I'm not against Bluesky but Threads seems to be where a lot of theatre people have already migrated.

One advantage of BlueSky is that it's decentralized. The content that's posted on BlueSky is held on different servers, which are not controlled by any single entity.  Right now, it's lacking some features (such as DMs and video) that other platforms have but that's because BlueSky has been built from the ground up in a decentralized way, which has been more challenging from a technical perspective.  

In the long run, I think BlueSky will be much more popular as, right now,  the average user probably assumes these platforms are all the same, but BlueSky is being built with more thought to protecting your privacy etc, and eventually the average user will realize Bluesky is a better platform because it's been built to address many of the issues that drive people crazy.

[aspieandy]

Interesting how social is beginning to imitate legacy media.

The Guardian, for example, needs division to survive, so you can see why Kate Viner took the opportunity of Trump's win to plant their flag in the new tribal homeland / echo chamber. And it's clearly not an election-related flounce, or anything like that ..

[craigbowker]

Nov 14, 2024 13:35:35 GMT theatresellers said:

Nov 14, 2024 11:49:30 GMT craigbowker said:

I'm not against Bluesky but Threads seems to be where a lot of theatre people have already migrated.

One advantage of BlueSky is that it's decentralized. The content that's posted on BlueSky is held on different servers, which are not controlled by any single entity.  Right now, it's lacking some features (such as DMs and video) that other platforms have but that's because BlueSky has been built from the ground up in a decentralized way, which has been more challenging from a technical perspective.  

In the long run, I think BlueSky will be much more popular as, right now,  the average user probably assumes these platforms are all the same, but BlueSky is being built with more thought to protecting your privacy etc, and eventually the average user will realize Bluesky is a better platform because it's been built to address many of the issues that drive people crazy.

Yeah I must say it's much more user friendly than it was. I wish they wouldn't make the server addresses in your username visible (obviously required to have them but from an end user they serve little to no purpose and look like an email address). Other than that it's quite nice. 

[raiseitup]

I'm @nathpearce on there, just getting it setup, definitely looking for theatre folk to follow so those starter packs are useful!

[aspieandy]

What Jack Dorsey has done is interesting. I think he would probably only leave on the grounds of privacy or censorship - but what do I know. The Guardian from May >>

Jack Dorsey quits Bluesky board and urges users to stay on Elon Musk’s X

Twitter co-founder’s decision to leave rival social network he helped start was apparently unexpectedThe Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has left the board of Bluesky, the decentralised social network he helped start, and encouraged users to remain on his first site, now owned by Elon Musk and called X.

Dorsey confirmed he had cut ties with Bluesky on Sunday, telling a user on X that he was no longer on the social network’s board. The announcement was apparently unexpected, since Bluesky still listed him as a board member until late on Sunday evening.

Dorsey was doing that after Musk sacked over 80% of Twitter staff, most of those related to policing/censoring posts. Hmm.

www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/07/jack-dorsey-quits-bluesky-board-urges-users-stay-elon-musk-x-twitter

[talkingheads]

Yeah I'm on Bluesky, I didn't really take to Threads, Bluesky feels like Twitter but without all the toxic stuff.

I am keeping Twitter for now, but I never post and only really use it to keep up to date with various comedians and theatre stuff.

[highonahill]

I've joined Bluesky too. Hoping for an ad and algorithm free experience...

I first joined Twitter when I used to blog back in the late 2000s as it was pitched as a microblogging site. Now there's only a small handful of people left that I used to chat to about theatre, hiking, photography and mountains, as the algorithms now don't show their posts.

'Social media' back when it was talking to people with common interests, not brands with money to make or products to sell, was much more fun!

[mrbluesky]

Have also made the jump over to Bluesky - couldn’t really stay on X/Twitter give how toxic it’s getting.

Should any of you lovely lot want to follow, my handle is joshc96

[jake]

I'm not interested in subscribing to any 'social media' platforms but I would be interested to know what measures are in place to stop something like Bluesky degenerating into something like Twitter/X has become.  Of course, staying small would probably help; but that would, to an extent, defeat the object.  Active and fairly strict moderation (such as exists, I presume, on boards like this) seems the most obvious answer; but, if the aim is to facilitate free expression in its widest possible/legal form, strict moderation would also seem counter effective.

Still, Bluesky should be popular in Welsh-speaking areas where, I presume, X is not available without using a foreign alphabet.

[Someone in a tree]

Blue sky has theatre kid energy.

Ive deleted twitter and im enjoying having one less platorm to check

Bluesky: ‘Theater kid energy’
Bluesky is perhaps the clearest spiritual successor to X. It was set up by longtime Twitter boss and co-founder Jack Dorsey in 2021 to fix, and perhaps atone for, the "original sin" of his previous company (though he’s since washed his hands of Bluesky too).

www.independent.co.uk/tech/elon-musk-twitter-bluesky-threads-mastodon-b2648811.html

[BurlyBeaR]

Judging by some of the “loud voices” (that’s the nice way of putting it)  I’ve seen announcing their departure from X to Bluesky it won’t stay like this for long.

[amyja89]

For me, at the moment at least, it isn't the kind of people who have migrated (though they do seem a more pleasant crowd so far), it's the absence of obvious bot activity and advertising that I'm finding refreshing.

[duncan]

Bluesky still needs a lot to happen to get anywhere near Twitter, at the moment its a left wing echo chamber populated by people who can't accept American democracy.

[Jan]

I’m staying on Twitter. I’ve noticed absolutely no difference at all since Musk took over.

[n1david]

I think if you only use Twitter in the "Following" feed - i.e. those people you explicitly choose to follow - not much has changed (although I did see Musk's posts in there despite the fact I didn't follow him).

What changed significantly for me was the "For You" feed which is what Twitter suggests you might find interesting - the quality of recommendations in that feed has been degrading slowly for some years but has definitely taken a turn for the worse in recent months, in terms of a view of UK and US politics which was very skewed in one clear direction.

Of course, your experience might be different. No-one quite knows how the algorithm decides to serve up what it does...