Open source Twitter-clone app Bluesky has announced its latest app update, with longer videos, a new chat requests filter, and additional language translation options.
The main update is an extension of its video limit, with users now able to post 3 minute long clips in the app.
Up till now, Bluesky users have been limited to 1 minute videos attached to their posts (do they still call them “skeets”?), but from now on, with the latest version of the app, you’ll have triple that capacity.
Video has become a bigger focus for the platform, as it has for every social app, with Bluesky also adding a dedicated video feed earlier in the year, as well as a video tab on user profiles.
As such, longer video uploads is a logical update, which will expand its capacity for video engagement.
Bluesky’s also added a new “Chat Requests” folder, where DMs from users you’re not connected to will go:
Users will then be able to accept or reject these mysterious missives.
It’s also added a new profile mute option on posts, which will make it easier to get rid of unwanted attention:
“Tap the three-dot menu and select “Mute account” to mute directly from a post.”
Bluesky saw a 17x increase in user-submitted reports last year, which aligns with its overall usage growth, but it also likely means that the team will need to explore more control options to cater to this aspect.
Finally, it’s also added three new community translations: Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, and Esperanto.
It’s still too hard to say whether Bluesky is going to catch on in a significant way, and become a real contender for the major social apps.
It definitely has established a solid user base, with some 30 million active users, according to the latest tracking data, while it’s also seen massive growth over the past year.
All of these are good indicators, with an expanding audience that’s steadily growing momentum, bringing even more people to the app.
But still, 30 million is a long way off of X (500m MAU) and Threads (320m MAU), and without the network effects of those bigger apps, it’s difficult to see how Bluesky is going to gain the necessary upswing to really challenge those other platforms.
It’s also worth noting that Bluesky’s momentum is slowing. After gaining 10m additional users in the three months between September and November last year (taking it to 20m MAU), it’s taken four months to add another 10m users.
So its growth is still steady, but it isn’t seeing the same magnetism that other platforms have after reaching relative user counts, compounding those numbers by getting more attention.
That could also suggest that interest in Bluesky is peaking already, which would mean that it’s unlikely to get to even 100m users. And with both X and Threads offering a more expansive set of features, and linked to people’s established networks, there’s also no clear differentiator for the platform, other than it being decentralized.
Which, honestly, I don’t think the vast majority of potential users care about. It’s a good approach, and there are definite benefits to shifting away from the billionaire-owned apps, and maintaining control of your information. But most regular users, in my experience at least, don’t look into things that deep. They just want to log on and connect with their friends and interests.
If you can get those elements into your app, then you’re going to win, and that’s also why I don’t see Bluesky becoming a truly viable, scalable option,
It’s a cool project, for sure, and 30 million users is significant. But unless there are more major controversies that spark big backlash against the big players, the next level of growth could be difficult.
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