What’s next for Bluesky? CEO Jay Graber on growth, community, and decentralization
Happy new year, Equity listeners! At the end of 2024, all eyes were on Bluesky's rapid growth. According to the social platform’s CEO Jay Graber, however, their goal is not just to recreate Twitter. Today, Rebecca is handing the reins over to TechCrunch senior reporter Max Zeff, who sat down with Graber at our last StrictlyVC event.
Listen to the full episode to hear pair dig into the company’s success and why, according to Graber, people need to, “be able to control the social networks they communicate on," regardless of whether that continues to be Bluesky or another federated social platform.
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Rewind: Bluesky CEO Jay Graber on the future of federated social media
Bluesky has really taken off since the election, and since the Decoder team took some time off for Thanksgiving break, we felt it was a great time to bring back the interview we did earlier this year with Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky, the upstart competitor to Meta’s Threads and the platform formerly known as Twitter.
At the time, Bluesky was a pretty small platform. It had just reached 5 million users when Jay and I spoke. But since the election, Bluesky’s growth has absolutely skyrocketed to more than 20 million users, and it's starting to put real competitive pressure on Threads at the feature level. As Bluesky really ramps up, it seemed like a great time to engage with some of the core questions behind its design and see if Jay and her team can keep it up.
Links:
Twitter’s heir apparent isn’t X or Threads — it’s Bluesky | The Verge
Bluesky now has more than 20 million users | The Verge
Bluesky moves deeper into moderation hell | The Verge
Twitter is funding research into a decentralized version of its platform | The Verge
Bluesky built a decentralized protocol for Twitter | The Verge
The fediverse, explained | The Verge
Bluesky showed everyone’s ass | The Verge
Can ActivityPub save the internet? | The Verge
Bluesky snags former Twitter/X Trust & Safety exec cut by Musk | TechCrunch
Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech — Mike Masnick
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23872913
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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Protocol Wars - The Fediverse Explained!
In this episode, we dive deep into the origins of two of the leading social networks and the protocols they run on - Threads/ActivityPub and Bluesky/AT protocol. If you've been wondering what the heck the Fediverse is, this episode is for you!
Music provided by Epidemic Sound
Special Thanks to:
Evan Prodomou at Activitypub
Eugen Rochko at Mastodon
John O'Nolan at Ghost
Mike McCue at Flipboard
Adam Mosseri at Meta
Jay Gruber at Bluesky
Ryan Barrett at Bridgy-Fed
Sources:
W3C: https://www.w3.org/
Identica logo: By _Identi.ca_logo.png: Status.net Teamderivative work: Valarauco (talk) - _Identi.ca_logo.png, CC BY 3.0, https://bit.ly/4cKI4le
NY Times Elon and Zuck Cage Match: https://nyti.ms/3XmP2IM
ActivityPub Graphic: Image creator: mray https://bit.ly/3T6sYjh
Activity Streams graphic: By User:Unoli - https://bit.ly/4dIoUhi
Huffpost Twitter Clown Car: https://bit.ly/3YWzPiW
Original Hacker News Mastodon Post: https://bit.ly/3Z9oeNk
NBC News Elon buys Twitter: https://bit.ly/4dwNBx7
Bloomberg Elon Buys Twitter: https://bit.ly/3Z4X3mW
CBS News Elon Buys Twitter: https://bit.ly/3yUBaw6
NBC News Elon Buys Twitter: https://bit.ly/3Xk5WYB
NY Times Elon Buys Twitter: https://nyti.ms/3z8xLcW
NBC News Twitter Rebrands to X: https://nbcnews.to/3MqIUc8
Verge Twitter Paid Verification: https://bit.ly/3Xn4o06
Forbes How Facebook Beat Myspace: https://bit.ly/3Z3B27X
Guardian Digg users revolt: https://bit.ly/3AF2v5U
Verge Reddit API Shutdown: https://bit.ly/3YWsyzE
Adweek Reddit Platform Visibility: https://bit.ly/3MnLX4Z
Elon F You to Advertisers: https://bit.ly/3XjY35w
404Media AI Shrimp Jesus Explained: https://bit.ly/476VGWJ
Forbes Threads Fastest Growing App: https://bit.ly/3T4VAco
Waveform Secret History of the Internet: https://bit.ly/4dDCmTv
Instagram Statement about Political Content: https://bit.ly/4cJxw65
Wired Google Launches Buzz: https://bit.ly/3X7f69s
Business Insider Google Buzz Privacy Flaw: https://bit.ly/3X2ThIbFTC Charges Google: https://bit.ly/3AD76FA
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Federation is the future of social media, says Bluesky CEO Jay Graber
Today, I’m talking to Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky Social, which is a decentralized competitor to Meta’s Threads, Mastodon, and X. Bluesky actually started inside of what was then known as Twitter — it was a project from then-CEO Jack Dorsey, who spent his days wandering the earth and saying things like Twitter should be a protocol and not a company. Bluesky was supposed to be that protocol, but Jack spun it out of Twitter in 2021, just before Elon Musk bought the company and renamed it X.
Bluesky is now an independent company with a few dozen employees, and it finds itself in the middle of one of the most chaotic moments in the history of social media. There are a lot of companies and ideas competing for space on the post-Twitter internet, and Jay makes a convincing argument that decentralization — the idea that you should be able to take your username and following to different servers as you wish — is the future.
Links:
Twitter is funding research into a decentralized version of its platform — The Verge
Bluesky built a decentralized protocol for Twitter — and is working on an app that uses it — The Verge
The fediverse, explained — The Verge
Bluesky showed everyone’s ass — The Verge
Can ActivityPub save the internet? — The Verge
The ‘queer.af’ Mastodon instance disappeared because of the Taliban — The Verge
Usage Of Elon Musk’s X Dropped 30% In The Last Year, Study Suggests — Forbes
Bluesky snags former Twitter/X Trust & Safety exec cut by Musk — TechCrunch
Bluesky and Mastodon users are having a fight that could shape the next generation of social media — TechCrunch
Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech — Mike Masnick
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23872913
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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(Bonus) BlueSky CEO Jay Graber
An interview with Bluesky CEO Jay Graber about the future of social media.
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Bluesky’s Big Bet + Are Deals Dead in Silicon Valley?
Bluesky, the Twitter spin-off, is now open for public sign-ups. Can its dreams of decentralization fix social media? We talk with CEO Jay Graber. Then, New York Times reporter Erin Griffith on how Adobe’s failed acquisition of Figma has spooked tech companies and upset Silicon Valley’s startup pipeline. And finally, updates on ancient scrolls and artificial intelligence, Google’s chatbots, and the fight between record companies and TikTok.
Today’s guests:
Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky
Erin Griffith, reporter for The New York Times
Additional Reading:
What Is Bluesky and Why Are People Clamoring to Join It?
After Its $20 Billion Windfall Evaporated, a Start-Up Picks Up the Pieces
First passages of rolled-up Herculaneum scroll revealed
Google Releases Gemini, an A.I.-Driven Chatbot and Voice Assistant
Universal Music Group Pulls Songs From TikTok
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