Traffic on BlueSky is UP since the U.S. November Election

Unlike other social media sites, Bluesky allows users to create their own algorithm. The site does not have ads, nor harvest data for artificial intelligence training. But it is still very small, and it does not make money.

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The day after the presidential election, the social media landscape shook.

On Elon Musk’s X, more than 115,000 users deactivated their accounts, the largest-ever mass exit from the platform. At the same time, traffic on Bluesky, a smaller rival to X, began to soar, with daily usage climbing some 500% in the U.S., according to data from Similarweb.

“We’ve been growing by about a million users a day for several days,” said Bluesky CEO Jay Graber in an interview with NPR on Monday. “It’s proving out the model that we thought would be the right approach to social [media]: Give people the tools to control their experience and they’ll have a better time.”

Putting more control in the hands of users is what distinguishes Bluesky from X, formerly Twitter, and other rival social media sites.

Rather than having one “master algorithm,” Bluesky allows for a more personalized experience. By default, there are three main feeds: One shows accounts you follow, another shows what your friends follow and a “discover” feed surfaces posts linked to your interests.

Bluesky allows users to reach beyond these three by developing their own customized algorithm for, say, just content about cats, or only posts.

Via: NPR